*Trigger warning*

I have been thinking more about this unconditional self-love. Since having a child I have been doing some inner child work. It is not hard for me to see that my child self was worthy of love and even my teen self was worthy of love.

With the abuse, if someone is treat like they are not worthy of love often enough they come to believe it. At a certain point, after being raped, I broke down.

I had been lying to myself to get by and feel safe in the world. I used to tell myself that my bio mum was the only bad one. Everyone else was safe and okay. But this was not true. I could not even trust my closest friend.

I was absolutely crippled by anxiety of the truth that danger is all around us and shut down. Shut myself away from the world. I was broken.

Society doesn’t think very much of broken people. It sees them as useless and worthless. But society is wrong.

Someone who has never experienced love needs love. Someone who is broken needs help to heal.

People with empathy see that circumstances don’t define a person’s worth. They see who they are beyond circumstances and all of the potential that they hold if they can overcome it.

A lot of people put too much stock in their circumstances and it becomes their identity.

I see now that it is a very old story that I tell myself. I am unlovable. I am broken. I don’t deserve love and am not worthy of it. A story that is only true while I believe it to be.

I was just like my son. A baby, a lot of hard work no doubt. But full of love, eager to learn, trying to make sense of the world, eager to live.