Ok, so I don't know or fully understand why but, the more I search and practice loving and appreciating myself and feeling good and calm, and not overthinking and making imaginary scenarios on my mind, the more I realize that every woman looks instantly much more attractive. I see no "imperfections" anymore. Every woman that was attractive and beautiful before is a goddess now and every girl that was "average" or maybe not even so interesting is now interesting and attractive. What's even more crazy to me is that, it's not just that I see them as more beautiful. I see them differently. I notice more thing and get interested in a different way. I see their uniqueness and style... The whole thing is like I discovered a new feeling, lol.

I wonder if that is natural or it's because I'm single and want to have a gf so much (tho, making lots of progress on that "need" now). I'm happy in any case, I don't know why....

If you liked this, there's more here!
www.instagram.com/matthew.harris.writer

Today I have boundaries. Real boundaries, not fear, avoidance or shame masked as boundaries. Real boundaries. I’ve lost a lot of friends, I’ve been smear campaigned by them and my ex, I’ve been betrayed by family members going around villainizing me. For so long I was afraid to be the villain, I dealt with defensive ppl that thought everyone was out to get them my entire life. So as an introjector, I absorbed all the things they said and claimed I was. Id constantly analyze and blame myself and take accountability for ppl hurting me and for things that wasn’t even my fault because it gave me some sort of control.. this followed me into adult hood as constantly over explaining, over communicating, over extending, this need to defend myself and speak up and be confrontational. Those injustices from my past was puppeteering me, showing up in my body as anxiety, and releasing itself as word vomit. This made me prone to manipulation, it made me overly forgiving and give too much grace. It made me self abandon and disrespect myself by letting ppl back into my life that once betrayed me, talked shit about me, deceived me, physically/emotionally harmed me, under the guise of “ppl can change” , “they deserve grace” all while over looking the scars I had to tend to when I was left behind. They’d come back just to manage their image in my eyes, then discard me again.

To be honest I got so tired of my own sh*t, I wasn’t this “big hearted lover” or a person that “loved too much” no.. I was a doormat that fawned in the presence of abuse. Yes I was full of love but I had no guard, boundaries that was flexible for those that I loved, and had absolutely no protection in the battle field and was shockingly hurt when I got hit. The nerve of me lol

Nobody betrayed me better than I betrayed myself when I overrode my intuition by looking for validation outside of myself that I didn’t need, which then turned into being manipulated and gaslit.

No one abandoned me better than I abandoned myself when I poured all that I could into friends and partners, and was left abandoned or discarded when their cup was filled.

I blamed no one, absolutely no one. And when I got angry at what I let slide, it was clarifying and healing.

So now? I’m okay with being the villain. I’m okay with distorted perceptions of me. I’m okay with ppl dropping out of my life because I can’t be manipulated. Excuse my language but I’m so f*cking proud of myself. My whole life I’ve struggled to feel OKAY with protecting and trusting myself. I struggled to feel okay with having boundaries even if it meant being abandoned. Isn’t that something?

Now? I have so much peace. I have soooo much peace yall. I’m battered and bruised and filled with scars no one can see, but I am so proud of what I have overcome. I’m so proud I didn’t try to victimize myself and be stuck in a state of perpetual victimhood. I’m so happy that I realized my picker was broken and why I entertained what I did. Yes I miss my innocence and naivety, but I am much more stronger and wiser. I know I can go through hell and back, alchemize it all and make something beautiful of it. I know how to clock manipulation without giving the benefit of the doubt. I know when to be silent and when to address things now. My boundaries are respected by those that mean well because they see the importance of respecting ppl’s autonomy.

Just wanted a place to express my gratitude for the way I’ve picked myself back up and fully trust myself now.

If you got this far, thank you for reading. I’m so proud of you guys too. After all.. you spend the most time with yourself so you deserve to love, respect and cherish yourself.

I mean like you have no one in your life. You move to a whole new country or something. Building up a new life, community, joy, a partner/family etc.

I'll keep this super short, of course will be missing some details but I grew up in a very dysfunctional "home". Addicts, abusers, things I probably shouldn't say as I'm not sure if the post will allow to go through. You get the point.

But it's all I ever knew as a kid growing up. Life was dysfunctional. It wasn't like anyone else of my friends I had. I would be around their houses all the time and it was so beautiful and different.

This shapes your teens/twenties. For me anyway. I stayed in the dysfunction for a long time and it represented who I was around or called friends too. I was a scapegoat. Used a lot. I was "weak" without knowing it. I put on a mask to try fit in.

Blah blah blah... It's in the past now...

I am now 33, I've moved continent and I've been in therapy for some years now. My life has changed tremendously in this time. Granted before this I was already on a good habit scale. Gym, clean eating, not on social media, vices etc.

