I Was Seeking Validation, Now I'm Just Seeking Peace.
I gave My all and was left feeling unfulfilled. Now I wonder if I did it for the right reasons.
Earlier this year I wrote and article for a magazine talking about the difference between clout chasing and doing things for the impact. When I wrote it, I don’t think I thought I was talking to Myself but as the months pass by, I think I am. While in Mexico for My birthday, I found Myself truly questioning My own motives for many of My actions in the past year, especially the last six months.
I’ve done quite a lot because I could.
I’ve done too much because I was bored with nothing else to do.
I’ve done things I shouldn’t because I didn’t want to do things alone.
I did things for attention.
There are things I’ve done because I wanted to, and they mattered but I’d be a liar if I said the other reasons weren’t just as prevalent as My good intentions.
Some of My struggle I know comes from battle My with Dissociative Identity Disorder and feeling pulled in so many different directions; I think a lot of the rest comes from My abandonment issues. I feel like I’m always accommodating, fixing things, and walking on thin ice to keep people in My life. Very rarely have I felt safe and secure of My place in anyone’s life. I find Myself letting too much slide, monitoring My words and planning everything so I could be included.
I recently noticed that I was repeating a cycle with someone that had driven Me crazy with My former closest friend.
* We meet & they tell Me how depressed they are
* I help they get back on their feet
* I make them close to Me like family
* They start getting better and the person I met Is not the person they are. That
was the hurt them.
* I start to notice finally that they never suggest we do things first, all excursions
are ones I plan
* It hits Me they’ve been essentially playing follow the leader all along
* I realize I never made a friend, I had trauma bonded with someone
* We fall apart
I go through this cycle regularly, always trying to fix people. It’s kinda like finding a stray dog outside, taking it in to clean up and love on.
I’ve always been lonely but surrounded by people. I have a nice sized family and large extended family. In fact, I have at least six cousins who are all within 1-5 years older than Myself. One of My prominent childhood memories is being around ten years of age and at My great grandmother’s house for Easter and My female cousins running from Me. I was smaller, less developed, not around as much and they’d all rather be together than with Me. I was too old to hang with the young kids and too different to hang with My cousins closer to My age.
The funny things about this story is when I was in high school, I became close friends with a girl. The first time I went to her home, I saw a picture of her with My cousin whom she informed Me, had been one of her best friends. I recounted the above story to her, recalling them running from Me. To My surprise, she remembered that day clearly, she was there with them, running from Me. What a coincidence, huh?
*My mom abandoned Me over and over.
*My dad abandoned Me when young.
*My grandmother abandoned Me when My mom died.
*The rest of My family abandoned Me when My grandmother died.
*I had a child at a young age because I just knew he’d love Me. He chose to live
outside the home; I felt abandoned.
*I’ve formed toxic relationships that whenever I start to assert Myself and demand
some respect and compassion, they abandon Me.
I think the last three years of My life have been a bid to make people see My value. Sometimes, you can hear something said over and over before it’s meaning finally hits you. I’ve been saying for the last two years that the reason I left My main Facebook profile and created a profile with My middle name is because I couldn’t make any actual connections with My 30,000 (mostly male) followers looking for Me to fit the box and stereotypes they had for Me. The whole purpose of starting a new page was to connect to connect to women because I had none in My life.
I wanted people, especially women, to see that I was intelligent, valuable, friendly, non-threatening and worthy of friendship. I’ve never had female friends; I’ve always been one of the guys. Before My own cousins ran from Me, I was already missing the love, camaraderie and joy that came from being accepted by women. My mom was abusive, I wasn’t getting it at home either.
The past year, with enough money to make a big statement, I’ve done My best to do just that. I’ve held events for free or at a cost so cheap there’s no way I could profit but was more concerned about women getting what they need. I’ve given women access to Me and My programs because THEY needed it, though I stood to benefit in no way. I allowed Myself to be a support system to women who could never support Me. I’ve donated more money than I care to admit and even adopted individual women and families. I’ve done it all to gain the attention, friendship and respect of women, I think.
I’ve done a lot of it to the detriment of My own mental health and well-being, I’m sure. Especially because it never works.
Every woman in My life is someone I met through work, someone that I’ve tried to help or someone I’ve trauma bonded with. I still have no friends or actual support system. I still have no one I feel comfortable picking up the phone and just calling to talk; I still have no one who contacts Me first to say let’s go to a movie, the park, shopping, out to eat etc. Social media makes it worse because you’ll consider someone a friend, maybe even a close friend and see them post something like “I’m grateful for My real friends who were there for Me this weekend.” You’ll be sitting there like damn; I wasn’t even high enough on your friend list to know you had a problem this weekend.
I dream of simple ass shit like
*sleepovers
*Brunch
*Movie dates
*Girls trips
*Shopping
With My homegirls where I’m not
*the only one making plans so that it seems like I’m the only one interested and
enjoying Myself.
*the one funding all the fun so I know they’re there because they want to be, not
because I’m paying.
*forced to play therapist the whole time
I see true close female bonds and feel envious.
I just want to meet someone who I can bond over something other than trauma with like
*They’re a foodie too and love to go out to eat
*They love to travel as much as I do
*They’re as goofy as I am
*They love museums and culture like I do
I know that I no longer want to be stuck in doing things that don’t bring Me joy or that leave Me feeling like I’m responsible for carrying the relationship, fixing the person’s problems or funding our every adventure.
