People are Fucking Amazing

I would like to start this thing off by saying how amazing having good relationships is. Having people that love you is so valuable. I forget that relationships, the ones with people you cherish, need to be nurtured constantly. You need to be vulnerable. You need to allow people to hold you accountable. You need to put your ego to one side, pet it on the head and say: not now puppet. Once he’s out of the way you can put yourself in a position to receive so much love it’s sometimes overwhelming. When you allow yourself to feel real love it’s so easy to love, I mean really love, in return.

All my life I had a very distorted idea of what that word meant. I confused emotionally attaching myself to someone as a connection. Whether they be friends, boyfriends or family. Everything was always about me and what these people could do for me. I needed people to validate me. I needed them to make me feel whole. It was hard to create any meaningful relationships with this mindset but guys, I have to tell you, some people are just fucking amazing. My best friend is fucking amazing. My father is fucking amazing. My brother is fucking amazing. My dog Olie was fucking amazing (R.I.P). These people (and dog), regardless of what I did to them were always there for me. They watched me dig myself a hole and waited by the edge for me to hit rock bottom and with a look that said “I told you so” offered a hand to drag me out of my own mess. Time after time, again and again, always.

Today I dedicate this to all the people that were always there to pull me out of self inflicted mental sink holes. Thanks for being fucking amazing.

Have you ever watched “Into the Wild”? If you haven’t then you’re probably living a very fulfilling life, it’s not a life changing experience to watch. What it is though? A really good movie. Go see it it won’t disappoint. At the end of the movie Alexander Supertramp (the protagonist and winner of best self given name ever) is literally dying in a bus he found on top of some mountain in Alaska. Incapable of going back home due to the rise in the water of the river separating him from civilization. We watch him as his frail hands grab his pen and in one last attempt of life writes in his diary: “happiness only real when shared”. Yes, I cried like a baby, hiccups and all I was a right mess. What I didn’t realize though was how true that phrase would be to me.

This is what I remember from my childhood: I wasn’t a happy child. I wasn’t a particularly good child. People did not enjoy hanging out with me. I felt very excluded, rejected. I knew all too well how much of a pain in the ass I was as everyone reminded me on pretty much a daily basis. Yet, I yearned to be around people so badly. I sought for love and approval everywhere I went. With any one I met. I wanted to connect. Yet no one seemed to reciprocate that with me. Why?

In the last 28 years of “research” I’ve come to several conclusions: I’m just the kind of person people hate, there’s something unfixable somewhere in the recesses of my brain, the universe dictated I’ll be alone forever and other self mutilating thoughts we’re not going to get into right now.

One day I found a video on attachment theory. John Bowlby was the first person to find there was a rather interesting relation between maternal deprivation (mummy issues) and delinquent behaviors in British youth. He realized that young teenage boys who were deprived of a loving and caring caregiver were most likely to develop mischievous behaviors. He came up with the first theory of attachment that basically said if a child isn’t raised in a safe and caring environment they will grow into problematic adults. If we take everything he said and the rest of the literature that came afterwards and boil it down to a complete simmer of almost nothingness the general outline is: how our caregivers taught us to love and be loved impacts our adult relationships.

This will give you a pretty good insight into what attachment theory is.

If you watch the video you’ll see that there are three attachment styles:

• Secure — no problem creating safe, mutual and loving relationships.
• Anxious — within a relationship you’re always worried of losing it or expecting to lose it eventually
• Avoidant — within a relationship you’re afraid of getting too close

I fall under the anxious category. I yearn for connection so bad but once I have it I remember no one could ever love me so out of fear of loosing them I act like the crazy version of myself on a rather frequent basis. So frequent I drive some mad and others away. Who would blame them?

This is a pattern that I recreated in all my relationships. All of them. Even with family members. I lied so that people would want to be around me, be proud of me, love me. It was never about having things in common it was always about what I could do so that this person doesn’t go away. The answer to that is they’ll catch on to your bullshit and either hold you accountable or run away. Few people are strong enough to hold you accountable. Most don’t want to deal with your emotional turbine and will just bounce.

What about you? Are you perfectly secure in who you are and who others are to you? Are you constantly in need of assurance of someone’s reciprocated love? Are you in that relationship with one foot out already?

