Raspberry Iced M

I want to try to explain something that I have only recently understood. Something I had to learn the hard way.

What most people think they know about trauma, about abandonment, about narcissism, about people pleasing? It’s usually not correct.

And I know that because I’ve worn every one of those badges – not because I was a bad person (despite the attempts of many to convince me otherwise), but because something inside of me didn’t feel safe.

When we are children, we start gathering information about ourselves, and drawing conclusions based on that information.

When we’re young, and before our brains are even fully developed, we experiment with different qualities – inside the expectations of our superiors – to try to see what fits. What feels right. What makes us most comfortable. What earns us the most acceptance.

And based on a lack of acceptance and lack of comfortability in certain situations, I learned that something was wrong with me. I learned that I wasn’t like everyone else. So I tried it all. I developed strategies to deal with the wounds that lack of acceptance and discomfort created.

Very early, I developed the skill of observation. I read every room. I was obnoxious and outgoing around some. Reserved and a profound thinker around others. I learned what was appropriate based on the situation and based on the needs of others. And I attempted to master every performance in various social settings.

And eventually it all landed in a dishonest place. Not because I intended to be wholly dishonest, but because the approval of others mattered more – in isolated moments – than being completely truthful.

That’s where it started. And I figured out that masking my genuine self – before I even learned who I really was – earned me more friends, more recognition, and more support.

It was relief, even if only temporary.

And as my dishonesty was exposed and that relief turned into something internally chaotic…as I lost those friends and that acceptance and that comfort, shame snatched me by my head.

And that’s the way it’s been ever since. That cycle. Because the strategy I developed long ago to acquire approval didn’t go away as I matured. It followed me. And it began showing up across my adult relationships.

First the need for acceptance. Dishonesty and masking and performance to earn that acceptance. Relief. Then exposure. Chaos. Shame, and the desire to escape it…which perpetuated my need for more acceptance…thus prompting more dishonesty and masking and performance.

For the better part of two decades, as that cycle has repeated itself, it’s always been somewhere between the “steps” of exposure and shame that I decide I am going to submit to truth and commit to interrupting that cycle.

Fake the smile. Swallow your own needs. Straighten up.

That need for acceptance didn’t disappear. In fact, it still exists.

But in order to combat that need, I stopped expressing myself outwardly. Instead, I learned how to shrink. I became very self-conscious. I learned to hide and protect myself because I didn’t want to feel even more like I didn’t fit in. I learned to ignore my own boundaries, my own values, and my own worth just to hold onto people that never intended to stay in the first place.

If being outgoing won’t get me there, maybe becoming a doormat will.

I abandoned myself. It’s just that simple.

I was so focused on not being left that I left myself.

And what I’ve come to terms with is that all of this served a purpose at certain points in my life. As a child, those patterns and that cycle protected me. They helped me cope. They helped me navigate situations where I didn’t feel seen or loved. And as an adult, I felt like I only belonged if I was needed.

None of this meant something was wrong with me. It only meant that something inside of me adapted so that I could access acceptance.

But I’m not a child anymore. I’m not young anymore. I’m self-aware. Finally. And what once protected me eventually became a huge problem for me and the people around me, because as I continued to repeat that cycle, and as people were negatively affected by it, the subsequent result was destruction.

Narcissism. People-pleasing. Those aren’t personality traits. They’re just disregulated nervous systems without containment.

Something feels unsafe, so your system reacts.

But the reaction isn’t always truth. It’s an alarm.

And here’s the shift…

I was not the alarm. I was the one hearing it go off. I’m not the voices in my head trying to negotiate my worth. I am the person receiving those voices.

I have spent most of my life in fear. Fear of rejection.

But fear isn’t real danger. Fear cannot hurt me.

So I stopped trying to fix the wound. And instead, I started observing the pattern. And what I’ve seen so far isn’t rejection. I’ve seen reality.

Nothing stays the same. Everything changes. People. Roles. Rules. Scenery. Circumstances. Even the stars, which look like they’re fixed in the sky, move. And since everything evolves, so do other people. Including people we love.

For the better part of a year, I have forced myself to sit in the discomfort I used to try to unhealthily and dishonestly escape. I’ve resisted the habitual urge to fix relationships. I’ve let go of any false sense of control that I used to desire and I’ve allowed people to reject me. I’ve allowed unforgiveness. I’ve allowed accusations. And gossip. And assumptions.