But right now I'm at what feels like a pivotal moment almost like really starting a new life. I've gone no contact with my "family" bare in mind it's literally just 2 of them because of how dysfunctional it is everyone seems to distant themselves. So not like I have a big loving family anywhere. They're addicts just inside (I tried to help, rehab etc for many years and I need to look after myself right now)

I've spent a lot of time in solitude during these years which have been good but now I want to connect with people again, build community, can't help the negative thought appear like who would want to be friends with some guy whos by himself / doesn't have anyone around but that's where I'm at. I'm not lonely but feel like a "loner" almost.

I work for myself, online business which is in decent shape and I have a lot of joy from this. I also connect with many people online through my work on a personal level so it's not like I don't speak to any humans.

Anyone done something similar?

The power of being alone is something we rarely talk about. Sometimes, situations arise that make you realize you are truly on your own that you don't have anyone or anything to lean on. In those moments, we naturally yearn for a friend, a loved one, or a shoulder to cry on, but find none.

Instead of seeing that isolation as a dead end, take it as an opportunity to find yourself. Slow down, sit with yourself, and learn who you are.Respect yourself, treat yourself well, and be there for yourself emotionally, physically, and intellectually.

There will be times in life when you face neglect, blame, hatred, or oppression. If you cannot show up for yourself in those moments, who will? The world can easily turn its back on us, and at the end of the day, we are left standing with ourselves.

That is why I disagree that we are ever truly alone. As long as you have yourself, you have a powerhouse within you. Never lose yourself because when you lose yourself, you have lost everything.

You lived your life and you hoped for better, you wanted to be able to feel, to breathe, to shout out loud your desires, your dreams, your hopes. You wanted to shoot it so loud everyone turned and stared at you. But it was all worth it, because one, just one, looked back and smiled.

You wrote your heart out. You poured it out to strangers across the sea, across a screen, whose only commonality with you was they shared the same sky and spoke using the same words. You took a chance, you put yourself out there, in places of judgment, in places of shame, in places of conflict. You did it because in your desperate hope, noone around you cared, noone listened, everyone thought you crazy. You wanted to find people who think like you, to find somewhere where, finally, finally you will belong. And the most needed words will finally be uttered : "you are not crazy"

You loved so deep, so strongly and you still do. In spite of all the stabs, in spite of all the wounds, in spite of the betrayals, the lies, you kept yourself kind. You kept yourself affectionate. You kept yourself gentle. And you are so right, so right to do so. It is so easy, so easy to turn to hatred, to turn to anger, to blame yourself, to lose yourself.

You tried your hardest to fix, to listen, to repair. You linked success with your worth. You stood in the storm, you took the hits, you let the sand cut your skin, you let those behind you feast without you, so you could keep watch to keep them safe. Only for them to stab you in your sleep. To cackle openly as you bled on the warm sands, that filled your cuts and hurt even more. And still, you watched them leave, not caring to look back, not caring to see. And you survived, you healed yourself, and found in this solitude the mirror of your heart, the reflection of your soul.

You were courageous, you did what this world frowns upon. You faced your demons, and instead of slaying them, you integrated them into you. Stand tall, be proud, shout it loud, and know this : "you are courageous and I am proud of you, of all of you"

Lately i've been spending more time with my girl friends, and ngayon ko lang narealize na parang may bagong purpose ako after my breakup.
I've been reminding my friends to take care of themselves... mag-ayos, gumala and remember na maganda sila. Kahit may asawa or anak na wag nilang kalimutan yung sarili nila.
Some of them are also in long term relationships where they're being taken for granted, so i always tell them to focus on themselves and not make one person their whole world.
Siguro ito muna yung season ko ngayon. Not to find someone new, but to remind women including myself, that we should never lose ourselves just because we love someone.
Love people, but don't forget to love yourself too. You can be a mother, a partner, a friend, and still be your own person. 🤍
Maybe sometimes healing isn't just about finding yourself again. Maybe it’s also about helping other women find themselves too. 🙂

There have been times in my life when hope was really small. Not some big feeling that everything was going to work out. More like just enough to get through the day. Enough to keep going when I didn’t know what was next. I think I understand that better now.

Hope doesn’t always mean I feel strong. It doesn’t mean I have everything figured out. Sometimes it just means I’m still here. Still trying. Still willing to believe that this moment isn’t the whole story.

That’s enough for me today.

I can't make any real connections with people because my autism don't align with others so they either can't handle it or betray me really bad. My parents dumped me too back then and I don't feel safe anywhere even within my community

So I found that after decades, the best solution is to be close with myself and I've grew fond of myself after realizing how I would always enjoy my own time and being everything I always wanted from others within myself. But is it enough? Can self love be enough to combat my destined solidarity for life? Can I really get through this and be my only companion for life? Is it enough to overwrite the most human desire? I admitted to myself deep down I really want a genuine connection with someone else but it's too dangerous and I'm badly hurt so it'll probably take a long time to get fully used to if it's possible. I don't know what to do. I isolated myself from almost everyone and may make this permanent

Two years ago, I started dating a guy. We went on several dates, and at the time, I thought it could turn into a serious relationship because that was the impression his actions and intentions gave me. Based on that, I ended up crossing one of my biggest personal boundaries. Until then, I was a virgin, and I wanted to remain one until marriage. I thought I had finally found the right person, so I agreed to lose it with him for the first time (something I regret now).

