Building off of my last blog about self-love, it's important to love ourselves first because we accept the love that we think we deserve.
After my first trauma, I could barely stand sitting close to someone for too long, let alone kiss or be physically intimate with someone.
Within a month of my trauma I met Ryan Panella at a friend's graduation. He of course was into my friend from Texas. I remember making her crawl through the doggie door to get back into the house after she snuck out to go on a date with him. As soon as she went back to Texas, he was on to the next one. Me.
The first year of our relationship was plagued with episodes and night terrors, severe anxiety and mood swings. He was a virgin and swore that he did not care about my trauma, my PTSD or the fact that we couldn't have sex (I learned later that it wasn't that I couldn't have sex, he just sucked and we weren't sexually compatible). I believed that I would not be able to meet another guy who was willing to overlook those aspects of me so easily.
This was the love that I believed that I deserved. Someone who overlooked my trauma and my brokenness. Since he was so willing to overlook these things, I believed that I had to overlook things about him. For almost three years I put up with Ryan and his dad referring to my lip ring as a fish hook, His dad often commented on my small boobs and told me not worry. That when we got married Ryan would buy me new boobs just like he did for his wife. Ryan hated my tattoos and my taste in music. Before Ryan, you'd never catch me in a dress but he always reminded me how nice I looked when I wore dresses. He told me I was beautiful but only when I wore makeup, so I started wearing make up more than ever (Classical conditioning). It got to the point that I believed I did not earn enough money to buy myself nice things or travel on my own. When I would buy him gifts, like a gaming headset and microphone, it was not good enough. He returned it and bought himself a nicer one. Even though I often cleaned his room and did his laundry, it did not make up for the fact that I couldn't cook. I can still hear his dad referring to the butterfly tattoo behind my ear as a tramp stamp.
Between the two of them, they reinforced all my insecurities and self-loathing.
When I first got accepted for my semester aboard in Australia he and his mom guilt tripped me so hard that shouldn't go. Three months was a long time and a semester aboard did not mean anything if it wasn't organized by a cal state university. His mom told me how much he was going to miss me and that I was breaking his heart by leaving him for so long. He wanted me to stay and move into our first apartment instead. When he realized there was no convincing me to stay he started planning a road trip with me at the end of my semester. We would travel around part of Australia for two weeks and then fly home together and start the rest of our lives.
Except he broke up with me at my going away party outside of the Hanson's house three days before I left (and tried to convince me to spend the night with even though he just broke it off with me). Within two weeks of me being gone, he added his next girlfriend on Facebook. I bet my best friends she would be his last.
They are married and have a house and baby now. He got his trophy-wife-white-picket-fence American Dream.
The thing is I never wanted any of that. I settled for him for about three years. All because I believed no one would love me the way he did. I don't ever want to be loved like that again. I will never settle for someone who hates so much of me and tried to change the things I love about me. It wasn't until I realized how much I loved my tattoos, my piercings, my long-lanky-small-chested-body. I wake up beautiful every day. No, make up necessary. I wear dresses now only because they have pockets or I'm too lazy to actually put together an outfit. I have lived in three countries and will continue to travel the world. I completed my bachelor's degree through the Australian school (it's 1000% cooler than any US bachelor). I awesome for all things he hated about me.
If you don't love yourself first, you will believe that you deserve a love that is less than what is possible. You will get stuck in the same cycle of being dependent on someone who only loves half as much as they should because it feels like they complete you. They make up for the parts where you don't love yourself but you still are not quite whole. They will never be able to make you whole. When you enter into a relationship loving yourself you are whole and the other person adds to you but does not complete you. They make life better but life is still good without them.
Love yourself first.
<3 always,
Nik Nak