TW: Mention of suicide and sexual assault
Self-sabotage.
It’s a word I didn’t know but apparently lived out so well. I first heard it when I was 21 going on 22, sitting in my psychologist’s office. That year, life had devastated me so profoundly, I spent more time in that office than I did in my lectures.
I was processing being sexually assaulted. Grieving the loss of my first adult relationship. And wrestling with the resurfacing pain of my father’s abandonment after I turned five.
That year also brought an official diagnosis: Major Depressive Disorder. I was grateful for it—not for the suffering it named, but for the clarity it gave. It gave form to the shadow of constant sadness I’d perpetually carried for as long as I could remember. The kind of sadness that began my suicidal ideation at just nine years old.
I don’t know what it is about turning 21. It feels like life throws a cruel rite of passage at you, announcing itself with a jarring intensity. A reckoning. It wakes you violently from the blissful ignorance of childhood, mocks your naivety, and says, “This is what it means to be alive.”
I digress.
From the introduction, you can probably gather that life hasn’t always been kind to me.
Life happened.
In one of those therapy sessions, my psychologist, after listening to my story, pointed out a pattern: self-sabotage. She saw how, after enduring so much devastation, I seemed to ruin the few good things that came my way. And, of course, one can’t plant flowers in a war zone. My inner world was a battlefield, littered with debris and destruction, unable to nurture anything beautiful.
Now, in the second decade of my adult life, I can’t help but think of all the things we may have missed because we thought of ourselves as unworthy. How we carried the heavy, suffocating weight of unworthiness—a burden that left no room for the lighter, brighter things life may have wanted us to hold.
How often do we carry this internalized sense of rejection so deeply that we discount ourselves before anyone else can? Convince ourselves, in the silence of our minds, that it’s safer to opt out. And how many times, because of this, have we dimmed ourselves before stepping into a room? How many doors did we never knock on because we assumed they were already closed? Because we thought to ourselves, Why would they choose me? Why would they see me?
And I wonder—how different would our lives look if we walked through this world like we belonged? If we approached every connection with the kind of quiet, necessary arrogance that says, Of course you love me. Of course you want to be in connection with me. I’m amazing.
What opportunities might we have embraced if we trusted in our own giftedness? If we believed that, despite the darkness the world gave us, we still carry so much light to give back?
I’m sorry that life has happened to you, too. That somewhere along the way, unworthiness hitchhiked into your life. That it settled in the passenger seat—large and unyielding—blocking your mirrors, obstructing your view, and making it impossible to see all that could have been yours.
But I hope unworthiness is nearing its final stop. That it is finally ready to climb out and leave your life for good.
And when unworthiness finally steps out, I hope you’ll notice how vast the horizon becomes without it. How much brighter and more breathtakingly expansive the road looks when it’s no longer crowding you.
Maybe, one day, we’ll learn to sit with the unfamiliarity of goodness finding us. To let it rest in our laps, even when it feels foreign or undeserved. To resist the urge to flinch away when life offers us moments that defy the painful narratives we’ve come to expect.
Because I believe in cosmic balance: that for all the darkness, there will always be light to counter it. The unwavering belief that the extraordinary can happen for us, too—that life finds its way to compensate us, to offer reprieve for all the sorrows we’ve carried.
And I hope that when that reprieve finds us, we’ll have the courage to accept it. Not as an accident, but as proof that we are—and have always been—worthy of so much more than what our arms have ever known to hold.
All my love,
If my reflections spoke to you, and you believe in writing that illuminates the unseen corners of our shared humanity, I invite you to support my work. Every contribution helps me keep nurturing these vulnerable truths—the ones we often carry alone until we realize we never had to. Your generosity sustains my ability to continue writing in ways that make us feel seen.
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