3/25/2020
There were times in the past where I believed that the only way I would feel whole was to have a partner. I felt lost without someone in my life. I would feel empty. Like I was adrift and didn’t matter.
I have personally come to realize that is a trauma response. Born from others in my past continually reminding me that I wasn’t enough. In their eyes I never measured up. I failed to always be what they needed me to be. Regardless of what I did, how much I gave. I was never enough for everyone in my past. This caused me to work harder. Strive to be more. Only, with an unhealthy motivation. It wasn’t for me. It was to please others. It was to be seen as “perfect” in another’s eyes. Which, as I just mentioned, never was going to happen. So the circle continued over and over. I was never enough. No matter what. So I’ll work harder, give more but it wasn’t ever enough.
I created this “fantasy” where I would be whole, complete with the “right” partner. I would believe that I caught glimpses of it in a partner every now and then. When someone would say I did something well. When a partner would encourage me with praise. I would feel “close” to enough. But never quite fully. I couldn’t ever believe my partners. Mostly because they would in the next breath rip the rug out from underneath me and say I should have been watching where I was standing. Nevertheless, I convinced myself there were “pieces” of feeling complete with them that would justify my continued relationship with them. I was living off of crumbs. Accepting less than I deserved yes. But, because that’s at the time what I felt I deserved.
When I encountered a HORRIBLE slave who lied to me repeatedly, built me up over and over and over again only to discover it was all false. But, just true enough for me to question whether it was really a lie. I wanted desperately to believe in her. I thought surely she was made for me for a million reasons that I discovered much later just played on my ego. I began questioning why I attracted such partners. I just wanted to belong. To feel received and accepted. I just wanted to feel whole. Completed by my partner.
IT WAS NEVER GOING TO HAPPEN FROM AN EXTERNAL SOURCE. NO ONE CAN MAKE US COMPLETE.
After a tumultous 6 month period where I called it off and she ended up talking me back into a relationship (I am such a forgiving person), only to have it be worse than the first go round. I stopped.
I literally walked away from everything and everyone. I hid. From myself even.
I needed a break. To question why. To discover what was happening.
I spent a fair amount of time realizing I didn’t feel complete within myself no matter what. I didn’t feel whole. I felt I was lacking. That was certainly reinforced by every partner, parent, significant other in my life up to that point. Every piece within me began to rebel at the idea that I couldn’t be complete. It is fair to say that even today I have moments where I can struggle with it still.
Yes. Big bad dominant doesn’t always feel very whole. Where I feel unworthy or I doubt my value.
You know what?
That’s ok.
I discovered in my solitude that everyone was trying to make me fit into a box I couldn’t possibly fit into. And, I was allowing them. Often, I was helping them. Trying to be something that I wasn’t.......what they wanted to define me as. Believing that others’ would give me the answer to who I was. Surely the person closest to me, whom I trust the most wouldn’t deceive me right? Surely they would help me feel whole. They would see me and fulfill all of those “needs” within me that I couldn’t even see.
The reality is........what ANYONE sees is through their lens. It’s not right or wrong, but it’s theirs. NOT anyone elses’. Absolutely not mine.
What I saw through everyone else’s lens was a man that wasn’t enough. A boy that couldn’t be loved unless he was this....A child that was ignored and shown patterns of unhealthy loving that he took to mean as honest. Because I have been naive, I have believed all of these truths. Because I just wanted to belong I accepted what wasn’t sincere.
I am complete by just who I am today. Oh, I have personally so far to go. Anyone else’s view of that though is NOT accurate. They aren’t me. They don’t walk my path.
I am whole because I am alive. Breathing still. Speaking, living, laughing, loving imperfectly into my collective.
I didn’t see my own value. I was making it tied to others opinions or views of me. Specifically, my partners. Along the way, I was damaging the relationship. Because I would never feel like enough. They would never make me feel like enough. No matter what they ever would have said or how they would have expressed it to me I was lost in believing it was going to come from them, yet, they never knew me enough for it to be real.
Why?
Because I didn’t notice this truth about myself. People had convinced me that I NEEDED another person to be whole. My partners’ especially, this was just to maintain control. Just to “keep” me beholden to the striving to be “better” for them. It trapped me into believing I needed to “earn” their love. Of course, my partners’ of the past were all too happy to keep me here. They benefitted from my striving. When I would question why I wasn’t being met, why there wasn’t honest reciprocation, or worse, there was ridicule, belittling, emasculation I was told I was crazy. Made to feel like, “How dare I question my partner?!?!!?” All the while not realizing that any person that marginalizes your feelings, discounts them or discredits them is selfish. Out for all that they can get from you. Believing, YOU will make THEM whole.
No amount of “love” poured out from any other person will ever cause you to feel like you’re complete if you firstly don’t accept and love yourself. Knowing you’re valuable, have worth, have needs and wants that are perfectly acceptable to be received is what makes you feel whole. It comes from within. If it doesn’t, you’ll always be searching. No one will measure up. No one can fill a void they can’t see or understand. No one can meet and give you what you desire when you don’t understand it yourself. When we see we are whole, complete APART from anyone else, we begin to see those very things that matter to us. Those needs, passions, desires, wants and thoughts that we have long since set aside for “fear” they are too much. Or we are being too selfish. Again, lies told to us by those who should have kept us safe. Who should have showed us how to love ourselves in a rewarding and practical way.
We are “too damaged” when we can’t love ourselves enough to accept our imperfections. We are allowed to be scared. We are allowed to have panic. We are allowed to doubt. We are allowed to expect others to be trustworthy and earn our trust. We are NOT allowed to use any allowance as a reason why others’ don’t measure up. The only reason we often resort to such thinking is because we don’t measure up in our own eyes. We transfer that pain to others. When we realign our thoughts to accept ourselves, we begin to accept others as they are too.
We begin to heal from our pain. And while we will NEVER be perfect, we will discover we can be perfectly ok with our imperfections as we give ourselves grace to grow.
Today, we can be whole. Wholly us. Wholly imperfect. And still, deserving of care. Still worthy of grace.
But first, we must extend it to ourselves. Then, and only then, will we realize and be able to receive anothers’ acceptance of who we are. And, we will be able to enforce our boundaries when others’ aren’t so accepting. We will discover the balance of being healthy. Practical. Honest. Complete in as much as possible today.
YOU are allowed to be in a place that you struggle.
YOU are allowed to feel deeply, pain, anger, rage, hurt, loss, confusion, doubt, fear.
YOU are allowed to get it wrong.
YOU are allowed to be too much in others’ eyes.
YOU are allowed to be not enough in others’ eyes.
YOU are allowed to want more.
YOU are allowed to need something else.
YOU ARE THE ONLY ONE THAT GETS TO DEFINE WHO YOU ARE.
You are NOT allowed to let society, the past, your current partner, the news, the Cage, the lifestyle tell you how important you are and what you need to be. THAT IS YOURS.
Give yourself grace. Love on yourself. There are SOOOOO many people and pressures around us too willing to paint us into a box that we can never fit into. Of all of those pressures don’t be one of them. Certainly you deserve better from yourself.
I truly hope and pray diligently that you find your own voice and strength today.
Namaste
Drago and Amethyst