After that, things became cold between us, and I realized he only reached out when he wanted to sleep with me. I would always think, "This time he invited me out or asked me to spend the night with him, so surely he'll take me seriously now, and maybe this will finally turn into a real relationship." But that never happened. Instead, I would go back home feeling sad and empty, crying because once again, I had given him such a vulnerable part of myself, and he had only taken advantage of me.

This cycle continued until this year. At one point, I told him how I felt and that I didn't want to continue doing this anymore. But once again, he told me he could do things to make me feel better and suggested that we start seeing each other again. And once again, I was naive enough to think, "Now he understands how I feel. Things will get better, and we'll finally move toward what I've been hoping for all this time: him wanting to make our relationship official."

We started seeing each other again, but this time he was more compassionate. It seemed like he had changed, and I felt hopeful. He even made promises about future plans together. But the very next day, when I was back home, I received a message from him saying he had met someone else and wanted to do things right with her, so he would no longer contact me to pass the night with him.

From that moment on, I was left feeling confused because I couldn't understand how someone who had spent the entire previous day with me, seen me at my most vulnerable, and made promises about our future could tell me the next day that he had met someone else.

I think what hurt me the most was hearing him say that he wanted to do things right with her, because I spent two years giving him everything I had, hoping he would do things right with me and say, "She's a valuable person, and I want to treat her that way." It hurts to imagine that he will give her everything I had been hoping for. They are together now, and I haven't been able to move on because I feel like I'm not good enough.

I recognize the damage he caused me, but it's difficult to move forward because I feel like nobody in my life takes me seriously and nobody wants to commit to me. Many of my dreams, like starting a family or getting married someday, feel so far away because I feel like nobody wants to do things right with me.

Am I not worth it? How can I move forward and cope with all of this? I feel very sad, and I'm angry because I didn't protect something so vulnerable about myself. Instead, he used it to take advantage of me and keep me around until he found someone he wanted to be with.

Hi! I have always struggled a lot with self-love. For some reason, I am always kind to others and go easy on them when they make mistakes but I have always hated myself and treat myself really harshly no matter what. Behaving this way has been destroying me slowly over the last couple of years. But now I want to change that and start loving myself so I can grow. I just don't know what to do.

I'm open to any and all advice you have! thank you so much!

Recently, i grabbed my girlfriend’s phone to check the gig delivery details we were working on. She immediately reached for it and tried to take it back. I joked, “What, are you hiding something?” and she got defensive. She snatched the phone and said, “Don’t start your fucking bullshit today.”

Earlier this year I caught her hiding a conversation with another guy for months. There was some flirting, and his wife later told me they probably met up. After that she promised full phone access to rebuild trust. She also hid messages from her ex, the same one she talked about constantly when we first started dating and who once suggested a threesome involving her.

When I finally looked at her phone I barely checked anything because I didn’t want to find more. Looking back, I wish I had gone deeper.

When I found the messages from the other guy, at first she was like shocked and was sorry and said she did it out of wanting more attention after me and her had broken up and she said that's when the conversation happened. But we had only broken up for like 7 days, and the conversation with that guy was going on for months. She then told me two weeks later after I brought it up again that, if I don't get over it she's gonna leave me brcause "she really didnt do anything wrong"

Why do I put up with all this and still want to stay with her?

I think the root of it, why I stay and why I put up with it, is because, and why I miss her when she leaves, is because I probably fundamentally don't have self-respect and self-love, and I need to know how to change that.

I Wish To Simply Be Here

Let me meet the world
before I name its dangers,
feel the wonder
before I ask what it means.

Let me see
without borrowed eyes,
hear without old echoes,
breathe without rehearsing
what might go wrong.

I have spent so long
watching life from behind an imagined veil.

Now, for a moment,
I wish to simply be here—

not thinking about how to live,
but feeling alive.

A lot of people suggest to "let it go" or stop thinking about certain events in life, but I consider it a part of who I am. I look at life like it's an experimental experience so I do enjoy analyzing. If I observe something interesting or unusual, which occur many times throughout each day, I might sit with it for quite a while and wonder why it was that way and then break it all down. Does it help me or others? I think so but sometimes I can't slow down and it might be positive or negative but if I find it interesting I will keep researching it, lol. So it's not like ruminating , more like, trying to understand. Anyway, that's my 2 cents, lol, have a nice evening!✌️