‘I’m just not ready to date I think’ – a one liner I gave to a boy about 6 months ago. Since then, I have been on 1 date which ended in tears. Why? Because dates poor salt on wounds I thought were healed. They highlight the insecurities I was trying to erase.
My biggest insecurity is that they’ll leave. They’ll leave once I love them; they’ll leave when it gets tough. Whatever they brought to my life they will simply pack it all up and leave. But why would they leave? Because I’m hard to love. I’m hard because I’m too loud, too opinionated, too impulsive, too flirty, too much hard work. If there’s anything my relationship with my dad has taught me it’s that I’m not worth effort. The effort to change for, the effort to fight for, to protect.
When I was 12 my sister and me were taken out of my parents’ home after an incident. My 20-year-old sister and husband took us in. They told my dad that if he wanted us back, he just needed to start making an effort; consistent meals, routines the things children need. He didn’t want too though. It was for whatever reason, too much effort.
Now thanks to that experience no matter how many times I say my affirmations and practice self-love I still have that nagging voice in my head saying, ‘you’ll never be worth the effort’.
I remember the first time a boy I loved let me down. I remember crying into my pillow screaming ‘why am I not worth the effort’. I didn’t know it then, but this was the beginning of my pattern. My brain finding proof for what it already believed.
Dad = No effort, makes me feel unwanted All men= No effort, makes me feel unwanted
You see he had been treating me differently as 16-year-old boys do and I was desperate for him to treat me the way I wanted. So, I told him and then I left. Expecting him to run after me effort in toe and big monologue. He never ran after me, there was no effort or big speech just me crying my heart out in the bathrooms before math’s.
That was the first of many times I would leave in hopes of being chased. In hopes of being worth the effort. In hopes of fixing what dad broke.
The second one was the worst. He was my ‘that boy’ – the one who changed the way I saw love, changed the way it felt. He was charming and funny in this dorky but sexy kind of way. His voice was deep and assertive and despite never knowing what way I was up always felt safe around him. But like most beautiful things he came with his own set of nagging voices and inner self hatred. He was like a broken bird when I found him which was perfect for a girl who was desperately wanting to be needed. I would fix him and then he would love, and I would eternally be worth the effort. That was my idea anyway. He bolted at the first sight of trouble; the moment things got hard he was gone. At the time it was horrible, experiencing a love so electric and then losing it so quickly felt like whiplash. The bright side of whiplash is it’s the beginning to recovery – the injury is present, we know what it is now we just need to create the treatment plan
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