Tashmia LaGuerre’s Process Letter

• I would describe my writing process to be pretty quick for the most part. I organized my ideas

for the paper very well so that the process would go smoother and I wouldn’t have forgotten

any important details that I wanted to add to it.

• I found the assignment very interesting because it really made me dig deep into all of my

memories, good and bad, to reflect on it which reminded me of important times in my life. I

would say the most difficult part about the assignment was definitely trying to figure out what

I was going to write about because there were so many different themes that I could’ve chosen

from, but I didn’t want to write about anything that either would’ve been really boring or a

very common topic. I wanted to write more about something that would be more eye opening

and a topic that isn’t commonly spoken about.

• I enjoyed writing in a story form because it reflected back on one of the hardest times of my

life and it was therapeutic to let out how I felt in my situation.

• I continuously revised my grammar as well as making sure that I didn’t write my sentences in

the same format every single time, since I don’t have much character or variety in how I word

my sentences. The feedback from the workshops helped me to improve on what I could do

better on and definitely made an impact in my final draft.

• I learned that I actually have more potential as a writer than I expected because I have

developed more techniques over time.

• My goal for the paper was to leave a memorable impression and moral to the story. My attempt

was to emphasize how important and underrated my discussed topic is.


Tashmia LaGuerre

Dr. Tara Roeder

FYW 1000C

12 February 2019

The Greatest Love of All

Who doesn’t want to be loved? It’s human nature to have a desire for being loved and

accepted for who you are. Love comes in all different forms: from family, to friends, to

relationships, from words, to actions, to feelings. But the way we love different people or objects

all differ from one another. Like you may love your mom, but not in the same way as your

favorite food. But what about yourself? How do you show self love to yourself as an individual?

In the past, I always thought self love was a cliche, but as I learned more about myself, I grew up

learning the fact that self love actually is the greatest love of all.

I think everyone has a similar version to this story somehow, but school is definitely a

place that challenges your ability to love yourself. It can really be a mean and intimidating place

sometimes, especially if you’re new or shy around other people. Between elementary and middle

school, all I ever wanted to do was fit in with everybody else. My first goal every time I stepped

into that building was to come out later on with an even larger friend group. I didn’t care who

they were or what their intentions of me were, as long as they “liked” me. My second goal was to

made sure I kept the friends I made every single day so I could make sure I was friendly with

everyone and have as many best friends as I could. The point of me doing this was essentially to

reassure myself that I am good enough the way that I am. The main problem with that was that I
was changing myself to be good enough for anybody I came across. I changed the way I acted,

dressed, and talked to be the same as everyone else. For years, I had wanted to get rid of the real

me and adapt to the “normal” version of me.

Over time, I learned that doing that may have made the others happy, but what about me?

I felt like everything about me was disappearing. Like as if I didn’t know who I was anymore. I

wasn’t living for myself, I was living for other people and their happiness; which is not a bad

thing to make other people happy, but not if it was negatively affecting myself. And even then, I

didn’t even know if these “friends” really liked me or they were as fake as the show that I was

putting on for them. This is what I realized was my first step in learning how to love myself. I

knew deep down inside that I shouldn’t be someone who isn’t really me because it was doing

more harm than good. Especially, I wasn’t sure if the people I surrounded myself with at the time

was going to stick with me into the future. Who are they for me to give them the power to change

myself into somebody else?

From then on, I had continued my high school years learning my lesson from my

adolescent mistakes and became the person I had wanted to be known for, the REAL me. By

doing that, I had created much stronger bonds than the eternal friendships I thought I created in

middle school. But it seems that I hadn’t completely grasped the idea of what loving yourself

really is. It’s not just accepting yourself and who you are, but it can go to even deeper levels. Self

love also means self protection, and making sure that you don’t hold onto whatever can be

blindly destroying you. In the beginning of my junior year in high school, I started dating one of

my best friends. The relationship ended up going downhill because my best friend wasn’t the

person I thought he was once he became my boyfriend. I discovered in my relationship with him
that he had some type of mental disorder that he and I both didn’t know about because he didn’t

want to seek help for it. My goal for him was to help him fight whatever internal fights he was

having with himself and get him the help he needed to be happy, and I felt that by leaving the

relationship no matter how toxic it got, I would be letting him down. With this, I ended up