What I have realized in the middle of this season of isolation is that none of it matters. Whoever stays, stays. Whoever leaves, leaves. Whoever talks, talks. Defending a destructive pattern, justifying my own boundaries, apologizing over and over, working for acceptance – none of it makes a difference. It is counterproductive to want to learn who I really am if I give other people the keys to my worth.

So while losing people used to terrify me – so much so that I altered my personality to suit their needs – now I’m just here – still sitting in discomfort and fear. I’m not defending what I’ve done. I’m not working to fix any relationship. I am not apologizing anymore than I already have. I am not anchored in external acceptance. I’m not clinging to a desire to be understood. And slowly but surely, the discomfort and fear that used to be unbearable isn’t so scary anymore.

There is freedom in letting go. In not chasing. In being misunderstood.

You’re okay. Just rest.

I am not a person who has ever been allowed to not know how to handle things.

I’m a person who – of her own choosing – grew up too fast, and then acted upon every urge to escape responsibilities I was not emotionally prepared to handle.

I am not someone who has ever been able to learn from a single mistake, but instead, I put the Mistake Playlist on shuffle and/or repeat, so that a series of the same mistake became a noticeable destructive pattern that many, many of my former friends and family members define as my character.

hurt → seek relief → act against values → shame → self-loathing → need comfort → seek relief again

I am someone whose decisions have negatively impacted many, but none as much as myself.

I am a person whose mind attributes production with love, and because other people, who are aware of my destructive patterns, assume that someone with my “character” is not capable of love, I have worked extra hard to prove those people wrong, which has turned my love into something transactional.

I brought tiny human beings into this world before I became whole, and I sacrificed and showed up and put my own healing on pause, so that now, all my children see when they look at me is a mess.

I have unintentionally wrecked lives because I was trying to “feel better.”

But intention doesn’t matter. Not to them.

And there are a dozens of people who watch me from afar now. No contact. No communication. No engagement. Just observation and a hope that whatever narrative they have written about me doesn’t change by my making better choices – because if I ever straighten myself out…if I ever do anything correctly…if I ever finally learn…their hatred for me no longer makes sense. Those are the same people who couldn’t be bothered to support me or show me kindness or give me grace, but were also standing over me to laugh when I fell down.

Early on, self-loathing became self-soothing. I convinced myself that being overly loud, overly obnoxious, and overly funny would hide my hurt and my insecurities. And I have been dishonest, off and on, my entire life, morphing myself into someone I’m not, just to feel like I belonged…because the Real Me? She doesn’t belong anywhere, except maybe a grave.

And when being outgoing and extraverted and hilarious didn’t attract the acceptance I sought, I tried the opposite – shrinking. Their needs > mine. I became low maintenance. Tiny. A doormat. I had no boundaries. And I ate crumbs with gratitude.

But when the crumbs didn’t satisfy my hunger for being chosen, or prioritized, or even considered, I sprinted to new crowds. New people. New men…whose interests I adopted as my own, whose needs I tried to meet so that a space in their lives was reserved just for me. But eventually, their attitudes about me ultimately became how I felt about myself.

Not once. Not twice.

Over…and over…and over. Not constantly. But intermittently.

And thus a destructive pattern. A metaphorical stamp of brokenness that has left spectators satisfied with their own opinions of me. My very own Scarlet Letter, forever reminding me that I was born into messy, I stayed messy, and now I am consequentially doomed to carry messy. Alone and without the support I have tried a hundred ways to earn.

Temporary relief is not relief at all, but that is a difficult observation to make when the relief is happening. So the first 20 years of my adult life were spent in irony as I ran directly toward a pattern I tried so hard to white-knuckle. The problem is that not once did that pattern ever scratch my itch. It only perpetuated the self-hatred I thought I was running away from.

There is no one to blame except myself for the people I’ve lost.

And that loss has presented itself in a similar, ironic way, because I once ate their crumbs. The discomfort I now force myself to sit in has created space for me to see that losing people who only offer crumbs may not be loss at all.

And now I keep my mouth shut. But I don’t hide. Now I reflect without white-knuckling. Now I accept abandonment and rejection instead of trying to fight it.

And I also understand.

For the first time in 20 years.

I understand.

That’s not important to anyone but me. Other people don’t care if I understand, much less care, themselves, to understand. And that is okay.

What I have done is wrong. Morally repugnant. Spiritually stifling.

I knew it the first time. And then second. And on and on…

But knowing that something is wrong and having the inner capacity to stop doing it are not always the same thing.

The people who left? They assume that my repeated betrayals mean I am evil, I am immoral, and that I didn’t care if I hurt people. And while that narrative holds a certain amount of water, human beings are so much more complicated than that type of categorization.

