Figuring it all out...finally.

In the silence of NC, I realize that many of the feelings of rejection that I experienced during my relationship with the narc have been present in my life since I was a little girl. I’ve always felt like an outsider, that somehow I was fundamentally flawed.

I accepted the narc’s treatment because I felt that I wasn’t worthy of any better. Fought to prove my goodness, strived to prove that I deserved to be loved. Yet, I chose someone who fundamentally couldn’t love anyone. I set myself up for failure, as if to further confirm that I wasn’t worthy of kindness and love. It didn’t matter, so I stayed in it. I kept going back for more abuse and as the abuse got worse, I just tried harder. I nearly martyred myself trying to prove that I was good. “I’m a good person,” I told him, but I was also telling myself. If I wasn’t worthy or good, at least I would die trying. Martyr myself trying to save him. Put everyone else’s welfare above my own to prove that I wasn’t selfish, because being selfish or self-centered in my FOO was The Worst Sin.

Why is it so hard to just accept the love that has always been right there in front of me? It is so ironic that I said this to him and yet this is the one thing standing in my way of moving forward.

I don’t need to be perfect in order to deserve kindness or love. I did this as a child because it gave me a way to be accepted—a way to get positive attention. A way to validate my existence. So, I was a ‘perfect’ student and a ‘perfect’ friend. I was obsessed with my grades and academic performance. I excelled at what eventually became my career. I obsessed over my career. I’d do anything for my ‘friends,’ whether they were kind to me or not. I never realized that I could choose who came into my life: I didn’t have to accept everyone. I didn’t have to win everyone’s approval and love.

So I begged for love from the people who couldn’t give it and rejected it from those who truly cared about me. I didn’t accept the love from the people who really loved me because it didn’t go along with my script of who I was. To accept it meant to redefine everything I thought I stood for: then who would I be? The secret is that without any of the successes of my life, I am enough. Just by virtue of being a human, created by some loving creator (at the least, by my two parents; at the most, by a Higher Power), I am worthy of love.

I think it is time to let go of this script. I am loved and I deserve love. I am enough.