Over the Top: A Raw Journey to Self-Love

by Jonathan Van Ness

You can’t be fiercely loving without also being passionate—and sometimes passionate isn’t pretty. What might seem testy is actually scar tissue, the residual effects of trauma that I lived through.

But as we experience trauma in life, the centered self doesn’t know quite how to deal with it, so it develops pieces of ourselves that we can call upon based on the situations we find ourselves in. It’s not as intense as multiple personality disorder—it’s more, like, we all have these parts in our personality, but some people’s are more extreme or polarized than others.

From hating being alone to now loving my alone time, that evolution has been the most important to my well-being.