I am 21 and all my life I have been abused and live in fear. Depressed and stressed whole life. I look terrible now, eating lots of sugar and junk food making me look way older than my age and pimple and acne make it worse. Still I am not giving up

I have lupus and fibromyalgia. I spend almost all day either in my bed or on the couch and I haven't been able to work in a year now. I'm constantly in pain and exhausted. I sleep 12-18 hours per night.

Most days I just don't think about it. I hang out with my animals, I read, and I watch youtube videos. Time FLIES when you're doing nothing all day every day.

Some days it really hits me hard. My life is over. I was going to be a neuroscientist and a mother and now those things may never happen. I might never get to go hiking or rollerblading again. I can't go dancing at the clerb or even drink alcohol. I get just a handful of good days per month. Showering is really hard now, so that's only happening like once every ten days. Even holding my phone and doom scrolling hurts my hands.

The only person I talk to most days is my husband. I just wait for him to come home from work sometimes. (He's my best friend and fucking great, thank god)

I used to have options and goals to look forward to, now I have no clue what my life is going to be. I don't know if I'll ever be capable of doing much of anything ever again.

Not feeling a lot of self love today :/

I (24F) have been wanting to post on Instagram and interact with other people my age that I follow. But whenever I get on there I start overthinking, comparing myself to others, and feeling like a loser. I wish I could fix this because I really wanna be someone with a beautifully curated profile but it kind of triggers a self-hating voice - which is also why I only post a couple times a year.

Should I just scrap it completely? Make a finsta? I’m not really sure what to do I feel like all my calm swag goes out the window when I post on that app 😭

Edit: I should also say I used to be so insecure that I never posted photos of just myself or my face and used Instagram as a way to overcome my fear of being seen. But then I eventually got to a point where I felt like no photo would ever be good enough and stopped going on there.

This is the first time I’ve taken a selfie since last year. For a long time I’ve struggled with low self esteem due to having been bullied for my appearance. I didn’t like looking at myself because I was only reminded of the hurtful things I was told. I would also try to avoid being on camera as much as I could because I didn’t like how I looked. Yesterday though I decided to take a selfie again after a long time. I wouldn’t say I’m completely okay now but I know that loving yourself is a process that can take time. I’m slowly trying to become more comfortable with being on camera. I’m also trying to work on my self esteem as well. I hope that one day though I can gain more confidence and be happy with myself.

this is something i've been dealing with for a few years as a memory suddenly came to my head. i won't get into details because i really don't want to speak specifically about it. no one was harmed, it was just me involved. when i did it at the time, it was something i was curious about happening. it wasn't some sort of behavior thing, i didn't do it continuously, but it was a one time thing that i had seemed to push to the back of my mind. fast forward to two years ago, i've suddenly remembered it. it feels foggy but i cannot stop thinking about it to the point where i feel sick. i lose my appetite, i can't sleep, i cry all the time.

i don't have a therapist, and i would never tell my friends or family. i have read stories of people doing something similar and they are met with "well that's weird, but kids are weird and clearly this person didn't know any better. have grace. you didn't know any better. you were a child. our brains are nowhere near developed to deal with xyz." if someone came to me and told me they were feeling guilt about a similar event, i would immediately meet them with compassion. i can't do it for myself. i am 23 years old and this happened when it was at least younger than 12.

i don't know what to do. i feel gross and monstrous. i have an obsessive brain, and everything feels too overwhelming. i keep thinking of it on repeat. do i deserve it? i just want to live my life normally.

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I was always the person who listened, who checked in, who noticed when someone’s energy felt different.

I remembered the little things. I made excuses for people who hurt me. I stayed available, even when I was falling apart myself.

And somehow, I convinced myself that being needed was the same as being loved.

It took me a long time to realize that I was so busy making other people feel understood that I had stopped asking myself what I needed.

I don't hate the people I gave so much of myself to. But I'm learning that I don't have to keep abandoning myself just because someone else is comfortable with it.

These days, I'm trying to become someone I can come home to, even when nobody else does.

Maybe self-love isn't always about feeling beautiful or being confident.

Maybe sometimes it's simply stopping yourself from betraying your own needs just to keep someone else in your life

Update on post: https://www.reddit.com/r/selflove/s/YkoAOjFSt5

Some of you will recognise the original post, most of the comments have been lovely,positive and have made me realise that people my view me differently to what I see myself.

I have decided to get teeth whitening powder and i am going to book myself into therapy to see if that can help with my soical anxiety.

Thanks again for all your kind comments

Hello! I've always had this really bad problem of always trying to please every single person around me except for myself. It has left me in a really bad spot to where I have never truly taken any care or steps to loving myself. I've been in therapy for a couple of months now focusing on trying to stop this way of thinking.

