I was nominated to undertake this challenge by the beautiful Wren who is one half of the very inspiring and awesome 
. She wrote a very touching and beautiful post about what she forgave herself for. I really recommend you take the time to read it, as my summary would do it no justice.
https://steemit.com/forgivemyself/@mountainjewel/when-i-wished-i-was-my-dog-or-self-forgiveness-challenge
But I will say that her post really resonated with me, how often we feel different and that our true values and selves are unappreciated, all because we saw fault in the society that was happening around us. We did not wish to feed into something that feels so inherently wrong, so we set out to find our own way, and that we did.
It is quite a thing, forgiving oneself. Once I started to think about what it was I wanted to forgive myself for, quite a lot came up. Some things that I am not quiet ready to discuss, this week I have decided that I will be more gentle with myself, so today I start gently with my forgiveness. Even though my story is not a gentle story.
In my twenties, I was living in London and I was really starting to come out, of my very well, built up shell. I had the opportunity to meet lots of people and at times begin relationships with men that would have actually been good for me, but I would always sabotage those relationships, if anything became too serious I would freak out and be gone. I imagine that I was not very well liked for that sort of behaviour.
I have down through the years felt really bad for behaving in such a way, until I actually realized why I was doing it. I was so set on attracting the type of love that I thought I deserved that anything else that filtered through I could not handle, because I really did not believe I deserved it.
For me love was destructive, it was difficult, it was painful and a lot of hard work. I really did not know what real love was, for me the only love I had witnessed growing up was a love that was broken and aggressive.
I did not grow up in a happy home, my parents fought all of the time, verbally and physically. I rarely saw them being tender with one another, to this day I do not know why they are still together. My father was the main aggressor and from a young age he was aggressive with me and my older sister, I was surrounded by violence, even me and my sister became violent towards one another.
Just recently on my return visit to Ireland, my sister and I spoke about our childhood. I have very little memories of that time, but she asked me if I remembered the time she almost choked me with a cord. I didn't, I still don't, she said well luckily our mum walked in as my face began to turn blue and pulled her off me. This to me was love.
So understandably I sought out Love that was difficult and painful, because that was all I knew. For me love was about suffering, it was a battle and I only knew how to fight.
My father does not know how to express love. His main form of communication with us his children was through fear and aggression. I spend most of my life fearful of him, scared to be alone with him, because of what he could do. Yet during all this time I so wanted to be loved by him, I wanted a male figure in my life, like the ones I saw in other families.
That when the time came for me to find a partner or be in a relationship, I only knew how to be with some one who was destructive or broken. Those that were not, I simply did not know how to love them. So I pushed them away, I was rude and hurtful and I am sorry for that. I know I have hurt people in the past, but I now know it was only because I was hurting myself and on such a destructive path, the only path I knew.
My life has taught me many things, I have and continue to learn so much about myself and who I am. I am stubborn and wild. I really find it hard to go to others with my story, to look to others for healing, because I do know it has to come from within me and that we are able to heal ourselves. I still struggle at times with how I think I deserve to be love, but I now know why. My heart is very much in the present with my girls.
I know that I need to allow myself to dig a little deeper at some point, but for now I have started by forgiving myself for my destructive path andin doing so really allowing myself to find the time to nurture and be gentle with myself. I am still learning and I am still healing.
I am meant to nominate some other people to take part in this challenge, I invite anyone who wishes to, to please do so. But Formally I nominate 
Big Big Thank You To 
for designing my logo.
