What Change Is

For all my doubts and fears, I do firmly believe in this: change is possible. It can be hard, and there is always a limit to what you can and can't change. But we can change ourselves. We can change our patterns. We can even change patterns that have been entrenched in our families for decades, for generations. Change is possible.

I've believed this so devoutly for so long because I need it to be true. It's why I started blogging, actually, over a decade ago: I wanted to explore myself, understand myself so I could find a way to change and avoid the endlessly repeating patterns of destruction my father seemed trapped in all his life.

And slowly but surely, I've been changing. I have some honest-to-god friendships with people I trust not to leave me. I have some confidence in myself. I can, increasingly, not only identify my feelings but vulnerably express them to others. And, perhaps most difficult but most important, I can separate my responsibility to others from how they are responsible for their own reactions and own choices.

I have changed. So very much. I'm still changing. And today I decided to truly test it.

I've not talked to my father in a few years. I have had very brief, very superficial conversations. But I've not said anything of substance to him in three years. It's been really good for me. To remove such an omnipresent source of fear and guilt, to free myself from constantly feeling responsible for him; it's been really really good. But I also felt really guilty about it. Not because I wasn't talking to him, but because I didn't tell him why, didn't at least give him a chance to respond. So finally, I felt like I'd grown enough to meet with him and talk to him.

So, today, I did.

We walked for a little awhile, easing back in, catching up. And then we sat down and I told him.

I told him that there were many reasons I'd distanced from him. The main one, though, was what happened the last time we'd really talked, three years ago, about me coming out to his parents. He felt that me telling them would kill them, and he made it clear that if I did against his wishes he would really, truly hurt me. Back then, I did what I knew: got really quiet, felt really guilty and scared, and gave up. But today, I was able to tell him that that conversation was not only terrifying but immensely hurtful because it felt like he felt as if I really wanted to hurt him and he had to do whatever it took to stop me.

He agreed with me, and said he still feels that way. He still feels like my mother, my sister, and I do want to hurt him. He said he's felt at least since we were in high school that we didn't care about him, that if he was across the street bleeding to death in a ditch we wouldn't do a thing to help him.

In the past, I would have been wracked with guilt and stayed silent. I would have felt like I couldn't do anything to change his mind, and I would have been paralyzed.

But because I've changed, I didn't do that. I knew I couldn't convince him of anything. But what I could do was tell him how I feel and then let him do with that as he would. So I told him that it hasn't felt like that just since high school. That I could remember telling him that I loved him when I was six years old and that he would still tell me "No, you don't." That I tried for years and years even as an adult, despite his furious drunken rampages, despite being called a traitor and harangued for hours during his divorce, despite being terrified of him all my life, that I had tried and tried to keep caring for him and not give up. But that when he threatened me, it became apparent that nothing I could do would ever be good enough to convince him that I cared about him. So I stopped trying.

And then, astonishingly, he said that I was right. He said that he's felt this way in all his relationships, that he can't trust anyone and that everyone wants to hurt him. It didn't really affect me that much, not at first. He's apologized before, and he's really good at saying what a "bad, terrible person" he is. I've always known he hates himself, and he's so filled with guilt and shame that it's not uncommon.

So I didn't trust it. I still don't. He's tortured and has so many years of dealing with his demons that I'm not going to jump for joy and say "Oh Daddy, I love you so!" and believe everything's going to be ok in the end. But, as we kept talking, I started to let myself listen. I let myself hear him say "It wasn't right for me to transfer my suffering to you as a child." I let myself hear "I made my own choices and it wasn't your fault." It wasn't my fault. It wasn't that I wasn't good enough to prove I loved him, it was that he was not in a place to believe that love. He decided, influenced by so many of his past experiences, to reject me. It was his choice, not a defect of mine. And he said this. Over and over. And even if it was a statement made from guilt, a statement made to convince himself he was A Good Person, a statement he will forget, a statement disconnected from his emotional core, it was also a statement I think part of him really believed.

In a movie, this might have been an epic turning point. Or it might have been vindication or a momentous event for me. But it wasn't. I keep wanting change to be A Huge Moment where things "click" and I am the optimal, self-actualized person I feel I can be. I keep wanting The Answer or The Experience which makes everything different. Yet change, as I've experienced it, has never been about Big Moments. It's a bunch of small, but significant moments. It's slow, inching growth.

