Do I come from a home where I never felt “chosen”?
Subtle threats to acceptability always hovered at the edge of existence.
As soon as I chose to put those fears to rest by putting my fears to the test, I ended up proving them true instead:
My family never chose me.
They only ever chose me “as long as.”
As long as I followed the rules.
As long as the pastor approved.
As long as the optics were tight.
As long as my mom’s always right.
Whenever I dressed “wrong,” spoke “wrong,” acted “wrong,” my acceptance status got threatened.
Whenever I stopped hiding whatever felt wrong, my acceptance status got threatened.
Now that I’m neither hiding nor complying, my acceptance status has permanently expired.
No fucking wonder I get so easily addicted to chasing people who dangle “approval,” “acceptance,” and “earned love” JUST over my head, never QUITE within reach.
We crave the unattainable. Period.
We crave it that much harder when we’re born into a deficit of unconditional love.
She craves me. I crave him. These are not love stories. This is not a tragic romance. None of us are star-crossed lovers.
All of our psyches are
Banging their heads against the
Walls of our skulls,
desperately trying to turn the excruciatingly permanent pain of early abandonment into a beautiful fairytale whose ending still has time to change…
but that ending was sealed in blood, decades before we ever met the Object of Affection:
It’s rejection.