I AM Who I AM

After everything that you put me through I finally get a hold of my life back And you want to come & snatch it away from me. Love-bombing. Nice gesturing. Apologizing. ”Empathizing”. NO CONTACT. All that I need is WITHIN me. NO VACANCY FOR CODEPENDENCY. I KNOW better. I am DOING better. I am HEALING. Goodbye toxic connections in Lovers, friends, family. Hello self-love. ❤️

I needed this article for myself right now and figured I’d share it.

Each time I feel myself taking steps in a positive direction, I get around others in my life (particularly family at the moment) and just take 5 steps backwards because energies feel off and behaviors rub me the wrong way. My thoughts often are ones that do not feel very good. It’s become exhausting how I feel myself ACTIVELY trying to push them out. Some days I succeed and some days I fail.

Being in unhealthy connections and trauma bonds all my life really makes it hard for me to look at people the way my heart wishes to look at them and that even includes myself. Because if I was feeling much better about me, I wouldn’t view everything and everyone so negatively right? That’s what I’m receiving from things I’ve read meant to help negative mindsets so...

NONE OF US should be hard on ourselves! Let’s face it, the world is READY, WILLING and WAITING to do that for us. Isn’t it? Yet, some of us have taken the reins and WE are hard on ourselves. I say WE because I am not only including myself, I am talking about myself right now.

I just had my therapy session and I was “hard on myself”. It was pointed out as so many other people in my life have pointed out. My therapist is helping me...she’s great so this isn’t a situation of someone not knowing what they are doing. I’m not making it about that and don’t want anyone else to either. She did HER job.

My thing about myself is that I do that. That I have ALWAYS done that and I really don’t know how to stop because I don’t always know what I am saying or doing that is “hard on myself”. I’ve always been more focused on desire outcome that I have never taken the time to really pay attention to when I am being “hard on myself” unless my inner thoughts about myself are outright mean. That’s the only time I notice it and try to chill out. No matter what the outcome is that I am looking for, it’s NEVER COOL TO BEAT YOURSELF UP.

So, I just cried.

I cried because I am so tired of WANTING to be KIND and COMPASSIONATE to myself but still very much not doing a good job of it. Even when I think about the reason I started this page: because I realized what narcissism is and that I had not only befriended people like that but also had partners like that and bore children, I feel critical of myself for not seeing the signs, critical of myself for not sticking up for myself, critical for wanting attention to where I connected with people that were no good for me...just critical of myself in relationship aspects and other aspects of my life.

I have been critical of myself for years. People that don’t even know me well, for instance people I work with, compliment things about me all the time whether intelligence, personality, wit, talent, creativity, reliability but MYSELF...I don’t focus on any of that. I focus on my failures, my shortcomings, my weaknesses, what I didn’t see, what I didn’t respond correctly to...

How do I expect anyone around me to be decent if I’m not even being decent to myself from within? Is that criticizing myself or was that asking a valid question? I’m not very sure. I really don’t even think I understand SELF-COMPASSION. It’s time to go learn about that now and that brings me to my next issue: having to undo so much trauma and damage that it’s becoming overwhelming. I get tired OFTEN. The mental work is making me physically tired.

Forgive yourself, set boundaries, have self-compassion, do something new, stay on top of your self-care...it’s SO MUCH TO DO and half of how I think didn’t even come from me, it came from my upbringing and what someone else failed to do but that doesn’t matter when you’re an adult, it’s now on YOU.

Change isn’t easy. Take breaks. Step away. Then step back in and keep going.