What I have learned, and because I myself can have intense...extreme, even ridiculous, emotional responses. Because like so many, I didn't have a healthy family growing up either. I find it peaceful to accept who I am, which includes whatever flaws I do possess. No one in this world is perfect, and everyone makes mistakes. No matter the reason for those mistakes. It's important to extend compassion to ourselves as much as we send it outward to others.

Not that long ago, I had...I guess I called it a "trauma response" for lack of knowing a better term for it. Where someone in a community I belonged to, someone I had feelings for, really deeply hurt me so I just took off without warning, removed myself from all social media, and bunkered down believing a situation of bullying and harassment was going to repeat itself. A friend I forgot to block on my phone from this community reached out and was like "Are you okay? You are scaring everyone!" And I was like what? Isn't this person bullying me and spreading lies about me? I'm just trying to stay safe." And their response was. "No, actually, everyone loves you and is worried about it. I'm getting tons of messages from people asking what is going on. No one is saying anything bad about you. People love you." And it really woke me up that sometimes our minds can tell us some horrible untruths. Though, in this case...that person I gave a second chance to? Turned out to be narcissistic and extremely abusive and put me through hell (I'm still healing from this). So. I think on some level I knew something wasn't right with that one person and I recognized it. But it was an error to believe that everyone else hated me and was trying to hurt me too.

Life is a lot of learning from mistakes and trying to do better next time. Maybe there are parts of ourselves that we can't change, or that takes a lot of time to change. And no matter what, you just have to love that part of you that messes up too. After all, it's not your fault, my fault, or anyone else's fault we've been through things that have wired our brains in a certain way. I do believe it's our responsibility to heal and pursue self-love.