What Even is Self-love?

I have to say, I don’t.

I’m not talking about the buzzword type of “self-love” we are constantly bombarded with. Not bubble baths, naps and buying yourself that new thing you’ve been eyeing because you deserve it. I’m talking about the kind of love you give your kids, or your partner or your best friend. The way you take into consideration what they want and how they feel. You go out of your way to show them how you feel about them by cooking them food they like, rubbing their back, holding their hand and speaking kind and loving words to them. You listen to them in their darkest times and honour their feelings. You get the picture.

I’m just discovering how much I don’t understand true self-love. To be honest, I don’t really understand other-centered love, either which makes self-love much more elusive. I understand the kind of unconditional love I feel for my kids. That’s simple and basic. It’s natural and I don’t question it. But when it comes to truly loving someone else, my perspective has been warped.

To me, loving someone has historically meant saving them. Or at least trying to. I tend to latch onto people who I think need me in some way, even if they never asked me to (although at times that has been the case…). People who are hurting, or have been hurt, people who have made bad personal choices or have addictive tendencies.

There are reasons why I am this way, which I won’t get into at this time as I’m still learning what this really means for me.

We’ve all heard the term that I have been avoiding using, but most of us don’t actually know what it means.

Codependent.

Yuck.

I’m not even sure what I thought it was, but I certainly didn’t identify as such. Until now.

It feels like wearing a red-letter. It feels like admitting I have this major defect and now I’m exposed. It feels like something no one wants to admit to being because, let’s be real, there is major judgment about this, especially because it's misunderstood.

It’s a heart-wrenching, soul-crushing place to find yourself. You discover you’ve given yourself away, forgotten who you are and driven on empty for a very long time. Your relationships hang in the balance and your self-worth is non-existent. A lot of times this is seen as controlling. Sometimes it's seen as a valuable quality. After all, isn’t it selfless and honourable to give all of your time and energy to those you love?? I thought so, too.

There are so many angles I can take with this topic but first I want to lay out a very limited list of some codependent qualities that resonate with me:

-have to be the fixer of other people’s problems

-lack personal boundaries

-feeling emotionally drained

-feeling resentment when you keeping giving, but not receiving from others (expectation)

-the need to be validated outside of self

-addiction to taking care of or saving others

-lack a self-care routine

-worry about what other people think of you

-value other people’s feelings over our own (we know what they like to eat, but what do we like to eat?)

-can’t identify emotions properly (anger, grief, joy, sadness)

-never feel “good enough”, nothing is quite “good enough”

-don’t see yourself as loveable

-lack of empathy for self

-can’t ask for help (values being seen as strong)

-don’t finish what you start

This is not an exhaustive list. These are things I now see in myself that I can't unsee.

There are very real and legitimate reasons why someone may be codependent. A huge contributing factor is coming from an unpredictable, abusive home or caretaking environment in early childhood.

There is abuse by commission (hitting, sexual abuse, verbal abuse), and there is abuse by omission (emotional neglect “my mother didn’t love me, so I must be unloveable”). The beliefs that stem from abuse are impressed by the age of 7 and can take a lifetime to undo. If you want to learn even more about this aspect, you can research C-PTSD.

This is a major paradigm shift. The realization of codependency can leave you reeling and questioning all of the relationships you have or have ever had - your entire way of being in the world becomes unclear.

So, bear with me as I navigate this realization and work on learning to pour into myself the way I pour into others. I invite you to join me if you see in yourself any of these qualities. I am curious to discover ways in which I want to be loved, by me! I am excited to see how my relationships start to flourish and become deeper and stronger the more I heal.