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attachment, awareness, becoming, belonging, Childhood, compassion, connection, growth, happiness, Healing, inner child, life, love, mental health, Reassurance, recovery, Reflection, relationships, self-worth, tenderness, Truth, unmet, writing
What if I was never really wanted?
It’s almost like a background hum that never quite turns off.
I didn’t grow up feeling chosen. I grew up feeling tolerated. Like I was something that happened instead of something that was hoped for. And when you’re a kid, you don’t question that. You don’t think, Maybe my parents were limited.You think, maybe I am. You think, why?
That belief sticks in strange places. It shows up in relationships. In how much I accept. In how long I wait. In how grateful I feel for crumbs. In how hard I try to be easy to love.
Therapy has helped me to realize this:
I don’t feel unwanted because I am unwanted.
I feel unwanted because I learned to feel that way.
There’s a difference.
I deserved softness. I deserved enthusiasm. I deserved to feel like my existence made someone’s life brighter. I didn’t get that consistently. And I never really learned that it should matter. It just was what it was. It’s only now (as I’m older) that I am realizing all the things I did to stop that feeling. When that didn’t work it only made it ache louder.
But here’s what I’m learning:
I am allowed to want to be wanted.
I am allowed to need reassurance.
I am allowed to want to feel chosen without apologizing for it.
I am not broken for that. Maybe I started learning later in life, but now that I know, I can begin the healing.
The work now is teaching myself that I am worth wanting.
Even when no one is watching.
Even when no one is choosing me yet.
Even when I am still learning how to choose myself.
I was not unwanted.
I was unmet.
And I am allowed to want more than I was given.
thecountessspeaks 