Loving People Who Make You Doubt Your Own Worth…

Why? Why would anyone do that?

I am not sure. I think it is somehow tied up with childhood issues and a parent that you could never make happy, no matter what you did. Perhaps a parent who always seemed disappointed in you. Someone who was upset by your mere presence. Someone who told you, repeatedly, that your way of being in the world was too bold, or loud, or uppity. Someone who communicated in large and small ways that they just didn’t like you all that much. Or perhaps it was just that your personalities clashed, but you being the kid, you end up growing up feeling like somehow it is your fault for being who you are. And that if you were better or different, you would be easier to love.

Or perhaps we are just born with innate insecurities…and what happens to us growing up only compounds the problem…

I guess where it comes from is less important than realizing you have these types of issues. And figuring out, once you know, what you can do to change your habit and pattern.

This is a risky area for me to write about. In fact, as I type, my brain is telling me to stop this whole deal and move the fuck on to another topic. This is too vulnerable. This topic hits a little too close to the bone for me.

And that would all be very true. But I can’t just shove the insight down. I can’t and I won’t. When I am granted a prized insight such as this, it feels wrong not to delve into its fabric and fiber even though most of me just wants to bury it deep within the landscape of my life and run.

I woke up this morning and got my coffee and assumed the position. In bed, coffee on nightstand, laptop, well in my lap. And as I waited for the computer to surge to life, this thought, this insight came to me.

It feels like I have historically attempted to love those who make me feel insecure about who I am, what I am, and how I am. It is like if you value me, I have no time for that. But hey, if you aren’t really sure you like me, are openly hostile or even mean to me, then I am going to be compelled to stick around and prove to you that I am a worthwhile human being that you should treat better.

This knowledge makes me cringe…to the very depths of my soul.

But it is true. I have done it in friendships, lovers, family of origin. In fact, looking back, and somewhat staring, I can see the people I have loved most in this life have made me question my own value, and not in a good way. I mean there are those people in your life who are willing to confront you in a positive way. Like they love you and show up for you, but they will call you out on your shit. I am not talking about those people. Those are good, honest people to have in your life.

But it is the ones who perhaps see your value and worth, but then seek to only capitalize on it for their own gain. Or those who are jealous or threatened by you, but instead of leaving you be, they draw you in closer in some sort of maniacal manner designed to exploit that intimacy. Or the ones who are so insecure in their own being, their fear of your value being greater than theirs, cause them to mistreat you because that is the only way they feel like they can keep you at all. They must knock you down a few pegs in order to manage you and all your perceived greatness. That greatness being what pulls them to you in the first place, but then, the only way they can keep you, is to create insecurities and cracks in you that make you doubt your own sanity, worth and abilities. For then, you won’t leave because you have been leveled and now believe you are lucky to have them in your life at all.

I know it seems like a no brainer…someone makes you doubt yourself in significant ways should be promptly left. But when you grew up without the kind of validation required to form a solid sense of self, you become dandelion like when the winds of insecure, mean or abusive people blow. And instead of allowing yourself to be blown off to perhaps better pastures, you cling tight to the idea you are fundamentally lacking, and remain transfixed to the person who attempted to blow you away in the first place.

I can see I have done this historically. And to add insult to injury, I can see that I have failed to really appreciate the people who didn’t make me feel less than or doubt my own worth. I can see my staying with those who create the feeling of lack and failing to adequately appreciate the ones who don’t create that feeling in me, is where my work lies.

I can no longer afford to remain in situations with people who make me doubt my own worth. It isn’t like winning them over, if possible, which I do not really believe it is possible, would grant me what I need or want because I would then be in a relationship with someone who is only capable of appreciating me because I worked so very hard to prove myself to them. This is folly. This is stupid. I mean, no one should have to convince anyone to love them. The love should flow freely and easily to those with open hearts and minds. And those people who remain closed and hardened, should be moved around as easily as water rounds a stubborn rock in a flowing streamed.

But sometimes those ridiculous rocks create eddies and if you aren’t careful, you can find your life sidelined spinning around in circles for all of your days. And as much as I hate to admit this, I have done this a lot. I have failed to appreciate those who love me for me, who show up for me whilst attempting to get love from a stone. And each attempt, threatens to pull me under just a little more.

Well almost drowning will cause you to get out of the fucking river for a little while. And once there is stable, dry ground for you to rest your head, thoughts and clarity become available to you in ways that it just wasn’t when you constantly fighting for you life and love. Stable shores can become a bedrock upon which you begin anew, leaving old patterns and wounds behind.

Well all I know is isn’t quite that easy. But there must be value in even identifying the pattern. The opportunity for change and growth born with the realization that loving someone who makes you doubt your own worth is a loser proposition every single time. And allowing that realization to pierce you like an arrow landing as a direct hit. Hitting you right where you live and breath and causing such exquisite pain that you must stop and reflect and heal.

The last few months have been that way for me. I have done a lot of driving and reflecting and I had to have another experience where I attempted to engage with someone who made me immediately feel like I wasn’t important, didn’t matter. And I, engaged like I always do, with a renewed commitment to show up and prove them wrong. I would get my worth from them Goddamnit if it is the last thing I do! But this time, something else happened…I just stopped. I asked myself the following questions:

Does this feel unfamiliar?

Does this feel good?

Does this feel like a good pattern?

Does this feel like how you think a beginning should feel?

Do you feel valued, at all, in this transaction?

And when the answer to all of the above was a resounding “FUCK NO!” I just stopped in my tracks and released all of the parts of me that wanted to engage in all the ways I always have. I stopped writing the beautiful, misguided storyline where I am this loving, forever supporter to this marginally stable person who carries the torch towards values’ distant shores, to be vindicated, FINALLY, with love returned wholly, and without parceling.

This time, I just said, “Fuck this shit.” And moved on. I would love to tell you that I didn’t feel pulled backwards, but I didn’t go. I stayed my course. And for once, my life long skill of running came in handy. I got in my car and I just fled. And in that desperate fleeing, I came to find a new freedom unhitched, unmoored from its lifelong anchor. And when provided the opportunity to love someone who made me doubt my worth, I just walked away (well in my case drove…but you get the idea).

And I wish I could report it felt better immediately. But it didn’t. It isn’t easy to get over decades of practicing the fine art of seeking value from someone who can’t or won’t see it. But I will tell that the integral and internal value confirmation came later, as the miles between me and it increased so did my feelings of self supported worth and value.

And perhaps most importantly, I stopped a habit, long standing, from unfurling itself into my life once more. I zigged when previously I was a zagger. And while it didn’t feel as amazing as I would have liked, I am currently enjoying the view from my new shore of self selection. Realizing perhaps for the very first time that the only opinion of me that matters is my own. And that so long as I allow my own value to be something that only others can provide (or not) I shall be forever lost upon someone else’s shores…never finding shelter, or love or anything but my own caustically echoing soul that beats against the stubborn hardened soul of others.

Which, I have come to realize, is a complete waste of, not only time, but your life…and while I wish I could have seen this before now, I see it now in a way that changes me completely and sets me on a course for becoming like running water that glides swiftly and easily around whatever obstacles attempt to thwart my progress…finally flowing easily and happily as I move my way through this one life I get to live.

Life is always a precarious balance of holding on and letting go…but always a provider of circumstances that will always assist us in growing up and forward…we only have to remain open, teachable and willing to withstand the discomfort of refusing to repeat long standing patterns of self abuse.