My late father was an advocate for self-talk. He said talking to ourselves is necessary and I’ve always agreed with that since childhood. However, after I experienced an emotionally abusive relationship, I gradually stopped talking to myself. I became one of those people who makes the internet perplexed; “how can someone don’t have an inner monologue?” I can feel myself getting dull, out of touch with myself, and empty.
From what is already a bad state, everything got even worst after we found out that my father got diagnosed with stage 3 kidney failure. I didn’t have time to pick myself up. A year later my father died and all hell broke loose. I didn’t know how to sort things out and face everything. I didn’t have strong feet, to begin with, and suddenly I have to climb mountains.
That’s when I realized that I need extra support. I wouldn’t survive just with what I usually do — a couple of psychological counseling every month. I need a more sustainable solution, I need to upgrade myself to be strong. Little did I know, that I have far bigger problems than I thought. I realized that I have been emotionally distant from myself, and I wouldn’t survive facing massive grief if I couldn’t rekindle with myself.
Learning about self-love is the simplest answer to help me cope with things and gain strength, yet it turns out to be a lesson far from simple.
First, I start with defining self-love. Validating my feelings was the easy part because I think my mind built some sort of a self-defense mechanism from gaslighting in the form of ease in recognizing and validating my feelings. The hard part is in defining what love is for me, as I feel empty of love and filled with grief. I learned that self-love is a balance of discipline and nurturing love, and right now I need the second one more. I also realize the importance of self-love because I can see how empty I was, and how extremely hard it is to be there for anyone because I was utterly empty, with no love to share for anyone, not even myself. This nurturing self-love leads to sorting out my feelings and where they came from, this helped me to see the clutter better.
Afterward, I learned that who I am now is an intricate mix of poorly planned self-defense mechanisms, trauma response, and unresolved issues. The root lies far deeper than I thought: my childhood, my inner child, the first personality that I was born with, that my second personality is trying to protect. I learned about the inner child and inner parent, and in the process, I reconnect with who I am and who I actually want to be.
I dug deep, I identify every feeling and where they came from, I mentally confront people, and I made peace with parts of me I didn’t even know I had. I traced my body for manifestations of trauma, I embrace them, and I found a new source of energy to be a better person. To be a better inner parent to Tasya, my inner child. To perfect my inner parent and reach the level of becoming a loving adult.
I also found the new power of standing up for myself. I need to build boundaries to protect Tasya, who gets angry when she feels infantilized because she loves the feeling of being powerful, who feels uncomfortable whenever a guy gets too close because she was sexually harassed almost every day from a very early age, and who values freedom more than anything (I also realized that Tasya could throw a months-long tantrum when she feels unheard, especially when she feels like her “no” doesn’t matter. Of course, she’s a victim of pedophilia. That side of Tasya is utterly scary). I also need to build boundaries to protect Amel, who can’t, for the love of God, help a friend’s love life when she literally just lost his father. She can’t be a messenger, she can’t always stand by whenever the friend’s love interest is away drinking with friends (well, because she’s busy crying over her grief), and the last thing she needs is being given the responsibility to be a “jaminan” — the friend’s word, not mine — when things go south between them.
From that urgency, I learned to reconcile, and I do it with no doubt. I feel like a monster killing innocent people, but it’s either them or me. I know what it feels like to lose myself and I really don’t want to go there again. I also learned that reconciliation depends heavily on the capability of both parties. So whenever I feel like I’m being called out as “toxic, drama” or when the person I tried to reconcile with is unable to fathom the things I told them three times — for example, how I can’t help his love life with my former boss, over and over and over again just to meet the same result of him asking me to do things I told him I couldn’t — it wasn’t my fault. Because I tried, I was being honest to them, I apologized for my incapability and mistakes, and I communicate my needs. The rest is on their end of the table.
I’m proud of how much I have grown and learned. But most importantly, I’m proud of how I can fill myself with the love I always tried to seek outside. I thought the fight was over when I learned how to love myself in hard times, learned how to stand up for myself, and learned to face feelings that surface. But self-love is a perpetual learning process and there is always something new to learn. I still have my struggles, especially with guilt and the feeling of worthlessness; undeserving of good things, even the things I fought for. I didn’t know that loving myself would feel like I’m being the worst person in the world. However, I can build better confidence in having the values of reconciliation planted in my head, now more than ever. That way I know that this is me being accountable and fighting for my rights.
I will gladly be held accountable for my mistakes, I will apologize sincerely, and I will face every consequence of my actions. If I’m a celebrity I’m ready to get “canceled”, and I will gladly do everything all over again whenever I have to. Whenever I feel threatened and unsafe, manipulated and used. Having myself to depend on is everything I need to survive, and everything won’t be possible without the balance of disciplined and nurturing self-love. I have Amel on my side, the best sidekick I could ever ask for, and I will do everything (and more) to protect Tasya. So I would like to end this essay with an introduction of myself: this is me, a little family of myself and my traumas, hand in hand through the voyage of life, fighting dangerous, toxic people with the arsenal of weapons we sharpen every day.
