I grew up feeling unwanted. Apparently, I didn’t attain to some sort of standard that I was unaware of so in place of my innate value, I was taught opportunities to be useful.

It shaped how I related to people. It shaped how I formed alliances and friendships. It shaped what I offered, often to my own detriment. I didn’t know love outside of this, being loved simply because I am myself. Being needed, rather than wanted was how love was represented. It was at their will and whim, always. If it struck them to give affection outside of a reward system for doing something “good,” it would be given, only if they felt like it. If it served them. Maybe they needed the hug.

If I became what was needed in that moment, I was seen, I was at least momentarily appreciated. I was needed in that moment and I always came through because I was always eager to be included. I was always eager to fit into the big picture somehow. I just wanted to be a part of the family, seen as having an important part there. But I wasn’t, unless I was useful.

I became as much as I could to pacify the deprivation that lived within, the ever present and growing hole in my spirit. The one that just wanted to be held; seen, loved and appreciated— truly. It was an awful weight to carry as a child and now looking back, recognizing what it was— I sold myself short so many times because I was always living from a deficit. Had I meant something because I was me, my whole life would have been set up differently. My entire foundation would have been solid, rather than patches of hard-earned head pats and half-hearted thanks.

But it never stayed. It was never enough. Once the need was fulfilled and the thanks had passed, the ache came back again. I could hear the little girl within crying because she had so many needs that fell on deaf ears. Her unrequited love. Her disenfranchised grief. The pain that arose, she’d share it and it would be quickly swept away as being child’s play, paling in comparison to anything an adult would feel… it meant nothing. So, it stayed locked inside. Until I started to feel sick all the time. From doctor to doctor. Specialist to specialist. Test to test. They didn’t know what it was. I was only a child, but I knew.

As a child I couldn’t wrap my head around how cruel this world is. How families were so cold and tentative. How love was a commodity and something to be given only in exchange for usefulness— not simply for being oneself. Why were people so cruel? Why did love hurt so much? Why wasn’t I comforted when I cried? Why was I only appreciated when I gave something? Why wasn’t I told I was smart or pretty or worth fighting for? Why was I made to feel guilty for being alive, for taking up space, for needing food, shelter and water? Why was I told that I was a waste of money and time? Why?

This was what being human was to me. This is what defined my perception of myself. These were the building blocks of my value system. It was SO fucked up…

It’s been a battle, not doing things in order to be loved. Not bending so far that I break. It has taken a tremendous amount of presence with my own actions and motives in order to ensure that I am in my integrity.

It’s kind of odd, I used to get accused of sharing my pain in order to gain pity or mercy from people. But the thing that makes that odd, was that childhood taught me that my pain didn’t matter no matter how much I cried or how deeply I ached. I wasn’t counted. My grief didn’t count. It did nothing. It fell on deaf ears. So, if anything, I learned to put a smile on my face and pretend even if I was screaming inside. I was taught at a young age that comfort wasn’t coming. Comfort was a commodity; it was given only in exchange for something done but it was always to my detriment. Or— if something was given without exchange, it was used as a tool to hang over my head. “Well, I XYZ for you 2 years ago, so you owe me.”

What did that teach me? Don’t ask for help. You can’t ask for help because help isn’t help. Help is judgment cloaked as help. I learned that letting people in close to me was received as an invite to judge how I lived my life or who I was. The intent wasn’t to help, it was an invite to remind me of how far from the mark I was. How wrong I was. How unpretty I was. How unsmart I was. How useless I was. How un-fill in the blank I was. Letting people close under the guise of love, was the bait and switch for close detonation. They didn’t come in to help or to love, they came in to destroy.

This isn’t a happy post today. It is bleeding… it is shining light on the dark corners and lonely places I’ve been. It is giving a mouthpiece to the deafening silence that lived within me. It is the doorway to how I have been healing, because this has been a lifelong healing process. My inner critic sounded like them; angry, unrelenting, critical, cruel, unloving, unkind, unforgiving, selfish and soulless.

How do I still smile? How do I love others without throwing myself away? How do I give myself the love and affection that I need, when I need it? I’ll tell you in my next post…

Can you relate, dear reader? Was your foundation built from the patchwork quilt of breadcrumbs of love and tentative affections? Drop a comment below, let’s give our inner children a place to speak when they were silenced for so long. You’re safe here…

Blessings xx