New Year, Real Me

 I am determined to make 2023 the year that I finally am able to just be me. Few masks as possible, dealing with my anxiety and depression as best as I can, and just learning to overall like myself. That last part is the most important part of all of this, it's the part that will determine how the rest of it goes. I have to work through my ADHD, Autism, Anxiety, Depression, Fibromyalgia, Rejection Sensitive Dysphoria,  and PTSD from abuse. Yet all of it can't really go anywhere untill I can learn to actually like myself, so I will be willing to put in the work on the rest.

Where do I start though? Honestly, when you have spent the better part of your life thinking that you are always the problem, and having so many people tell you that you are too much, trying to love yourself is incredibly hard. Trying to find things about myself that I like isn't hard, it's trying to ignore the dark thoughts that tell me that I'm not worthy of any love. Not even my own love. I really am trying to get there, I just have all those old voices still in my head telling me I am wrong. Telling me that there is nothing I can do to make things better, nothing I can do to make up for the past, and nothing that I can do to make people actually like me or me actually like me. 

With all of that constantly going in my head, how do I make my voice the loudest one? How do I convince myself that my voice is the most important voice, and not to rely on others voices for validation? I have spent most my life trying to make myself fit the box the world seems to want me in, yet I always fail. That should have taught me that it is impossible to please everyone and I should just focus on being the best me that I can be, instead it taught me that I am not worthy of anything good and that I should just try to make others happy rather than myself. It taught me that wanting to make myself happy instead of others was completely selfish and wrong of me. That the only joy in life was making others happy, even at the expense of myself and my health. 

I don't know how to start this journey but I am going to keep trying. I will keep trying to tell myself that I am worthy, worthy of friends, of happiness, and of loving myself.