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I never knew pain could feel like complete engulfment.
It was not only in my mind, and not only in my heart. It was as if my soul had cracked open.
It was a dark night of the soul, a night unlike any other.
The pain came like a possession. My chest tightened. My heart felt as though it was being stomped on outside of me, and I could only watch helplessly as I clutched at my heart, desperate to hold it together. I could do nothing to stop it.
I gripped my chest and sobbed, but the tears did not bring release. Instead, I felt myself being dragged into a void I did not know how to climb out of. This was not sadness. It was not heartbreak as I had known it before. This was annihilation.
The tears would not stop. They came harder, faster, a flood I could not contain. I was drowning in them. My own body became an ocean I had forgotten how to survive in. I had forgotten how to swim.
I gasped for breath but only swallowed more of the sorrow, choking on grief. The more I fought it, the deeper it pulled me under like I was being waterboarded. It was relentless. The pain was merciless.
And as I clutched my chest, it was not only my heart that was breaking. It was the collapse of every version of me that had begged, performed, apologized, and abandoned myself just to feel loved.
That night, I begged for death. And in a way, it came.
It came as a hollowing out, a collapse so complete that I no longer recognized myself. My body shook with sobs until I was emptied of strength. My breath turned shallow. My will dissolved. I felt myself slipping into nothingness, as though I were surrendering my very right
to exist.
I no longer cared to be saved. I no longer cared to rise again. I lay there on the floor broken, willing the darkness to take me; believing that perhaps this was the only form of rescue still available to me.
It was not just the end of hope. It was the end of me, or at least the me who had spent a lifetime abandoning herself. The me who performed to be chosen. The me who apologized for existing. The me who begged for validation. The me who bent into every shape imaginable to be loved by others while refusing to love myself.
That self died that night.
And in her death, something else was reborn.
However, the next day, I did not wake up healed. There was no clarity, no light pouring in, no triumphant rise from the ashes. Only breath. Only mourning. Only the fragile decision to stay. And then to stay again.
At first it was only a whisper, so quiet I almost missed it. Beneath the grief and the flood, a voice rose, “You are still here. And you deserve to love the one who remains.”
This did not feel like strength. It felt like survival, raw and trembling, but real. I did not emerge whole that morning, but I dared to believe that maybe I could become whole again. I discovered that survival was not about finding a savior. It was about finding myself, broken, yes, but enduring. I began to understand that no one was ever meant to complete me. The love I had chased in others had always been a return to myself. Somewhere along the way, I had forgotten that I was already everything I was waiting for, and then I remembered…loving
myself first meant I was already whole, not waiting to be filled by someone else.
At first, loving myself looked like silence. It looked like curling into the same spot where I had shattered and whispering to the remnants of who I was, “I swear I will not leave you again.”
It looked like eating when I had no appetite, just so my body would know I still cared. It looked like putting on clean clothes. Taking a walk or going to the gym when I would rather stay curled up on the couch feeling sorry for myself. Reaching for water and herbal tea instead of a third or fourth glass of wine.
None of it felt magical. None of it made the pain disappear. But each time I chose myself, it was a stitch. Slowly, the little girl I had once abandoned within began to trust me again. She no longer asked to be rescued. She simply asked me to stay.
So, I did.
Again and again, I stayed by her side.
I stayed through the quiet. I stayed through the emptiness. I stayed even when I hated the sound of my own voice. I stayed when I cried for no reason, when I laughed and felt guilty for it, when I could not find the strength to speak to anyone at all.
That, I think, is what real self-love is. Not a mood. Not a moment. But a promise.
And this was mine.
“I promise not to abandon you ever again.
I promise to hold your hand when no one else does.
I promise to speak to you with softness, even when you ache.
I promise to stay, especially when it hurts.
I promise to never allow you to perform or prove your worth to anyone.
I promise to remember that you are already whole, even when you feel shattered.”
There were flickers of clarity. Subtle shifts. I began to feel when something was off in the moment, not later after I had betrayed myself, but in real time. I began to pause before saying yes to what drained me. I stopped settling for almost and crumbs. I began to leave rooms where I once would have stayed just to be chosen.
I started noticing how I felt after I ate, after I slept, after I walked away from a conversation. I started noticing me.
I started prioritizing my physical well-being and vitality. I started to enjoy meditation. And slowly, life itself began to change. The days felt a little softer. My breath came easier. I had more energy. My heart hurt less. My mind grew quieter. I was no longer dragging myself
through my life; I was returning to it.
Everything shifted when I began to treat myself as someone worth protecting. Someone worth nourishing. Someone worth choosing. The more I valued myself, the more everything around me responded.
That was the gift pain had given to me; the reminder that love is not something I have to earn. It is something I must remember.
If you are in your own dark night, if it feels like your heart is being torn apart, if you feel like you cannot swim…know this:
You can love yourself back to life; by promising to show up for yourself no matter what.
Not perfectly.
Not all at once.
But piece by piece.
Breath by breath.
Until you remember—
You were worthy all along.
~
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