This is the first installment in a series I am presently titling, Learning to Love Myself. This will likely take months to complete as my thoughts will need to distill themselves as I piece this story together. I have questioned the value of sharing this particular chapter for over a week. Given that this is a critical piece in the beautiful story of learning to love myself, I have decided to include this here.
Throughout my youth, I developed a deep sense of worthlessness.
My sense of self-hatred peeked in my high school years. If you knew me in high school, you probably wouldn’t have known how much I hated myself or how worthless I felt.
On the outside, I looked great.
I was actively involved in my youth group.
I was on the youth group leadership team.
I was active in the jazz band and frequently performed solos.
I got good grades and was a pretty good student.
I had an amazing and solid family.
I had a large group of friends who were all positive influences in my life.
What was missing? Self-worth.
As a result, I looked okay…but was writhing inside.
In my previous entry, I shared how I derive some level of self-worth from my relationships (this is diminishing with time and intention). In my high school years, I didn’t feel worthy of the love others showed me. I felt intense feelings of love and longing for my friends. But when I didn’t feel like they had the same intensity of care for me, I turned to dark self-talk. Everything seemed to be another sign that I just wasn’t worthy of love and belonging.
It’s not that they didn’t try to show it.
The problem was that I didn’t know how to accept it. I am a rather intense person. And when others didn’t behave like me, I took it to mean they didn’t care about me. And they didn’t care about me because I wasn’t worthy of their love. I wasn’t worth loving…
This inability to receive others’ love caused lots of pain with my two best friends, Matt and Jordan. I always felt like I was the odd one out. I wasn’t. But I made up stories to feed my lack of self-worth.
I don’t remember all my internal pain from my high school years. I opted to forget most of those memories years ago. I stuffed them away and forged ahead. I do remember regularly rehearsing everything I had seen recently that reinforced the belief that I wasn’t worth loving.
There was one night that was definitively the lowest point in my life.
Before I get to that, I’ll give a bit of background, but not too much. This is not just my story and I will seek to get my point across while intentionally keeping it a bit vague and leaving out various details. There are also parts of the story which I did not know or understand until years later. Those will be told in future parts of this series.
One evening in May I was hanging out with one of my most cherished friends. Certainly, one of the most special relationships I had at the time. It was not, in any way, a romantic relationship.
We were walking around the local park chatting about this and that. We frequently discussed complex theological questions and would banter over opinions about church and other religious topics.
I loved every minute I spent with her. It was a beautiful friendship. I felt loved. I felt worth something when I was with her. Let me be very clear, this was an extremely healthy friendship to have, as a whole.
As we were walking around the park, I remember she remarked, “Luke, I really enjoy spending time with you.”
For the next two years, this was all I remembered from that May evening.
A few weeks later, now in June, summer break was in full swing and I saw her at church. “We should hang out again sometime.”
She looked at me and said, “Luke, I don’t think I should be spending time with you.”
I was hit by a truck.
This was the one relationship from which I drew so much value from. Far, far too much value.
This turn in our friendship left me feeling ashamed of who I was.
That night, back in my home, I remember sitting on my floor with my back to my door. Tears streamed down my face. I had never hated myself so much. The only thing my mind could process was this: I am worthless. The one relationship I had which I had hung my stability on was shattered.
I snuck outside and stood in the driveway. I hated myself so much. It was dark outside. We lived on a highway. People were flying down the road at 60+ MPH. Having gone out to get the mail many times, I knew people didn’t flinch if someone stood at the edge of the road waiting for an opportunity to cross. Perhaps I could simply fling myself in front of a car.
I hated myself. I couldn’t tolerate being me. And I told myself that no one else could either. The pain and self-hatred flooded every bit of my mind.
I stood in the driveway, my feet slowly taking me forward, inch by inch. I could hear the gravel crunching under my feet. I didn’t really want to kill myself. But, I hated myself so much. I clutched my stomach as tears streamed down my face.
Eventually, I gave in and went back to my room.
Inside, I sat with my back to the door in the off-chance one of my loving parents decided to open it.
Tears continued streaming down my face. I hated me. Why did I have to be so difficult to love? What was wrong with me? Why couldn’t I be like other people who were worth loving?
I sat there on the floor and prayed. I felt and believed one thing quite clearly: God was there with me and he did love me. To this day, no matter how many questions I can pile up about God and religion, I chose to believe and follow God. It was the only thing I could cling to that night.
I remember so viscerally the pain I felt that night; tears are streaming down my face as I write this. The self-hatred permeated my life, affecting all my relationships.
Following this Sunday night, I adopted the story that I was an introvert and kept people at arm’s length. Not needing people seemed like a good means of avoiding the pain I had felt that summer night. I embraced the lone-wolf mentality.
I graduated a semester early from high school and fell off the grid from my friends. I just disappeared. As an afterthought, I showed up for 10 minutes of handshaking at graduation. I decided that if I pushed everyone away, I’d avoid the pain. Loneliness was my new companion for the coming years.
Yes, I had people in my life. However, I prided myself in having few close friends.
Two years later, on the most pivotal day of my life, I told someone, “I don’t have many close friends, and I like it that way.”
The woman, Shawn, looked at me and said, “Luke, I don’t think you believe that.”
That is a story for another day and it is a beautiful story that continues through today.
