Love is a powerful word.

Each and every day we tell at least one person we love them or say we love an object. So many of us can claim to love other people and objects yet very few of us can say, "Hey, I love myself."

I know this firsthand. I am one of those many who cannot say, "Hey, I love myself." I believe it started at a young age. I became my own enemy.

Being your own enemy is the worst person to battle. I continue to battle my thoughts to this day. I remember the time I first began to dislike myself. I had just got done with getting radiation to burn out my thyroid and they had sent me home. The doctors told me I could not have any contact with my family members for an entire week just to make sure they weren't affected by the radiation. Throughout that entire week, I had little to no contact, so I was engulfed with my own thoughts. That's when I began to pick out all my bad qualities. I began to ponder on all of them. It was that week I began to "fall out of love" with myself.

Now, I continue to battle. I have invasive thoughts that make me believe I'm worthless. I feel useless, unworthy, unloveable. I don't see meaning in myself at times. Many people would call this depression, but I call it "not loving myself".

I can say having my heart broken countless times may play a roll in why I don't love myself. I can say that being adopted plays a role. I can say being bullied plays a role as well. All of these have played a small part, but truthfully I believe it is mainly a mental thing. No one but myself can determine if I'm loveable or not. Nobody but me can love myself. I cannot say I choose not to love myself because I want to. I really would love to love myself, but I cannot simply just up and go love myself. Each time I've tried that, the invasive thoughts come into play. I tell myself, "you're not beautiful enough," "you're not skinny enough," "you're not smart enough," "you're not cool enough, or popular, or funny, etcetera." All these different thoughts and I continue to belittle myself. I want to stop. I want to know what it feels like to be happy with myself.

I hope one day I can learn. I hope one day these thoughts will be happy. I hope one day I can love myself the way I want someone to love me. I hope. Hope is the only thing I have right now.

"You should love yourself," they say. It's easier said than done.