THIS IS WHY YOU’RE NOT UNLOVABLE

I lay there in the hospital bed alone. People I loved visited me but I was glad when they left. Talking was exhausting but I didn't want to be rude. The drugs were so strong that I felt myself falling asleep in the middle of conversations with them. It was embarrassing. They asked me what I needed, if there was anything they could do for me. "Nothing," I replied. "The doctors and nurses have it handled. But thank you for visiting."

I couldn't tell them what I really needed. That would have been more embarrassing than falling asleep. I was too vulnerable to make myself that vulnerable. I couldn't ask: "Would you please rest your hand gently on my leg for awhile? Could you touch me really tenderly, please?" Tender and gentle touch was all I could endure, I was so fragile. But as the weeks, then months, then years of sickness went by without being touched, I began to see myself as unlovable. I felt like I was a burden and therefore unworthy of love.

Slowly, I healed from my illness enough that I was able to seek intimacy again. When I was finally touched in a tender way, it was overwhelming. I realized that I had been starving for it. I began to heal from my years of not being touched but there was a bigger monster that continued to terrorize me. You see, my health challenges were not over. I would continue to be incapacitated, debilitated, hospitalized, bedridden, and vulnerable. Each time my health declined, I spiraled into unworthiness. Irrationally, I saw myself as an unlovable burden again and again and again. Shame lay on me like a heavy blanket of darkness each time I was laid up in a sick bed.

When my health was stable, I knew my worth. I was confident and joyous. I loved my life, grateful for every moment of health that allowed me to really live! But when I was sick, my joy was unreachable. I became the unlovable, worthless burden that I had felt like for so many years. I witnessed my own mental health decline and even though I knew it was irrational, I couldn't stop it. There were so many reasons that I was unlovable. It was an air-tight case when I really thought about it.

I can't have sex. I can't work. I can't cook a healthy meal for my family. I can't clean the house. I can't volunteer for my child's field trip. I can't attend the event I already rsvp'd for. And on and on it went. All of the things that I could not do because I was too unwell to get out of bed; those inadequacies made me an unlovable burden. Then, when I inevitably became well enough to return to normal life again, my self-worth returned. It was a maddening cycle.

Marcus Aurelius was the one who set me straight. Dead for millennia but his words live on, Marcus was the greatest Roman Emperor who ever lived. He based his life on the philosophy of Stoicism and left behind journals that have become known as his "Meditations." I was impacted by much of what I learned from studying his life but there was one thing in particular that helped me to rebuild my self-worth even in the face of complex trauma; something he said that challenged my view of my illness. He essentially made me realize my illness was wasn't "mine."

Marcus wrote in his private journals about the nature of humans and animals. I understood him as saying that everything that happens to humans is natural. Just as a snail will encounter the things that naturally happen to snails, a human will encounter the things that naturally happen to humans. Snails get snail diseases and humans get human diseases. Snails run into snail-oriented challenges and humans run into human-oriented challenges. And it can be said for every other manifestation in existence. Each of us experiences life in a way that is natural to our existence.

In other words, every single thing that happens to us is part of the human condition. Not a single one of us is uniquely flawed. We are all subject to our nature. Humans get sick. Humans go bankrupt. Humans get STI's. Humans get robbed; get in car accidents; die young, lose everything, go to war. Humans are bisexual; addicted; impotent; paralyzed; developmentally delayed; artistically gifted, and everything else in between. You name it, if it happens to humans, it is human nature.

Hence, my sickness is a manifestation of the human condition. Instead of asking "Why me?" … it makes more sense to ask, "Why not me?" If it can happen to humans, it can happen to any one of us. Therefore, in the case of my illness, it can and does happen to me. But there's good news. Understanding human nature also means that if one person can overcome their challenges, it follows that any one of us can do it. It is in our nature. What is possible for one is possible for all.

Once I began to view my illness as something that is natural and nothing to be ashamed of or to take upon myself as some kind of badge of dishonour, that is when I started to heal. As I lay in my bed sick, instead of feeling like a piece of shit, I began to think of what I was experiencing as simply the way it is, a natural part of being human. It did not decrease my worth. Just as a diseased snail is not worth less than a healthy snail.

When I look at my fellow humans, I do not see people with disabilities or any other life challenges as lesser humans. So, why had I viewed myself that way? We all know the reason was because of trauma. Trauma makes us behave and think in ways that retraumatize us. Thankfully, it's in our nature to have the capacity to heal. I began to heal by changing my self-talk. Instead of counting the reasons I was unlovable, I focused on my human nature:

“This is natural. This does not belong to me. I am not the sickness. I am simply a human being experiencing one of the possibilities of human existence. This is a human disease and I am a human being. My illness does not define who I am or what I am worth. Just get through this episode. It will pass eventually. Just get through this episode as peacefully as I can.”

Surprisingly, my illness "episodes" began to resolve faster once I was able to remove the shame I felt during them. Toxic feelings impede healing. For our bodies and minds to heal, we must address our toxic feelings. Whatever shame we harbour that makes us feel unlovable, we must bring trait that we anguish over into the light and see it for what it truly is: human nature.

We have nothing to be ashamed of, no matter what our individual circumstances are. As long as we aren’t hurting anyone, we are perfect exactly the way we are. Suffering from the human condition does not make any one of us broken. It makes us human beings who are experiencing the natural consequences of being human. Let your shame fall away. It does not belong to you. It is all of ours. But it is not collective shame. It is collective humanity. You are enough.

Love Annie xoxo

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