It's Just Not Easy

Self-love is one of the hardest things you can accomplish, especially if you have trauma or baggage of any kind. Trying to commit to self-love is something I have tried so desperately to achieve. Regardless, I find myself self-sabotaging again by deleting all 4-5 pages of work because of fear of failure or lack of perfection, an example of lack of self-love.

I try, but I compare myself to others, picking apart all the parts of me that are not picture-perfect, reaching for every possible negative thing about myself. I want to say this started in my teenage years due to some bullying, but it started long before then. I have memories from when I was a small child that circle in my head. When I had identified as a Christian, I would pray to God, begging him to one day let me wake up beautiful.

No 8-year-old should have been having those thoughts, but if they did, surely they would be gone by their late twenties, right?

WRONG.

For years I tried my hardest to give myself love, feeding into every capitalistic lie: “This will make you pretty” or “This will drop you 20 pounds in a week.” Then spiraling when it doesn’t work and rejecting myself even further because surely it wasn’t the product’s fault; it was just me.

All this working on myself, throwing money down the drain, and now I suffer with a failing digestive tract and 5 prescriptions for depression to still achieve nothing. Nothing until I had to work 15-hour work days because the government hates anyone under 35 and wants us all to die. Nothing until my partner and I were so strapped for money that I picked up a side hustle to help keep us afloat.

I love Halloween, always have. Growing up, my family and I would build elaborate haunted houses each year with a new theme in my parents' front yard. As they grew older their tradition was passed down to me. I still require their help, but all the love, effort, and hard work are still there. The love I have for our family tradition led me down the path to finding the Fear Farm haunted house. After a month of auditions, I was an official Scare Actor.

Starting this new job was the start of a life downfall and the lengthy ladder up the self-love hill. I loved being a Scare Actor; even though I would be running up to six miles a day, sweaty, stinky with my voice shot, always covered in fake blood, furiously rubbing it off at 1 AM, it was worth it. My confidence skyrocketed because I had finally embraced a part of me I had hidden away for so long. I got to be rude, comedic, and feral, something I do very well. I loved coming home and talking about the night and all of the people I had scared and vented about the ones who chose to take a swing. It was hard, but it was worth it. From September through October, I dragged myself through the mud until finally, it was over. When it was all said and done, I finally acknowledged my obsession with clowns.

Clowns have always been a part of my life: watching IT with my parents, ICP, Buggy from One Piece, and my new favorite obsession, Fizzaroli. I loved clowns. I admired them, but most of all, I wanted to be one. Becoming a performing clown became my new goal, but I still needed to focus on getting money. Because of this, my 15-hour workdays continued, but this time in a giant bear suit, dancing around the plaza at a fancy resort. I was a mascot.

This may sound like another unfavorable job, but I loved it too. The suit smelled horrible, the weight of it caused nerve damage in my neck, and I got groped and grabbed on more than one occasion, but it was fun. I loved watching children's faces light up when I danced. I loved it when old eyes looked at me and smiled like I had unleashed the tiny kid inside them they forgot they had. I was miserable, but they were so happy.

This is when things got hard. After 3-5 months of 15-hour days, working through holidays and around birthdays, you could imagine the strain that could put on a relationship. I was never home and the few hours I was, it was to eat and sleep. I had no time for myself and no time for my partner who was going through a depression of her own. I was torn between needing to get my head above water and being present in my own life.

The lack of togetherness caused us to bottle things up. All emotions were held back, stirring in our brains with no escape. No one wanted to ruin the other's day after not seeing one another for so long. The weight got heavier and heavier, and one day it bubbled over and blew up. In four years, this was the hardest hit we had taken in our relationship. The hit was rough and we still suffer from it today, but we are better for it. It sparked the need to endure self-love and actively work on ourselves. It showed the cracks that needed to be filled and the lack of love and empathy we had for ourselves. Now I have still not succeeded, but I won’t stop trying.

Self-love is realizing “I need to know more about myself.” Going to a psychiatrist and a therapist and getting diagnosed with mental illnesses that I need to learn how to take care of. Learning where my self-deprecating thoughts come from and learning tools to dilute them. Being honest when I feel a switch coming on to help prevent emotional damage for both my partner and me.

Self-love is cutting off toxic people. It doesn’t matter how long you have been friends. If they belittle you, call you weird or stupid, don’t lift you, and don’t stick with you through and out of hard times, if they do not reciprocate the same time and effort you give them, then ‘fuck'em.’ They are not worth a second of your time, even if it’s family. This is your life, not theirs.

Self-love is knowing life is never as simple as we want it to be. Without knowing yourself, especially if you have an undiagnosed disorder like I did, you make mistakes. You say bad things, you do things that hurt others. That's what happens in life: there is no avoiding it; we all do it. Forgiving yourself is a hard lesson to learn. It starts with acknowledging you did wrong and accepting it. The damage is done and the only thing you can do is reflect and not do it again. Forgiving yourself, then letting go of your remorse it can help better yourself for the future. Forgiveness can help you move forward.

Self-love is learning that instead of trying to look like someone else or be paper thin like the media tells you to be, it is better to set goals that make you happy. My partner and I have set goals to achieve that are not scale-driven but instead things we want. My partner's goal is to build a strong chest/upper body, bulking and creating a more muscular androgynous build. My goal is acrobatics, flexibility, and strength training to dance and perform.

Self-love is stopping myself from saying things like “I’m stupid.” I’m not. I didn’t get it the first time, and that's okay. The words we say out loud are so powerful; we internalize every bit of it even when we don’t mean to.

I now embrace that I want to strive to be an entertainer. I want to take performance classes and go to clown school. That may sound insane, but that’s what I want. It’s a part of who I am. Unlocking this allowed me to embrace all the parts of me I had shunned while trying to blend in with the crowd. I shunned how blunt I was and how comical I was. I hid that I could dance and do tricks, I tucked away my love for dressing up, being weird, and making people uncomfortable with all my unsettling interests. I love this about myself. I can make people smile and cringe at the same time. It's a talent I'm proud of.

Clowns may not be what inspires you, but they are my inspiration and I encourage everyone to be a clown. Be free, do what makes you laugh and what uplifts you and the people around you.

Just don’t drag children into a storm drain and make them float. I don’t think that would go over well with authorities.