Today, I grew. Instead of responding with fear, self-blame, or guilt, I responded with vulnerable honesty from a hard-earned place of compassion and self-worth. Instead of disbelieving or not trusting the affirming things someone else (my father, of all people!) said, I let myself listen to them. Instead of taking responsibility for his self-hatred, for his guilt, for his anger, I was better able to let those be his own choices and reactions and to let authentically expressing myself Be Enough. I was not in a place to do any of these things three years ago. I don't think I could have even imagined them. But today, I did.

Again, it's small. I don't know if my father will change or how our relationship will look in the future. But it feels good to put myself in a situation that used to completely overwhelm and defeat me and come out the other side intact. There is some guilt. There is some doubt. My heart is still hard with mistrust. But not as much guilt, not as much doubt, not as hard. And I think that's what change really is.

Struggling with Acceptance

It's not just feeling bad that's hard. Self-recrimination, doubt, failure, these things seem like natural responses to the inevitable times when we bump up against our limitations. What makes it stick, though, what snares me like a fishhook and keeps tearing tearing tearing is this sense that this is forever. That there was some window, long ago, when I "could have been good." But that window has long since closed, leaving me to forever flounder, futilely trying to 'make good' even as I'm destined to fail.

That's where the belief goes from painful to insidious. "Forever." It's tempting, sometimes, to feel like I can 'atone' for what I've done. If I'm good enough, if I push myself enough, if I'm perfect then maybe, just maybe I can atone. And, in that atonement, I can finally be rid of this agonizing guilt. It's tempting. But invariably, my humanity raises its ugly head and, yet again, I fall back to forever.

And it's in these moments where the strongest feelings are not sadness or guilt or shame. Those are there, of course. But what really aches are the desire and the loss. The throbbing, unquenchable desire to find something that will soothe this pain and this persistent feeling that once there was a time when I could have found that cure, could have been that cure. But now I never will.

*Wanting.* I feel so wanting. It's the perfect word. Filled with a savage hunger. Lacking. Empty. And devastated by the so real fear that I will never, never be whole.

Fuck it, let's go with how I feel as plainly as possible: I just feel bad. I feel like a failure. I feel like I can't do anything right. I feel like that won't ever change. I feel hopeless. I feel unlovable. I feel like I'm wasting my life. I want more. I want so much more. And I am terrified I won't get it. I wish I was better. I wish I was so much better. I wish I knew more, worked harder, was more persistent, was more patient. I wish I didn't make so many stupid fucking mistakes. Hell, I'm not even making mistakes a lot of the time: I just honestly don't know what I'm doing and I'm desperately making it up as I go along. And I want to make up for what I've failed at. I so desperately want to go back in time and undo all the bad things I've done. I want to erase myself from the past-present-future. I want want want.

And it is so hard to accept that I just can't. That I have done so many things imperfectly. That I am so flawed. And that I will always be flawed. That I will have good days and bad days. That I am learning and growing but that I will never be Learned and Grown. That there are things I have done in the past which cannot be undone. That I may be alone for the rest of my life. That I may not get everything I want. And that that might all be fucking ok. It's hard to even type that. It's hard to type that maybe all of that is ok. That it is what it is. And all I can do is live and love and keep learning and growing. And that I will keep being imperfect, keep flailing. But that even as I do that, I can do good. I can be valuable. I can be loved. It is so fucking hard to accept that. That I can be imperfect and fuck up time and time again and still be loved. I don't want to accept it.

But it's true. It is true.

Fighting the Battle of Myself

I'm in a good place, right now, in this moment. In the past week (after too many things happened in quick succession to list), I've been able to own "I matter." I play with it, I savor it, I say it to myself and I hold it to my breast like a small, warm animal I must keep safe, experiencing a nascent joy as it pulses through me.

But I have to fight to keep it. I can sit with in for a few moments, and then grim armies at my gates will start their bombardments again. And they start to overwhelm me, and they close in and the sky starts to get so dark, and I have to struggle so fervently to pull this small warm thing back to me.

Did you know that I matter? I don't think I did. Not really. And then I started crying and people started listening. And then I started witnessing other people who believed they mattered. Who were so open and honest about how much pain they experienced from so many people in so many places who, in unremitting savage chants, pound like wardrums in the assault on our souls. And they were so open about that hurt, and still they held onto the belief that they mattered. I was in awe, that one could do that. And I thought "I want to do that. I want to own my hurt and my worth. I want to own myself." And I started trying.