I am hoping that I can find ways to start self-love and stop overthinking things or worrying as much about what others think. Any and all advice would be greatly appreciated.

Hi guys this is a post where I will talk about my journey with self love . It’s a long story but I was someone who had the worst self concept in the world not exaggerated and I use to get scared to even look and talk to people because I was bullied as a kid intensely and I use to hate everything about me . But then one day I decided if no body loves me then I will love myself and from there my self love journey started I still struggle with my self love but I will be honest, I learnt a lot in the process.

1)People Project onto you- Good Or Bad, however they treat you is their own projection it’s not always us doing something wrong.

2)Taking Time With Ourselves- Just Sit and Talk To Yourself in head if you want I was so uncomfortable to have self talk I couldn’t sit by myself ever now I am trying and I can your inner talk affects your life and reality

3)I stopped listening to only sad music and visualizing the world against me pls if you do that don’t that rewires your mind for struggle .

4)Most people do not actually think bad about me it was just I thought why would they accept me based on my previous experiences but I think I also found good people in the way . Just don’t let few bad people dictate your whole experience with them because chances are they were jealous or insecure

5)It takes time and inner work and it doesn’t happen extremely fast but that’s okay because it doesn’t have to rush.

Bye love 💓

I’ve been hating myself for years now, like very aggressive self hatred idk how to explain it. Every night before I sleep I have suicidal thoughts and the urges to act on it very badly. I even considered it a few times. The urges are getting stronger and stronger. I honestly just feel like a failure every day. I graduated college a year ago and I haven’t found a job yet, I listened to my parents when they told me to get a job after college and now it’s harder than ever to get a job now. I haven’t been saving money at all and I don’t have money to do anything fun or go out or meet people. I don’t have a friend group, all my younger siblings each have a friend group and they go out with their friends or FaceTime their friends and I’m always alone in my room and not speaking with people. I’m going to be 23 soon and I haven’t done anything, I just feel like my siblings are judging me a lot especially since they all go to school and I’m home alone while everyone goes out. I want to go to Halloween parties and dress up and I haven’t been invited anywhere or know anyplace to go meanwhile my sisters are going to multiple. I feel so embarrassed, I wish I was extroverted and I did more things in high school and college and I barely experienced the college experience the way others have including my other sibling. I was just always by myself especially in college, college was a dark time for me.

I know I have depression and I want to become a screenwriter but a lot of the days, I don’t even have the energy to write or read or do anything productive with my writing and I feel like time is wasting, I want to put my stories out there but I feel like something is holding me back and I don’t have the energy to do anything, sometimes even catching up with a movie or a YouTube video or finishing my game, or answering a text message, or write, or finishing a show, finishing a book, is a lot. I just lay in bed and I have to force myself to do these things I used to love when I was a child and in high school, something shifted and idk who I am. To make matters worse, I hate my face, I don’t think I’m beautiful, my face just doesn’t look beautiful like other women. I envy women’s beauty, I try not to I just see that she’s beautiful but compared to her, I look like a monster. Unless I wear makeup or if I put on a wig or get my natural hair done I feel worth it sometimes but even then I just think that every women is beautiful then me and I feel like everyone agrees and everyone is judging my looks.

I don’t have those friendships that other women have, they talk about their lives and they go out and do things and meanwhile I feel so awkward and stupid when I try to speak to people, even when I text them idk what to say to them. I just lose interest in speaking to people all together. I just don’t feel like I’m good at anything and I feel like I suck and I’m a loser and I’m ugly. I try to read all the self love notes in this subreddit and it helps for a bit but my brain just goes back to criticizing myself. I feel stuck and I don’t have any friends, when I try to talk I’m just like what am I doing and I just think that the person is bored of me. I feel like people think I’m boring since I have nothing going in my life. I don’t want to consider romantic love, I’m not worth it for that. I’d rather be single. I cringe at the thought of romantic love for me although I love it for others.

This year has been so terrible, i don’t even know what my purpose is. I’m tired of my existence and having to worry about so many things, my brain won’t stop judging me and sometimes I can’t enjoy myself because I’m worrying about how I smile or how I laugh or how I talk and it makes me want to disappear forever. I know I need therapy but I don’t have the money for it. I tried the 988 hotline but it hasn’t been much of any help. I don’t have anyone that understands me in my life and it makes me angry and I shut down especially around my family and I want to be alone.

For a long time, I didn’t really think of myself as strong.
I was just doing what I had to do.

There were days I’d sit in the car for a few minutes before going inside because I needed time to get myself together. Then I’d go in and handle what needed to be handled.

I didn’t feel strong. Mostly I felt tired. Looking back, I can see that period differently now. Some things took a while to come back from, and I’m still working through parts of it.

But I made it through more than I gave myself credit for.
I’m trying to recognize that now.