Living a Story

"All the darkness in the world cannot drown out the light of a single match."

Desperate Feelings

Sometimes I get this really desperate feeling.  I get this really desperate feeling to be loved.  I get this feeling like I am suffocating.  Like I am not getting the thing that I need to survive.  I need to be loved.  I need to feel loved.  Sometimes, I get so insecure that I need another person to tell me that I’m ok.  I need another person to tell me I am worth it.  To tell me they are not going to give up on me.  But no matter how often they tell me these things, I still cannot believe them.  It’s like their words fall on deaf ears.  I hear them, but I do not comprehend them.  I do not ingest them.  I do not let them sink in.  Sometimes, I get this really desperate feeling to be loved.  This really desperate feeling to feel loved.  But no matter how loved I am, I do not believe it and I am left with this desperate feeling that I have had since I was a child.  Am I the one who can shift this?  Or is it something outside my control?  Will it always be this way?  Or over time will it start to change?

When I was younger I used to have these moments where I would become filled with panic.  More than panic, it was like terror really.  Terror would wash over me and I would become paralyzed.  Frozen.  Dread would fill me.  A sinking foreboding feeling.  These were the most terrifying moments of my childhood.  They would hit me suddenly, without a moment’s notice.  And they were connected to the belief that I was completely alone and always would be.  I am not alone anymore.  I have people all around me who love me and care about me.  I do not have these moments of terror as often anymore.  But I cannot shift the belief that no one loves me.  I cannot shift the belief that I am alone.  These beliefs have been ingrained in me.  I have believed them for so long.  Formed my identity around them.

So sometimes, I get this really desperate feeling.  This desperate feeling to be loved.  Sometimes I feel like I will die without it.  The child inside me cries for it.  How do I tell her she is loved now?  How do I convince her that she is not alone?  How do I tell her those lonely, painful, childhood years are over?  Sometimes I get his desperate feeling.  I felt it today.  I want to be loved.  I need to be loved.  How do I convince myself I already am?

I want to FEEL Loved

I’ve been realizing something.  I talk a lot about wishing I could feel the love that people have towards me.  I talk a lot about the sadness I’ve been feeling recently and how I am trying to allow myself to feel it.  Emotions are new to me.  They are something I disconnected from a very long time ago.  And as I am allowing them to come up they are very uncomfortable.  They are foreign to me.  Unfamiliar.  Scary.  It is hard to allow myself to feel them without running.  Hard to acknowledge that they are there.  I am afraid that if I let myself feel them I will become lost in them.  I am afraid they will take over my life.  It has been a risk trying to let myself feel again.  Anger is still terrifying to me but sadness, sadness I am trying to allow myself to feel.  Not all at once but in little moments here and there.

This morning I was feeling very frustrated with myself for doubting my friends’ love for me again.  There is evidence for it everywhere and still I question if it’s real.  But then I started thinking.  I want to FEEL loved.  How will I ever feel it if I continue to stay disconnected from my emotions?  I think feeling loved scares me more than feeling sad and even more than feeling angry.  It is so unfamiliar to me.  But just like I am starting to allow myself to feel sad in certain moments, I want to try to start allowing myself to feel loved.  Not all at once.  But maybe in little moments here and there.  Maybe, over time, I’ll start to become more comfortable with it.  Maybe I will start to believe that the love around me is real.  Authentic.  So I will start slowly.  A little bit at a time.  Trying to allow myself to feel the love that is around me.

There is Always a Way

What is it that I’m afraid of?  Oh, I’m afraid of many, many things.  I think, more than anything though, I am afraid of being alone.  I have this deep wound in my heart.  It goes all the way to the core of who I am.  I’m not sure exactly how this wound got there.  I think it slowly grew deeper and deeper as the years wore on.  One hurt piling on top of the next.  I didn’t know what to do with this hurt and so I pushed it deeper and deeper.  The result is that I have this all-encompassing wound that I am not sure what to do with.  My beliefs about myself come from this wound.  As well as my beliefs about other people and the world.  Beliefs that nothing is safe.  That I am unlovable.  That I am going to end up alone.  These things aren’t true.  And yet the pain from my past is so loud, making them seem true.  I felt alone as a child.  It felt like nothing was safe.  I felt like no one loved me.  And I have carried these thoughts and feelings with me into adulthood, even though I am safe now and loved now.  It seems that no matter how much evidence there is that people care about me now, I cannot believe it or accept it.  And so I am still feeling unloved.

What am I afraid of?  I am afraid that I will never be loved.  Or rather, that I will never FEEL loved.  How do I put my walls down?  How do I let their love in?  I haven’t figured this out yet.  What if I walk around for the rest of my life feeling unloved because I do not know how to accept the love of those around me?  These are the questions that haunt me.

There is a way.  There is always a way.  I will figure it out.  I will learn how to love myself.  I will learn how to put my walls down.  To let them in.  I am brave.  I am strong.  I will keep going.  There is always a way.