Up until the last few years, there were so many times that I wondered why no one could love me. I still look back and I’m lost in a world of confusion, sadness and struggling to understand what it was about me that made some of the people in my life not only have no love for me but to actually hate and despise me. One of those people hated me from when I was a very little girl. There was no way that I could have consciously done anything to make anyone hate me at that point in my life.
I do have people in my life who have loved me since I was that same little girl as well as those who have met and come to show me love since that time. It’s hard for some of these loved ones to understand how I can have so much love from them and others but still have such a deep chasm of hurt. But it’s there and it hurts.
I’m not exactly sure why, but I believe a huge part of it is because the people who had so much trouble with me also wouldn’t allow me to have bad feelings. If I cried or got upset because they had really hurt me, they would usually turn it back around on me saying that I hurt them in some way or another or tell me I was being selfish, a little girl (some of the time it happened I actually was a little girl) or just being too sensitive.
For as long as I can remember, I have learned to push rough feelings away and hide them to the point that now I don’t know how to stop those protections. I don’t feel much of anything in life, I don’t live in the experiences of life. I am like the person in a human hamster wheel: I am present and a part of what is happening, but there is a huge layer of “padding” keeping my feelings and senses out of the middle of the situations and definitely making sure I can’t express my negative feelings. It is not really living. I go into every situation with that protection around me and my guard up in case something happens. I can’t just be me – whoever that is. See, by having these constant bumper guards keeping me in check and distant, to a point (even though very few people would know that is what I am doing) I am only just surviving and existing through life. I want something more. I want something I’ve never fully experienced.
But how do I get there? How do I find who I am, who God created me to be, and allow myself to be fully involved in life? That’s the journey I am about to begin. I know, through much prayer and talking to my counselor and friends, that writing about what I’m feeling, doing and experiencing, both the good and the bad, is a first step. This way I have to at least acknowledge the things that happen in my life. The emotions and feelings become tangible. I can no longer deny them or shove them away as easily.
As I start this journey, I am so thankful that I have a relationship with Jesus and know I am never really alone. I also have people who will be God’s arms when I need that human touch. The thing is, I don’t just want to finally let out all the pain from the past and fully feel it, I absolutely need to do so. It is imperative for me to fully express and feel these feelings so I can begin to sort through what has happened in my life and grieve, hurt, get angry, understand and even forgive so that I am released from all that holds me back.
