Struggling with avoidance and emotional unavailability is just about impossible when you don’t know what those things are.
The journey started 6 years ago when I was told to “secure your own mask first.” I agreed with this but I wasn’t really sure how to do just that. So I crawled, one step at a time until I was finally up on my feet and walking.
I am discovering now the incredible power in being who I really am and it feels astounding. I used to "dial myself back a notch" out of fear of how it would be perceived. I was told that I lived a rich and colorful inner life and spent a lot of time in my own head. I was aware that my thoughts tended to be diverse, at times controversial and unlike anyone else I knew. They just did not line up with the already accepted values in the common world so I simply avoided taking any chances of being discovered as the odd one out. I feared the rejection so I avoided it.
Not long ago I wouldn’t have been able to admit that most of my life has been a struggle to live up to someone else's ideals or to society’s acceptable norms as a whole. I have never felt particularly good at anything not because someone told me that I wasn’t but because I believed I could do better than I was doing and perhaps expected and even demanded more of myself than anyone had expected of me. I didn’t seek approval from others but I wasn’t willing to give it to myself either. I suspect this was a product of an overly relaxed childhood where very little was expected and therefore I learned set and strive for my own standards. Standards I set so high at times I consistently failed to achieve them.
I worked hard not to draw attention to myself because I learned to fear negative attention, disapproval and rejection. That fear was strong enough that I would rather avoid drawing any attention all together than to be the recipient of negative attention. However, that is changing quickly now as I have been able to reach down into the very core of that fear and ostracize it. I am no longer the person I once was; reserved, quiet, protective, passive and fearful. I am all the things I have strived to become but wasn’t willing to acknowledge, confident, outgoing, secure, loyal, polite, and passionate. A great deal has changed in just a short time but the work I had to do to arrive here was a very long road and a delicate struggle.
Learning to simply take the risk and talk to people, to build and nurture relationships that I once imagined out of my reach, was a challenge worth taking on. This is all very new to me and largely inspired by the support of several people I respect greatly and love dearly. To them I cannot be grateful enough.
I am still "testing" my new legs. They are a bit wobbly but at least I am walking on my own now. The struggle with avoidance is over for good. Yet I can’t help but notice the irony in how avoiding building and nurturing relationships most of my life may have contributed to my passion to study and understanding the dynamics of human interactions and behavior. Fascinated with the very thing I feared most and determined to comprehend every facet of it but afraid to approach it in real life has let me to the only career identification I will ever need: Human Relations Architect.
I am a new breed of the odd one out and finally proud to discover just who that is.
“Everything in my life brought me here” – Rainer Marie Milke
I refuse to look back and regret what I missed. I only look forward and wonder what great things are yet to come.
