In the beginning, there was the lonely. Friend and foe all in one breath. It is always with me and shrouds me wherever I go. Not sure when it first appeared. I just looked around and there it was. Staring back at me. Just a visitor, at first, and then more and more present. Tormenting me with its mere existence. Eating away at me as the years have gone by.
I remember being small and reaching out. Wanting to spend time with my parents but mostly wanted to spend time with my mom. Needing to feel loved. Needing to feel that I am connected. My parents smoked and they would stay in the kitchen. I would try and join them and be part of their conversation, but I kept being told that I was too young and that it was not healthy for me to be there. That I should go in the house and that they would join later. I would try and go back from time to time, and I would get sent away again and again. When my sister started smoking as well then it felt that she was in the club as well and it would just be me that would be left on the outside looking in.
I remember that I would ask for cuddles for my mother, and she would cuddle me whenever she felt like it and then, she would tell me to go away when she had enough. I felt so rejected. I felt that I was asking for too much and I couldn’t understand why she didn’t want to spend time with me. I would always get more attention when I was sick but, it was always a matter of, having to prove that I was sick enough first. I had to have a fever to be taken seriously. I would get Mom’s one-on-one attention, and she would make my favourite things. To the day, unless I am collapsing, I tell myself that I am fine, and I can keep going. I feel guilty about calling in sick from work because I think that I sound fake.
I remember being sent to my room again and again. I was considered a sensitive child. Every time that I was considered too much. I would have to go and be by myself. I had no idea how to deal with my emotions and when I got angry not only was I being isolated but, my dad would be triggered by it too. It is the old “I will give you a reason to cry about.” That just meant that instead of being taught how to deal with it, and how to channel my anger, I learned that showing anger is not safe. If you get punished for showing an emotion long enough, you tag it as being unsafe and you suppress it. You bury it deep down and you don’t deal with it. Either that or you turn it on yourself. One starts to punish oneself for having the emotion in the first place. Blame yourself for it. Start to believe that you deserve all of it. That of course no one wants to be around you. What do you have to offer? You are so weak. You are too much, and no one would ever love you. You start hoping for a saviour. Someone who sees you for who you are and rescues you from everything, but nobody ever comes. The only way to calm yourself is crying. Cry until you calm down and you can sleep. You have this feeling though that you are not a bad person. That if they tell you what is wrong, you can fix it.
As a coping mechanism, I started to make up stories in my head. Not telling them as stories that have happened, no. Never divorced from reality. Never try to use them to get attention or try to become popular because of them. Just stories the way I would wish them to happen. Escapism at its best. That I would do something and suddenly they would start to see who I am and see value in me. You start to build this role self. This persona that you can be and if you become this person, they will like you. They will love you even. For me, it is a good girl. The girl that helps everybody, the girl that doesn’t say no and hides her desires. I started to believe that if I do the things they want, I will get the love I need. I started trying to be as best I could in school, get high grades, always do my homework, and work hard. I started to people to please, I started to overachieve, and I started to be hyper-focused on every gesture, every word, every reaction to try and figure out what I could do to be whatever people wanted. People like people that do what they want so, there goes the boundary setting.
You do your best and when you don’t get a high grade, you get asked how other people did. You get asked how others do well, and you don’t. When you do well and you tell them that you have done better than those same people, you get told that you don’t compare yourself to other people. No rhyme or reason but somehow you are always wrong. You figure that overachieving is the path to take because they are quite happy when they tell other people how well you’ve done. They parade your grades and say to everybody about your awards, but you don’t seem to get more than that. Must not be enough. Try harder, do better. You try to celebrate things and every time you do my dad says that I am his smart girl, my grandmas are so proud of me and dot over how their smart granddaughter has done them proud. My mom just tells me that this is good, I will have time to focus on the next thing on the list. No time to celebrate, one must do more to get approval. Never satisfied with one's achievements, never knowing how to take praise. People ask me to acknowledge what I achieved and tell me how amazing I am. I get uncomfortable because I have a to-do list and no time to waste.
I have started making friends and going out on my own to play. I made some friends, and I had fun with them but, again I am an emotional child. So much so that when I am being insulted and treated poorly, I just start to cry. That is all I know how to do. Standing up for myself has not paid off in the past. More so, I got either punished or rejected even further so, the only option is to cry and try to be their friend the next day. As one can imagine, that worked well with bullies. Nothing more fun than pushing somebody further and further until you see them cry. Maybe if you are nicer, they will like you. Maybe if you like them enough, they will try to get to know you. Try to understand you. That was what I always wanted. That is what I ever needed.
I started trying to show who I am, and I kept getting told again and again that I should change this and that for people to like me. By this time, I am extremely introverted. I would go somewhere, and I would just want to be a fly on the wall. See everything, and hear everything but, to not have to expose myself to participating. I had real difficulty speaking in a group so, people started to make comments about how I hadn’t said anything in a while. Asking me if I had nothing to say. I had plenty. I had thought of so many things, I had read so many things, I noticed, and I made connections but being put on the spot rendered me silent. I couldn’t think of a single thing to say that would be of interest. I start seeing friends stabbing me in the back and I can’t understand why and what I have done to them. I have kept their secrets. I have been reliable and still, they would be ready to sell me out in a minute for the people they like more. That brings on a new kind of loneliness. Being lonely in a crowd. Still rejected and still feeling like I am not good enough. Nobody tries to know me, but everybody has so many ideas about what I should be different. Now, people not only fail to understand but, they can hurt you when you least expect it. People-pleasing behaviour meets trust issues.
I start growing up and dating. I start getting told that I am beautiful and maybe they will like me, they will stay. But they just take what they need emotionally and then they leave, as well. There must be something wrong with me if people keep on leaving me. Try harder, love them more, be more understanding, and don’t ask for too much. Don’t take too much space and don’t start a fight. Still, they go. They go and they come back, and they give you crumbs of happiness but, this is all you have known so, hope is your biggest enemy because I ignore the red flags again and again in the hope that they will realize that I am worth it. Savior behaviour, meet inability to let go of toxic relationships.
The lonely reminds you that it has always been there. No matter how much you try and run. No matter how much you try and hide. No matter how you try to push away the feeling and pretend it doesn’t exist. Always following like a shadow. So many issues that come with it now. The gang is all there and all the voices in your head yell that you need to change. They are so loud and so scary, so many, so overwhelming. It has been going on for so long that I cannot soothe myself anymore. I need somebody to tell me what thoughts are right and what thoughts are wrong. To tell me if the decisions I make are right. If the feelings, I feel are right.
I have always known that I needed help. I have always known that I need to make friends with the lonely. I have always known that I needed therapy. I mean not all relationships I have are bad or dysfunctional. Not all people have betrayed me. I have friends that I have known for 14 years, some that I have met along the way, and they are so precious. I am so grateful for all of them. There is nothing worse than having a problem or a success and not having anybody to share it with. Their support is invaluable to be able to show the parts of me that have been buried. One thing that I know though is that it is not their duty to fix me so, this is where the therapist comes in. We start with what we know. We start with what we see on the surface and then therapy will show me the rest of the way. I need to understand how it all comes together. I need to understand how I can accept and embrace the lonely. Make peace with it and let it go. There is no way we can inhibit this place anymore. There is no solace for me anymore as there never was. A deep breath and down the rabbit hole we go.
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