Something drove that destructive pattern. I merely attempted to solve pain.

1. I tried to meet a legitimate need in an illegitimate way. I wanted to feel validated, chosen, excited. I wanted to escape loneliness. I wanted a distraction from grief and my own emptiness. Real needs. Damaging methods.
2. What I have generalized as a destructive pattern started and ended, initially, as a coping mechanism. Instead of grieving rejection, I sought attention elsewhere. Instead of speaking honestly about how unseen I felt, I sought intensity in other forms. That’s not my character’s destiny. It’s just conditioning.
3. My shame for one decision fueled the fire for the next round. A vicious cycle with a detrimental outcome.
4. I was emotionally starving. It is natural for other people to judge a final act while ignoring the years I spent with unmet needs. I picked the scabs of every wound – loneliness, resentment, numbness…until I finally realized that vulnerability wasn’t an option.
5. As I’ve already established, I firmly believed that attention equaled worth. If someone needed/wanted me, I mattered. Each new pursuit felt like medicine. Only recently have I realized how expensive that medicine really was.
6. I was at war with myself. I knew it was wrong. But desperation overrode conviction.

I don’t ask myself why I was bad anymore. I get it now.

And I don’t seek support or acceptance like I once did. I have just realized that it’s probably not something I’ll ever have.

Instead I’ve answered questions so that I can identify my triggers.

What pain was I medicating? What need felt unbearable the longer it went unmet? What belief about myself kept seeking outside proof? What emotion was I not able to sit with? What was I trying to feel each time?

Knowing right from wrong increases responsibility. But it hasn’t put me in a place beyond redemption, even if that redemption does not come from those crumbs I mentioned.

Now healing looks like radical honesty without self-crucifixion. Identifying the unmet need beneath the reactive behavior. And learning how to meet that need myself.

I have made amends where possible. I have built boundaries against the old cycle.

And I am trying my best to accept that my past behavior is data, not my identity.

But convincing other people that I’m worth more than crumbs…that I’m worth a second (or third or fourth) glance…that I’m safe…is an unachievable goal.

So I quit trying.

There’s a particular kind of helplessness that comes when someone you love leaves.

Whether they walk away suddenly. Or slowly. Emotionally, physically, or relationally…

The impact is the same.

A pattern in my life – abandonment. And I really have no one to blame by myself.

People choose distance for a reason. And as I have gotten older, I’ve come to understand that whether I agree with the reason or not, the result is the same – I end up alone. And I’m left standing in a life that exists, but is altered.

And that’s okay. That part I cannot control.

When someone leaves, it awakens a hundred painful thoughts.

Was I really that awful?
Why can’t I just be enough?
Is it fixable?
Will they come back?
How do I move forward now?

The mind searches for answers because answers feel like control.

But most times, those answers aren’t clear. At least not immediately.

I cannot control someone else’s choices, their timing, their willingness to communicate, the ability to love well, whether or not they regret leaving, whether or not they understand my pain…

…and all of that hurts.

But it also clears the ground for something important.

Control does not come from getting those people back. It comes from returning to myself.

I can take back control of my routines. I choose to get up. Eat. Move my body. Keep structure in my days.

Pain loves empty space.

I do not have to spend every waking hour replaying what happened.

Wondering what they’re all doing.
Checking my phone.
Living in a loop of mental conversations.

My mind deserves better use than endless replays.

I am deeply affected when people leave.

But it doesn’t define what I am worth.

I do not accept the label of “the one who gets left.”

I am still a full person with value outside of others’ decisions.

And while those chapters include loss, they do not make up my entire book.

Healing, for me, has not been two or three dramatic breakthroughs.

There hasn’t been instant peace.

Currently it looks like crying but still logging in for work. Hurting and still paying bills. Missing them and making dinner. Grieving and still showing up.

That quiet functioning is often healing in disguise.

At first, all I wanted was control over other people’s choices. Their return. The conversation. The aftermath. Their explanation.

But eventually, real healing asks for control over my own next steps. How I live now. How I care for myself now. How I grow now.

And the cold, hard truth is perhaps the hardest to swallow – some of those people will never come back. Sometimes closure doesn’t come through reunion. Instead, it comes through rebuilding and becoming stable without the person who left, thereby destabilizing my world.

When someone I love leaves me, sometimes it feels like they take my peace with them.

But peace that can be carried away by another person wasn’t secure to begin with.

Real peace gets rebuilt. Inside routines. Boundaries. Self-respect. And inside the version of me that has learned that I didn’t control their leaving…

…but I can absolutely control what I build next.