As a lifelong secret self-loather, I have always had a problem with this ‘self-love’ thing. Each time I saw something about loving yourself or self-care I would have a strong negative reaction. Something along the lines of ‘what a load of bullshit’ or indeed something less obvious like deleting or quickly moving on from those kinds of messages. ‘Take a moment to love yourself today’ just wouldn’t even touch the sides of what I needed.
In fact, it wasn’t until I unravelled a lifetime’s worth of complex PTSD through therapy and healing that I even realised I was a self-loather. My particular brand of low self-esteem was so entrenched it had developed into a massive subconscious mental pattern that I had been playing with without even realising it.
Fast forward through a few years of deep self-work and I still see the ‘self-love’ thing as being inherently problematic and it still evokes an eye roll from me except now, I know why.