Admitting to my anxious attachment style didn’t magically flip a switch in my psyche. I entered other relationship type scenarios with the same patterns as before I was simply aware of them now. Which made it worse I’m not gonna lie. I knew how overbearing I was being and I couldn’t help myself. I was constantly second guessing who I was for the other person. Does he like me? Does he like that I wear this? Does he like it if I talk like this? I never thought about, am I being genuine? Am I being the most authentic version of myself? Someone I am proud to be and not afraid to show to the world?

As someone who grew up covered in an invisible veil of self loathing I had never, not once, not even for a millisecond believed that anyone would actually want to spend time with me. Ever. I was worthless, boring, ugly and everyone hated me. That’s the only reality I knew. So I had to change, mold, adapt to other’s needs, values, beliefs so that they would let me in. I couldn’t love myself so I needed others to do it for me. If other’s didn’t do it then it got scary at times.

What’s even crazier is I recognized that I ran away from people that genuinely loved me. Deep down I knew that I was unworthy of their love. My family, my good friends, my Olie (oh sweet baby boy), could do without me. I wasn’t adding any value to their lives anyways. Actually, these people were using me. They didn’t actually care about me. How could they? There’s nothing to care about. I’m worthless.

Instead, I looked for people who didn’t respect me and made me feel like a used wash cloth. Like one that you just keep in your shower because you’re not entirely sure under which category bin you’d recycle it so to avoid feeling guilty of throwing it in the mixed trash you just leave it to become a pulpy, watery, bubbling mess. Yeah. You know exactly what I’m talking about. That was a treatment I was familiar with. Of course they despised me, made fun of me and didn’t actually like me. What other feelings could I possibly arise in others?

I now see that the main person that was treating me like a piece of gum thrown out on a high way, melting under the hot sun, being constantly run over by an array of vehicles, was me. Every time I looked at myself in the mirror I said the most horrible things. I hurt myself physically. I didn’t take care of my health. I over worked my body. I hated the vessel I was in, the person in it and the world in my immediate surroundings.

This was the edge of the cliff. As far as I got. It all came back to me. I hated myself. I treated myself like the dusty ass mug you leave in the back of your cupboard. I was the one who pushed good people away and drew Cruela Devil’s in. I was the one who didn’t believe I could do anything with my life and floated for the majority of my 20’s trying to find something to distract myself with because I could never even consider finding something I’m actually good at.

We could go back to my mother. How she treated me like I was a mistake because to her that’s exactly what I was. The abuse. The sadness. The screams. The bruises. But you know this story already. You’ve heard it so many times. In some way or another we’ve all been there and we can all agree: it fucking sucks! What took me 28 years to understand though was that my mother was a daughter before I ever was. She didn’t have it easy either. She’s a survivor. Survivors are hurt. Hurt people hurt people. And the cycle continues.

BUT, and I mean a big, beautiful, peachy, maybe even dimply but jiggly butt, the cycle doesn’t have to continue. How? Well, for one, I’m not my mother. Two, like I said, I’m 28 years old. I’m a big girl. I may not be at fault of the shit that happened to me way back when but, at this point, I’m most certainly responsible for it. What will it be? Live the rest of my life in resentment, hurt, anger and repetitive toxic patterns OR say: hey, it sucks that I lived every day up to this point hating myself but seeing as it hasn’t served me in any way shape or form maybe changing strategy won’t hurt. Turns out, it really doesn’t hurt. It’s hard. Taking responsibility for all the shit you’ve done out of hurt is embarrassing, shameful and fucking sad but it’s so worth it.

I snapped out of my stupor, stopped rowing and saw that all my life I knew nothing else except my oar and my pain. I just kept rowing and became nothing of my own. I had to re-build my identity from scratch. To the point I was carrying a list of likes and dislikes and would write things down as they came up. I don’t know where it is now but I know that tea was under likes and burnt toast was under dislikes. Yeah. So deep, I know. Today I would consider myself a person at 75%. I’m not there yet but I’m getting there. I trust myself now so I trust the process.

The incredible thing is that happiness is indeed better experienced when shared. Shared with the right people. Those people will only be a part of you’re life if you let them. You’ll only let them if you, before anyone else, love yourself in every way you can. You can only love yourself if you are ready to unpack some really hurtful things you carry around with you. Once you’ve done that you will one day become someone that is fucking amazing for someone else. And that feels fucking amazing!

Until next week,

Sarita.