For the first time though, as another layer has been peeled back, as another life circumstance has revealed that brokenness, as another turn around the same mountain has come and gone, I can no longer ignore the true demons I face. I am at a fork in the road and to decide my path I can no longer claim ignorance. No one is responsible from this moment on, besides me.
I think most people in life walk the fine line of trying to portray what we want to be, what we think we should be. I have always known this, never lied about it, but I think I wasn't aware of how damaging it really is. I've spent a lifetime running from myself, praying and hoping someone, anyone would save me with their love. Whether it is friends, family, or lovers, it has always been the same game of working so hard to give them what they want, forming myself against what I really am.
I was working through some things with my therapist and one of the more pertinent things she said was that when you make a boundary with someone, the risk is, they may not be okay with it. We talk about boundaries as easy, clear and simple, but when your whole life system is built around the notion that you are only worth as much you can give others what they want, boundaries are a privilege, not a necessity. They become threats against the very thing I seek the most: love and acceptance. Ironically enough, this left me wide open to feel rejection as a complete and total comment on me rather than someone else's choice. Now it was about me.
It's ironic, I desire true love, real acceptance, real respect, real effort and commitment, so I chase after others and in the process, defeat myself. If I am twisting, pulling and grasping at them to give me what I need, hoping with all hope that they will speak the words that will heal me, the broken place, they can never know the real me. I morph into their desired image to gain something and along the path, lose respect for myself subconsciously knowing, as long as I am propping myself up for them, they aren't loving me at all. It's all a big sham, and deep down, it only reenforces the notion that I am only worth what I can give, rather than ever hope for relationships that are mutual and healthy. Eventually I stop giving them what they want and it all falls apart again.
A great visual of this was me working feverishly to be with a man that so obviously wasn't up to making a real relationship work. I pandered after a man that can't keep a job, live on his own and has no issues with taking from me whatever he can get and me having no concept that this isn't okay would be almost comical if it hadn't been so true. I would have jumped the moon for him, but the first sign of my less than perfect existence and he was heading for the door faster than a speeding bullet. I've seen people jump out of relationships, but never with such easy blame and manipulation. I still struggle with feeling it was all my fault... but yet, that is just another demon to face and slay. When he walked away he left with the phrase "I just found out who you were..." To a person that feels shame deeply and only wants to be loved and accepted, it is more than a knife to the heart. It is a confirmation of the deepest fear: if you saw the real me, you wouldn't love me. The truth is, I wanted intimacy and was fighting to find a way to get there, and he could only go so far. He was right, we wanted different things, I wanted to learn and grow, he didn't want to change. He wanted to different lives: who he was and who he wanted people to think he was and someone loving you doesn't leave much room for lies. I couldn't see that though, all I could see was the rejection. That's what needing love does. It blinds to everything besides need.
Thus comes the hard process. If I ever want this damn roller-coaster to end, I am going to have to be the one to end it. I am going to have to do what I have never been taught, witnessed nor experienced. I am going to have to learn how to do for me what no one else has ever done: choose to love me. I am going to have to do the very thing I so wish someone would do for me, accept me and all my demons, my brokenness, my insecurity, my neediness and my little girl desire for love and believe I am still okay.
This world is full of hurting people that turn around and hurt others in hopes of feeling better. We all do it. We lash out, we manipulate, we degrade to help prop up the hopelessly failing images we think will make us acceptable enough to love. I've watched girl-friends do it. Example: a good friend of mine was in a very important relationship for her a while ago. It was hard for her when the relationship ended. She was invested and she loved simply and beautifully and I so hurt for her. Well, someone we both knew recently had to bring up the fact that her ex was dating someone new. This person brought up the sore issue under the guise of "How are you doing with that?" Well, my friend had no idea her ex had a girlfriend, and it hurt her, and it hurt bad.
Sounds innocent enough, except, I can see through a little of the bullshit. No one needed to bring it up. No one needed to open that wound. It's high school drama and as friends, why talk about it unless it is volunteered by the injured party? Why? Because it makes the person asking the question, bringing up the wound feel good. For a split second they get to inflict pain that they most likely feel themselves and then turn around and look so kind by feeling so "guilty" it was brought up. It's manipulative and it's mean and... it's what hurting people do.
I expect so much more from the people that surround me, and yet over and over again I am somehow surprised when it happens all over again. A "friend" telling me I need to fatten up so she feels skinnier. Seriously? Another friend leaving a friendship and telling me I "pushed them away." My ex once told me whenever his best friend called me a "bitch" he always told him how I was such a great girl. I'm confused, should I be pissed, hurt, or someone glad that you "stuck up" for me? The truth is, it never needed to be said and if he was any man of honor, he would have no problem telling his friend that those words are unnecessary and he didn't know the whole story... or whatever.