Did you know that I get to decide? "Decide what?" I asked my therapist. "That's it. You get to decide." This, I did not know. I did not know that I get to decide who can make me feel worthless. I did not know that I get to decide what my expectations are and whether I'm reaching them. I did not know that I get to decide these things, and then I get to decide when to listen to others about change. That I don't have to be my father, who always decides everything, but I also don't have to be the scared little child who has to let him. And as I confront change and the child whispers "You can't, you don't know how, they always win they always leave they always win they always leave," I can hold that small warmth and say "I don't know how. But I learn to decide what "winning" is. I can learn to decide whether I'm succeeding. And I can learn to decide who I can trust not to leave." And I've started trying.

It is hard. It is hard to own my hurt, to realize how deep my self-hatred goes, fueled by a million things big and small each day that say with unthinking conviction "You are abomination. A repugnant punchline whose very existence is as much a testament of your deep wrongness as it is a threat to the wellbeing of Good, Normal people everywhere." It is hard to confront the abyss it fuels within myself and how that darkness warps me and my views of those around me. It is hard to break down in front of others and to let them see the immensity of the pain and terror and sadness as my words falter and then fall out clumsy and dull. And it is hard to rematerialize anew and not calcify or dissolve again.

It is hard. But I am trying. Trying to hold onto "I matter." And "I get to decide." And "I matter, and you do too. I get to decide, and you get to too." I am trying to remember that, in order to let you decide and matter, I don't have to erase myself. And it is so, so hard.

In this moment, I think I can do it: I think I can win this battle of myself. But it's going to be a hell of a fight.

What is "Good Enough?"

I tell this story a lot, but it's funny and pertinent enough to repeat:

My therapist once told me I was a perfectionist.
I told her, "I can't be a perfectionist: I never do anything well enough."
And then, two seconds later, "... Oh."

I'd never really considered myself a perfectionist. To me, a perfectionist was one of those people I admired so much who would spend hours and hours over the course of days on their assignments, fine tuning and working to ensure everything was "just so." That was doing something well. What I always do is wait until almost literally the last possible moment in which something can be accomplished and then coast on my adroit writing skills to create something passable right before the buzzer. That was almost the opposite of what I thought a perfectionist would do.

I've written before about the ways I believe perfectionism and procrastination are often related. I won't rehash that here. But that perfectionist value system is not simply the source of my procrastination; it's a core aspect of my depression/anxiety and self-hatred too.

Specifically, this comes from the value system of perfectionism: Doing something "well" is standard. Doing something "best" is positive. Everything else is simply not enough.

You can see it two posts ago. In that post, I essentially assert that I feel as if I was born with negative value (as in, it would be better for everyone if I did not exist). Adding value to the world was the only way for me to even justify my existence. Presumably, being "the best" or doing something "perfectly" was/is the only way for me to be genuinely worth something. Which, of course, is impossible.

However, what that post and the self-hatred post did was to increase insight about and debunk negative feelings. Neither suggested reasonable alternatives.

Of course, that's the goal of Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT): replacing negative thoughts with positive ones. As demonstrated in the above posts, I can totally get behind undermining negative attributions. Where CBT falls flat for me is in the counter assertions: "I have value." "I am worthy of being loved." "I am good." I just don't know where the proof for those things are, outside of wishful thinking. Thus it's no surprise that I stopped at "existence is value neutral." It's a disavowal of the negative without an affirmation of the positive.

But "value neutral" isn't sufficient for resilience or affirmation. The base question still needs to be answered: "What is good enough?"

It needs an answer, because perfectionism has an answer. Even if you're charitable with yourself, "good enough" is "doing everything well." Perhaps not perfection or superiority, but no egregious mistakes or mediocre performances either. And that's great, if you never make mistakes. But if you're a human like me (and there's a pretty good chance you are!), never making mistakes is not a valid long term strategy.

In fact, it's a terrible one. I can feel good on days when I feel like something (clients and/or teaching) has gone well. But when they don't? Or, God forbid, when I make a mistake? It's a suicidal spiral, filled with alienation, failure, and hopelessness with nothing but a lifetime of the same to look forward to.

