In recovery, I have had to release a lot of lies about myself and my life to make room for the truth to come in. I spent years of dysfunctional living believing that I was bad, wrong, awful, hopeless.
Those are the things that I told myself and what I heard from others who benefited from my low self-worth. The messages were strong, and it wasn't easy to release all these harmful untruths.
Therapy helped me unpack the lies. Promiscuity in my teens had a logical explanation: I was merely looking for affection in all the wrong places.
Dropping out of university after one year was a trauma response, not a failure of intellect. Dealing drugs was unsafe and illegal, but it was a survival technique.
Abortion was another survival response, something that I didn't choose lightly. Being beaten in a relationship was never, ever something that I deserved.