These subtle and not too subtle messages betray the truth: these people aren't happy and they can't see how what they do makes others feel. It's sad and it's typical and I ashamedly admit I have done it so many times in so many ways. The hard part is, I'm rarely healthy enough to see it for what it is and let it go. Instead I let the messages sink in, reenforcing some awful lie I have bought as snake oil: I am the problem. I am damaged, I was lucky you loved me and now I am pathetic that you don't anymore.
This is what happens when I don't have enough respect for myself to surround myself with people that are healthy. I end up being pulled down to a level where I feel as though I am worth nothing more than their cutting words and disrespect.
So I have a choice: believe this is the way it is always going to be, or do it differently. Granted I have no idea how to do it differently, to feel differently, to be different, but somewhere along the line, I want to genuinely be the woman I project, not just in faking it. I want to be full of peace, grace, love and compassion. I want to be stable, respecting myself and others, having boundaries that are appropriate and usher in relationships that are healthy and full of joy and peace, not chaos and degradation. No one makes me good or bad, only I decide whether or not I believe those messages.
I have always wanted someone to risk on me, to see more than just a funny comment, or wise advice, or pure loyalty at any cost. I have always wanted people to see my value, mostly because I didn't know if there was any and I needed others to tell me. Now though, I have to do for me what I always wanted: I have to risk for me. I have to believe I am worth more than just a number of friendships, pairs of shoes, random bits of information and my "fun personality." I have to believe that under the insecurity, the wounding, the neediness, the layers of makeup, hair, clothing, memorized Bible verses, witty conversation and funny anecdotes, there is a woman of value wanting to be set free. It's time for the one thing I have been avoiding, coming to peace with myself.
Circumstances in life have done a pretty good job of revealing all of insecurities and failings I operate out of. It's hard knowing your wounds are so obvious to everyone and it's even harder when those you love use those very wounds as reasons to walk away. It's a double negative that leaves only more shame in it's wake. I feel old and bedraggled before my time. Life seems to be passing me by and I don't know how to restart my engines, but I also know, I can't keep going like this. Something has got to give, and I realize, it's me. What am I really going to believe about me? I said it before, but now it makes more sense, hurting people hurt people, but are those the messages I am going to believe? Who's voice is going to be more important, theirs? Or mine? Who am I going to believe? Is shame and fear going to have the final say? God I hope not.
As I step forward, I realize, things are going to start shifting again. I may lose again. What friends I do have, the ones I have clung to for dear life in the last few years, may not adjust with me. I risk rejection again, but this time, I know the consequences of not making myself, my voice, my heart and my belief about myself a priority. It means I am going to have to take a good hard look at me, forgiving myself my mistakes, my failings, my time lost, and eventually, I am going to have to forgive others. The perspective of unrealistic love, expectations, and daydreams is going to have to end and be replaced with honest evaluation. Who am I and who am I surrounding myself with? Am I going to find the same sort of people all over again, ones that will punish me when my usefulness is gone? Will I continue to find people that keep me on a scale, letting me know when immediately they have tipped in the direction of "too much burden?" Will I even know what it looks like to not live that way? God I hope so.
It will be lonely for a while. All the old systems are going to have to go. I won't know how to speak, see, or listen. I will have to practice brutal honesty, accept responsibility for my part and have grace that tomorrow is a new day and today can still be great. I may be 26, but my life is far from over. Would I rather be surrounded by people that I can't be myself with, constantly living in fear that my needs and desires will push them away for the sake of numbers, activities, or acceptance, or will I let myself be honest, risk a little loneliness for the cause of my own heart? I've lived through worse, for now, maybe I am worth the effort. In time, things will change again. I'll meet new people, build new relationships, adjust to being myself and slowly allow people to meet the real me... as I find her.
It will be slower, less intense, but far more intimate, far more real. Hopefully, as this process continues, I will learn what it means to know love from others in the right way. If between the Lord and I, we become enough, we become my whole, my peace, my meaning and my foundation, then anything on top of that becomes the one thing I have always wanted: authentic.
And who knows, maybe along the way, as I learn to see differently, those that have spoken anything less than respect into my life will stop seeming so important and those that are truly healthy, truly loving, truly hopeful and full of peace will become more and more attractive. The wounds of the past will find their place and finally stop shading the future. Maybe, hopefully, I will begin to have the grace for others I have always sought, to understand their limitations without holding it against them. I won't have to be the one that knows it all, or always has something to say. It will take a while, learning a whole knew set of conversational skills that doesn't involve me trying to fix someone or invading their boundaries since that's all I've ever known, but I think it's possible. I think I may just learn how to speak less and listen more. I think I may learn how to let someone have their struggle without needing to get involved, or feeling responsible. I just may learn how to be peaceful anywhere, anytime, knowing I am okay with me and that is all that matters. I may even learn how to smile from the inside out. I think there's hope for me yet.