I had no counterargument. I had nothing to say. And I need one. When I start to self-destruct, I need to be able to tell myself "You are doing enough. You are not perfect, but you're enough." In order to do that, I need to figure out what the hell "enough" means.

If perfection's not the answer, then what is? What's the counter proposition? What is "good enough?" Not necessarily happiness, but a base level of satisfaction and fulfillment, a state of being where, when met, you can say "If I do no more, no differently, that will be OK." What does it look like? What does it feel like? How do you sustain it? But, most importantly, for you, for yourself, what is "good enough?"

I've been chewing on one possible answer I'll hopefully post in a bit. But, for now, I think it's important to frame the question. And, hopefully, hear some of your answers to it too.

Quitting the Self-Hate Habit

There's a theory of psychotherapy that operates under the assumption that all beliefs and actions serve purposes. Usually, these beliefs/actions were at one point adaptive to the environment one was in, but in other settings they prove maladaptive and ultimately cause various levels of distress to the individual and those around them. It's a particular useful approach to take when an individual holds onto a maladaptive belief/habit even when much of them knows it is harmful and wants to let it go. Under this thereotical framework, that belief/habit clearly serves some kind of purpose and the trick is to figure out what, exactly, that purpose is and then to help the client decide if they genuinely want to give up what the behavior brings them.

For me, I think I've narrowed much of my anxiety down to "I deserve to be punished." Worthlessness is a part of that, yes, but it's not that I believe no one cares for me or that I am absolutely devoid of value. Instead, it's that no one should care for me and no one should value me because I am bad and wrong and need to suffer for being bad and wrong.

I think that's why I fantasize about vicious suicides instead of just wishing I didn't exist so the pain would stop. Suicide is a way of telling myself "No matter how bad I am or how much I fail, I can always kill myself so people will know how sorry I really am." It's one of the reasons I think I get a masochistic thrill about being so open about my pain: you can see I'm unhappy and know how bad I feel about how wrong I am.

So what does having people know I feel bad accomplish? Some theories:

1. It minimizes the pain I cause because I feel bad about it. [In the way that when people acknowledge they're wrong things tend to hurt less than when they never apologize or admit fault <--- aka trying not to be my father]
2. It minimizes the need of others to punish me for my failures because I'm punishing myself. [<--- trying to avoid my father's wrath by preemptively assuming guilt so he won't feel any of it, causing him to have a violent meltdown]
3. Part of me believes that being so abusive to myself will help me not make similar mistakes in the future. [<--- common reason for anxiety/worry, part of perfectionism]
4. Minimizes disappointment in me by reducing expectations
5. Makes criticisms less painful because they're not as likely to surprise me/you can't pop a deflated balloon. [guess]

And, to a certain extent, much of this is true. It's harder/"not as needed" to hit a dog that's cowering with its tail between its legs acting ashamed than it is to hit a dog that's snarling or unaware of its behavior. In sports, the NCAA will reduce punishments for programs that punish themselves first. We relish seeing the arrogant/successful fall, but not those who have already fallen/are already suffering. Internal pain mitigates external pain, and, as a child, mitigating external pain was a significant priority.

But now, it's harming my performance. The pressure I put on myself, I put on my clients which reduces my ability to be patient and empathize. The anxiety I cause myself promotes procrastination and causes stress to my entire body, making sickness and fatigue much more likely. My need to distance myself from others make intimacy significantly difficult. And, interestingly, as my self-esteem rises, I direct more of my internal criticisms towards others (i.e. if I'm doing this and I'm terrible, surely you can do it too so stop failing).

I am tense, I am distant, I am unhappy, and my professional growth is being impeded if not undermined. And, truly, it's that last part that's fostering my desire for change: my own unhappiness is, obviously, necessary and appropriate [eyeroll at self] but when my behaviors hurt others then they obviously need to be changed.

I dunno. Self-hate is a difficult thing to give up. But I might be on the verge of convincing myself that I genuinely need to change. Here's hoping.

That Old Familiar Feeling

I'd say it was roughly six years ago tonight. The early hours of the morning, after an evening spent alone. The notes written to best ferry whoever was left when my world ended to the other side. I cared so much more about others then. And at a least a bit less about myself. So it goes.

Driving to a secluded spot, I took some pills (not enough) and tried to asphyxiate myself. The bag was hot with my breath, gradually tightening as the contours slowly encased my face. I don't know that it was the pain that caused me to pull away. Perhaps the fear. Perhaps I simply doubted my willpower, quitting in the face of difficulty (fire fought with fire).

