Realizations: Emotional dependence, boundaries, learning to love myself.
"When did you first decide you weren't worth the number of seconds it took to speak the truth?"
-Come Around anthology (2014-15)
-Come Around anthology (2014-15)
Tonight's realization: I have been emotionally dependent for a long time.
All those years of being paralyzed, as if a cold gaze could turn me to stone. All those moments of euphoria at a simply replied message, and the sinking feeling at a seemingly apathetic response leading to many an unforeseen anxiety attack. All the sleepless nights, weakly tracing what I perceived to be others' perceptions of me. All the anticipatory dread of everyday social events, terrified of what a stray aura or attitude will do to me. All the ruthless acts of self-sabotage, attempted or successful. All the times I lost myself, became addicted to anyone or anything that gave me a taste of the companionship and comfort I should've given to myself. All the supposedly vital ships sunk time and time again, at last shipwrecking me on the isle of depression. After all these years, I'm finally starting to understand.
This may be mildly surprising for many, but the concept of self-esteem was foreign to me ever since senior elementary school. The only "esteem" I knew was from other people, as well as the only acceptance, companionship, empathy, and belonging. I operated from what I now know as a Lose-Win paradigm. This was the paradigm of the people-pleaser, the one who lets others step all over them because they don't consider themselves worth anything more. The emotional begger who prostrates themself in front of all the wrong people, just for a dime of sympathy or affection. I was starved for human connection, but afraid of how it may wreck me. It has been a gas-brake 10 years.
If I were to map out how this, along with my anxiety and sensitivity and depression are connected to dependence and everything else, it would probably amount to a pretty impressive infographic spiderweb.
In my research I came across a concept of psychological "boundaries", which perfectly expressed something I've quietly observed in people for a while.
According to Dr. Hartmann, "There are people who strike us as very solid and well organized; they keep everything in its place. They are well defended. They seem rigid, even armored; we sometimes speak of them as "thick-skinned." Such people, in my view, have very thick boundaries. At the other extreme are people who are especially sensitive, open, or vulnerable. In their minds, things are relatively fluid. Such people have particularly thin boundaries."
Evidence suggests that thin boundary people are highly sensitive in a variety of ways and from an early age:
- React more strongly than do other individuals to sensory stimuli and can become agitated due to bright lights, loud sounds, particular aromas, tastes or textures.
- Respond more strongly to physical and emotional pain in themselves as well as in others.
- Become stressed or fatigued due to an overload of sensory or emotional input.
- Be more deeply affected — or recall being more deeply affected — by events during childhood.
Since high school I've known myself to have high sensory-processing sensitivity and severe anxiety. This as a result of having "thin" protective boundaries makes amazing sense.
And then there's Wise Mushroom, a psycho-educational, self-therapy resource I found online that is actually reshaping my brain:
Thursday January 10th, 2019.
While digesting this resource over several days, I realized I've been an astoundingly cruel person. Specifically, to myself. All these years, I have neglected to show basic human kindness to the one who needed me most: me. This past year I had felt accomplished to have set up a decent skincare routine and eliminated all-nighters, thinking I was doing pretty good. But how often have I tortured my inner self by entertaining these endless replays of increasingly-distorted thoughts and memories, while "pampering" my outer shell? To the point where I looked at my skin and "saw" it withering away, accelerated by the speed of insults I hurled at me each day.
I shamed myself for not being more well-spoken, more outgoing, more popular. I shamed myself for the number of likes on my social media posts, the imperfections on my skin, the time I wasted shaming myself everyday. I shamed myself for executive failures, for not having a functional sense of time. Many days, I rebuke myself so fast after literally everything I say in a conversation that my partner won't even notice. I bully myself so swiftly, so tactfully that I don't even realize — until I notice how little of me is still alive. Self-neglect, cruelty and hatred became muscle memory, second nature, the invisibly broken rhythm of my life. I am a bully, guilty of blood. The blood crying out from the cracked earth inside of me.
For a long time I wasn't sure if I knew what love was. I'm still not fully sure, but in these past few pensive days on the blog with my books, Wise Mushroom and God, I've begun to undergo a new paradigm shift. The sayings, "love your neighbour as yourself" and "treat others the way you want to be treated" became fresh with new meanings in my widened eyes. In order to love the people around me, I have to love the one doing the loving. To treat the people around me with dignity and grace, to exercise forgiveness and patience and humility, I have to treat my soul that way first. In order to genuinely want and seek the best for those around me, I have do that for the one closest to me: me.
