“What if the parts about yourself that you hate the most are the parts you need to love the most? Maybe it was never about erasing your mistakes. Perhaps it was about embracing all of you? Mistakes and all?“

There’s a blog I follow called Living Life With Complex PTSD. If you start at the beginning of it and read this woman’s story, you’ll know why she lives with complex PTSD. She’s an amazing person on a journey of healing, and she shares that journey on this blog. Her posts are brief, but inspiring.

One that has particularly stuck with me is from January 4th, titled Embracing all of you. I quoted it, in its entirety, at the beginning of this post.

And I suppose, it has resonated so deeply with me because it’s something that has always been – and still is – really difficult for me.

I have very little tolerance for my own fallibility. It’s because I believe every mistake I make reduces me a little more in the estimation of everyone else. I’ve disappointed them, again.

And, if I’m really honest…somewhere inside me, I can almost always sense somebody’s shaking head and disappointed look. Because I’ve seen it before, and it just crushes me. Every time. Whether I see it every time, or not.

How can I embrace that?

In my head, I know this woman is right. To fully engage with this life means engaging with the good and the bad in it, including within myself. To acknowledge the parts of me I hate, as well as the parts I love. As much as I may want to get the biggest eraser I can find, and rub out all the mistakes in my life, I have to resign myself to the reality of never getting to do that.

It’s not that I feel I should be above messing up, like that’s for other people to do, not me. It’s not that I feel like I should be better at this than everyone else.

I just get so tired of feeling like I’m worse, you know?