When I turned back, I just felt an overwhelming failure. People warn you all the time about "not getting yourself killed," and yet here I couldn't even merit an emergency room visit. Too scared of incapacitation. Too scared that falls would not be fatal but would be paralyzing, that pills and poison would have me pissing blood with only liver damage to show my efforts, that nooses would be too long and agonizing if I couldn't find a way to break my neck, that guns would not be obtainable or that the gun violence would hurt the ones who found my pathetic remains. A nonfatal lack of commitment.

I'm not sure I've ever felt so defeated as having to get up and face the rain the next day.

I'd do it differently now, of course. A significant improvement upon the original design requiring a great deal less pain tolerance and less steadfast resolution on my part. And it's almost a shame. The pisspoor research I spent my Saturday mornings upon was comforting. It felt like progress towards relief. Now, my ruminations merely remind me of my lack of conviction. I ask myself "If you could press a button and be dead this moment, would you?" to test my sincerity. And if I let my rational mind make the choice, I answer no. It's only in that spur of the moment, like when the gambling addict places everything spontaneously on the table because it feels good to have the hint of relief not because he has any rational chance of winning, with that impulse that I'd press it. Because my lizardbrain knows the world must end someday, and that I won't even know it to suffer once it has.

I kept telling myself tonight that the desire wasn't real. That, in better moments this would be no choice. That I was exhausted. Stressed. Triggered by failure and helplessness and abandonment and isolation. Triggered by the atmosphere, the calendar, my internal clock. That last year was the same. And the year before. And the year before. And the year before. And the year before. And the year before. And the year before. And the year before. That last April, I was buoyant, floating up when shaken instead of sinking down when lifted up. That that time, that feeling will likely come again. That I might still know love.

I can tell myself these things. But this is not a question of hope, or insight, or progress. This is not a matter of whether "I want to be well."

No. The question that defeats me is "Do I deserve to be well?" Not "Can I love?" or "Will I love?" but "Do I deserve to be loved?" Not "Can I matter?" or "Do I matter?" but "Do I deserve to matter?"

And for the life of me, I cannot figure out how to answer "Yes."

All Us Pretty Things

"Very pretty. You look natural." the woman said as I was leaving. It wasn't the only time someone complimented my appearance while in the outpatient facility in Montreal. But it certainly stood out. "Natural."  To borrow a phrase, "Born this Way." One may as well have said "real." (The "pretty," of course, is attendant upon the "real.") And to hear it from another trans woman haunted me.

"You are so young and so pretty! I cannot believe no one would come with you!" my cis hostess enthusiastically exclaimed at the bed and breakfast (where I stayed the night before moving to the hospital). She was an exuberantly open and affectionate woman who really seemed to be capable of making anyone feel welcome and appreciated. But those first words lingered with me too. As if me being "pretty" ("real") meant that of course I would merit company and support.

The sentiment alone was said effusively, but it was meant in implicit (and, naturally, "well meaning") contrast to some of the other patients, particularly those who had transitioned fairly recently at older ages. And whereas some women who had transitioned a significant number of years ago but were in their 40s would be read as female easily, there were a few women who were in their 50s who had likely not done much HRT or who had transitioned later who I imagine have significantly more difficulties.

Physical appearance as a metric of "realness" is a common tension for trans people. For instance, most of my experiences with trans women have been with a scant few locally and then online. And online, ages skew significantly young. I've written here before about struggling with resentment towards younger transitioners (which I know is a product of my own self-loathing and absolutely nothing to do with any fault or flaw on their parts), and it's a not insignificant chip I carry on my shoulder: how much different, how much better would things be if I had transition at 20? 18? 16? Whenever I run my fingers along my cheeks, whenever I catch my voice skewing masculine, whenever I get rejected because I'm trans, it flares up in spouts of self-hatred. When I see myself in the mirror, when I look at most pictures or videos of myself, I think "Every person I know must be politely refraining from pointing out how foolish it is that I think I'm anything but a man in women's clothing." And I start to desperately wish I was cis, to desperately wish I really was "pretty," to desperately wish I had transitioned before my face masculinized beyond repair. Because I am under no illusions that, regardless of what others say, if I am "pretty" it's only in relation to those who are not read as female as easily as I tend to be.