And I see it clear now — when I show myself dignity, compassion and the freedom of expression, I empower myself to take responsibility for my thoughts, my actions, my responses to the things that happen beyond my control. This self-love is not the self-hype or pampered indulgence glamorized in pop culture. This is learning how to walk again, barefoot, on sacred ground.
Hear this, Satan and me. The neglected child has crawled up from the dump. She's crying now — not tears, but the roar of lions.
Deep beneath the blood-soaked ground, a tiny seed has begun to sprout.
Emotional Type (Boundaries) Quiz: https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/emotional-type-quiz/
Wise Mushroom on Emotional Dependency: http://www.wisemushroom.org/how-to-overcome-emotional-dependency
Brene Brown's "Listening to Shame": https://brenebrown.com/blog/2013/01/14/shame-v-guilt/
The Need to be Needed: https://socialhealth.blog/2014/02/27/the-need-to-be-needed/
And then there's Wise Mushroom, a psycho-educational, self-therapy resource I found online that is actually reshaping my brain:
- Dependency is often the result of having our needs neglected and them neglecting them ourselves.
- Self-harshness is inner child abuse; be kind and compassionate to myself the way I want to be to others.
- To take better emotional care of myself, I can recognize my feelings as valid, manage my needs strategically like a business, and practice regularly doing things that promotes metal and emotional wellness.
- Do not confuse friendliness with friendship, impressions with reality, the past with the present.
Thursday January 10th, 2019.
While digesting this resource over several days, I realized I've been an astoundingly cruel person. Specifically, to myself. All these years, I have neglected to show basic human kindness to the one who needed me most: me. This past year I had felt accomplished to have set up a decent skincare routine and eliminated all-nighters, thinking I was doing pretty good. But how often have I tortured my inner self by entertaining these endless replays of increasingly-distorted thoughts and memories, while "pampering" my outer shell? To the point where I looked at my skin and "saw" it withering away, accelerated by the speed of insults I hurled at me each day.
I shamed myself for not being more well-spoken, more outgoing, more popular. I shamed myself for the number of likes on my social media posts, the imperfections on my skin, the time I wasted shaming myself everyday. I shamed myself for executive failures, for not having a functional sense of time. Many days, I rebuke myself so fast after literally everything I say in a conversation that my partner won't even notice. I bully myself so swiftly, so tactfully that I don't even realize — until I notice how little of me is still alive. Self-neglect, cruelty and hatred became muscle memory, second nature, the invisibly broken rhythm of my life. I am a bully, guilty of blood. The blood crying out from the cracked earth inside of me.
For a long time I wasn't sure if I knew what love was. I'm still not fully sure, but in these past few pensive days on the blog with my books, Wise Mushroom and God, I've begun to undergo a new paradigm shift. The sayings, "love your neighbour as yourself" and "treat others the way you want to be treated" became fresh with new meanings in my widened eyes. In order to love the people around me, I have to love the one doing the loving. To treat the people around me with dignity and grace, to exercise forgiveness and patience and humility, I have to treat my soul that way first. In order to genuinely want and seek the best for those around me, I have do that for the one closest to me: me.
And I see it clear now — when I show myself dignity, compassion and the freedom of expression, I empower myself to take responsibility for my thoughts, my actions, my responses to the things that happen beyond my control. This self-love is not the self-hype or pampered indulgence glamorized in pop culture. This is learning how to walk again, barefoot, on sacred ground.
Hear this, Satan and me. The neglected child has crawled up from the dump. She's crying now — not tears, but the roar of lions.
"I'M FREE."
"I will love myself despite the ease with which I lean toward the opposite."
-Shane Koyczan
Resources
Emotional Type (Boundaries) Quiz: https://psychcentral.com/quizzes/emotional-type-quiz/
Wise Mushroom on Emotional Dependency: http://www.wisemushroom.org/how-to-overcome-emotional-dependency
Brene Brown's "Listening to Shame": https://brenebrown.com/blog/2013/01/14/shame-v-guilt/
The Need to be Needed: https://socialhealth.blog/2014/02/27/the-need-to-be-needed/
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