getting myself into what felt like an inescapable and abusive relationship for seven months. I was

controlled into dressing how he wanted me to, went where he wanted me to, and be who he

wanted me to. I was threatened to drop some of the friends I had even if they had caused us no

harm. I’ve had times where I came home from school soaking wet, with puffy eyes from crying,

and sometimes I didn’t even want to come home because I felt like it was unsafe for me to be

there. The thing with manipulative or abusive relationships is, you don’t realize you’re in it until

you’re too deep in it to get yourself out of it. You start to rationalize everything that goes on and

make excuses for the other person and their actions; or you hope that it’s just a phase and it

eventually gets better. There was just a certain point where I said to myself, “What am I doing?

What is the point of this? What am I benefiting from this?” because I couldn’t even believing

that I was allowing myself to be treated the way I was. It was so destructive to be feeling as if I

were a puppet, and couldn’t escape because I was worried for him, myself, and everyone I loved

and their lives. One of my biggest mistakes through this entire time was that I never told

anybody what I was going through. If any of my family members or friends saw me, they would

have no idea what was really going on in my relationship. I was afraid to be vulnerable and ask

for help because I wanted to be able to handle it by myself. Over time, I learned that nothing was

going to change if I didn’t take action for it.

 Because I was so powerless and couldn’t end the relationship on my own, I turned to my

mom after months and confessed everything that I had been through this entire time. After I

spent what felt like an eternity to get the words out of my mouth while crying, she told me that

the only way I was able to end the relationship at this point was through a restraining order. I

know, it sounds crazy. That’s exactly how I felt in the moment when I was in court against

someone who was my best friend just before the situation.

Standing in front of a judge to legally separate myself from my best friend was one of the

most frustrating moments of my life. I was upset because I didn’t want it to end this way, but I

also continued to worry for him and his health. I knew that I finally was going to have a weight

lifted off my shoulders once I could finally live my life in my own way again, but it was also

hard for me to live my life differently and more carefully. Once time started passing by since the

restraining order was placed, I realized that I was looking out for another person so much that I

neglected myself and my own health. This was a lesson for me to learn that self love is not

something developed overnight. It has its different forms and it only takes time and experience to

learn and master all of them. My perspective of self love is basically accepting the fact that you

cannot “fix” other people without “fixing” yourself first. By fixing, I mean trying to solve their

problems and make themselves happy while you leave no energy for yourself to solve your own

problems. The body and mind can only handle so much, so it is not selfish for you to handle

what you can for yourself first.

I cannot take full credit for the level of self love I developed, because I realized that it is

something that not everybody can get started with on their own. Sometimes it takes a boost from

another person or group of people in your life to boost you and encourage you to be yourself at
your fullest potential. For me, my biggest influence was my mom. Throughout my entire life, she

has always emphasized to me to never be afraid of myself and not to compare myself with other

people. She also had reminded me every single day to live for myself and not other people. What

she meant by this is that I should never do something that I don’t want to do for another person’s

sake, but for my own. No matter what I do, it has to be genuine and only because it is only what I

want to do. Whenever I am stressed, I often beat myself up over whatever I am stressed about

and I keep worrying about it until it eventually goes away. I don’t recommend it for anyone

because it is a horrible coping mechanism, but what I do know for sure is that not everybody is

perfect. So whenever my family and friends catch me acting different, they know I am internally

beating myself up for whatever I am worrying about. But one of the best pieces of advice my

mom has ever given me is that humans are forever progressing and are not perfect. We will

always be under construction and life is always about accepting that fact.

With practicing self love, I have learned to retain peace of mind and confidence in

myself. It encourages personal growth and self confidence, which is essential for getting through

the harshness and cruelty of the world. In the end, nobody is going to know how to completely

solve your internal conflicts except yourself. I learned that I am in control of my life only and

nobody else’s, and vice versa. So why not utilize my ability to better myself to be the best

version of me I can be? If I want to miss out on a party to leave some quiet down time for myself

for a night, I will do it because that’s what will be best for ME. If I want to wear my hair a

different way today than what I did yesterday, I will do it because I want to do it for ME. If I

want to chase my dream of being a pharmacist, I will do it because I want to do what works best

for ME. Once you learn to prioritize your needs first, everything else falls into place.