Matthew Perry & Self-Love

This weekend I finished Matthew Perry's (aka Chandler Bing) memoir. A typical celebrity memoir might be name drop central, or list after list of bad decisions, but this book is about his recovery from addictions.

And his shitty treatment of women.

For years. 

Decades.

Okay, he is not a bona fide asshole. He was seriously afraid of commitment, pathologically afraid of getting close to people, and as a result, he pushed people way before he could get hurt. He had one girlfriend he dated for two years and she nursed him back to health during two years of him being in and out of rehab. As soon as he got out, he dumped her.

WFT? Who does this?

Repeat this pattern until he is fifty-three years old and still single with no family. He falls in love with woman. She falls in love with him. He turns into a chicken shit and dumps her. For no reason.

His book did him no favors, either, because now he can only date women who haven't read the book because they would run like hell to the hills if he came knocking on their door.

Or, they'd think "Oh I can fix this poor fucked up soul! I know he can change!"

Bullshit. And that would be the exact type of woman he wouldn't need.

I shouldn't be so harsh on the guy. Really, I shouldn't.

Around 85% into the book, I though he was an asshole and I hated him. I almost didn't finish the book, but I had to find out of he could stay sober. I am assuming he did, but ya know, I wanted to read how he got there.

I also know that sobriety is a fragile thing--people relapse all of the time. Some people with addition can be sober for thirty or forty or fifty years. Other people bounce in and out over the years.

By the end of the book, I felt heart broken for Perry instead of thinking he was a jerk. I felt bad for him that he could never feel settled in a relationship. 

But I also understood something I heard before: in order to love someone else, we must love ourselves first. Previously, I had thought that was maybe not quite true, or I didn't fully understand what that meant. I've also heard that people don't love themselves can be helped when they are in a healthy relationship -- that they can learn to love themselves when someone else loves them first. They can see themselves as worthy.

But sometimes the holes in the soul can be challengingly deep, and without a small baselines of self-love, it is hard.

So, Matthew Perry--and anyone else out there struggling from similar kinds of addictions and fear of love-- I wish you self-love. I wish that you could see yourself as others love you. I wish that you didn't have to face your demons and darkness all alone. I wish you peace.