And when some of these other trans women said "pretty" to me, I wondered: did those women feel similarly to how I feel? Was "pretty" an innocuous compliment, a way of trying to soothe an insecurity I presumably have, or a way of hurting themselves? Did they see me with envy, the way I looked at the young woman who came in the last two days who looked and sounded so cis I wasn't sure whether she or her boyfriend was getting the surgery? Did they think to themselves "I can never be as real, as beautiful, as desirable as her?" Because we know, oh how we know that really, on a fundamental level we are fake. We are hideous. We are undesirable. And, worst of all, we deserve to be unwanted and unloved. Because who could possibly commit such an act of immense charity as to fool themselves enough to join us in the delusion that we are something we are decidedly not?

And the worst part is that this is not a uniquely trans issue. There's a hierarchy, certainly. But if we set "realness" aside, much of that paragraph could apply to most any cis woman comparing herself to the "ideal." A fat woman to a thin woman, an older woman to a younger woman, a woman of color to a white woman, a disabled woman to an able-bodied woman, a fat, older, disabled pre-op trans woman of color to a thin, young, able-bodied, cis white woman. And there's a significant chance that that thin, young, able-bodied, cis white woman can *still* have an eating disorder that causes her to utterly loathe her body, seeing something hideous whenever she looks in a mirror and firmly believing no one could ever find her beautiful.

I know part of me, on some essential level, views being cisgendered as "the goal." If you're read as cis, indistiguishable from cis if no one who "knows" says otherwise, you've "made it." You are "pretty." You are real. You are ideal.

But of course that's ridiculous. Certainly, so very very many things are so much easier/safer at that point. But there's still a never-ending litany of reasons for women to hate their bodies/appearances/selves, whether it's weight, breasts, butt, curves, height, voice, facial structure, skin color, hair, etc etc. Trans women, particularly trans women of color, get the brunt of the intersections of racism/homophobia/misogyny/transphobia, but their oppression is an aggravated manifestation and combination of forces that still affect everyone who is at a higher place up that ladder but not on top (if there is one). Being "cis" wouldn't cure all their problems, it would just reduce the intensity.

And just so, being "cis" wouldn't make me "pretty." I know cis women (who certainly had plenty of viable alternatives, if they wanted to exercise them) have been attracted to me as Juliet. I know that there are people in my life for whom I've always been female without an asterisk. I know the way I see my reflection is tempered by a wicked combination of cultural narratives of platonic ideals and historical narratives of my own lack of worth. "Pretty" is a subjective term applied as if it's an objective pronouncement of worth. And I know that that feigned objectivity is the voice of oppression (or kyriarchy), equating a woman's worth with appearance, with cisness, with whiteness, with thinness, with straightness, with femmeness, with an impossible ideal. (Men's worth is judged too, of course, but on different scales)

But, and this is the key, simply because there are established hierarchies of legitimacy, of worth, of "pretty" does not make them true. When we buy into those hierarchies, we may pretend that we're on a spectrum of worth but really it's a binary: you are valuable or you're not. You are you, or you are perfect.

Knowing this is different than internalizing it. I don't feel I'm "pretty," meaning I don't feel I'm valuable or attractive or desirable or real or human in the way everyone else. But I do realize that I am the only one who can make that determination. Now, it's just a matter of sucking out the poison and letting myself be the beautiful of an authentic self. "Pretty" be damned.

Questioning Self Worth

I've been working on establishing self-worth for myself for quite sometime. Much of that's been figuring out why it's so low (abusive alcoholic father, being trans, not finding fulfillment in work) and taking steps to try to change (distancing self and appropriately categorizing relationship with father, transitioning, getting admitted to program on path to ideal career). And, compared to even a year ago (much less four or five), I'm doing markedly better.

However, what I find myself struggling with now is maintaining that sense of self-worth consistently. While there may be intermittent moments where I feel that I'm a person who can be loved, can be desired, and should be respected, it's difficult for me to consistently foster those feelings for very long. At this point, I honestly think I have a pretty good understanding of why and how I feel. What I need is a way to internalize that understanding, to believe it instead of just being able to abstractly explain it.

So my question(s): Do you feel like you have a healthy sense of your own self-worth? Have you always had it? If you haven't, what did you do to gain it and maintain it? If you're still working on it, what's been particularly helpful for you thus far?

As always, your contributions are incredibly appreciated.