There’s a post I came across here that is sad because I loved someone like the person who wrote it. This was a person who could not love themselves. They were so focused on their own hunger for affirmation to fill that emptiness that they completely ignored everything I gave – which was so much – and for a time afterward, I ended up feeling like I wasn’t even human (that empty and depressed), where before meeting them, I felt pretty content and had healthy self-worth. It was like the life was sucked out of me.
It made no sense because I know they loved me (in their own limited way) but were just so absorbed in their need for affirmation from whoever or wherever that they crushed the very person who was already there giving it to them and trashed something they later regretted.
I learned from this, realized it was partly my fault for not having better boundaries, and did the work to heal from what happened. I also left them behind and miraculously, all the pain slowly dissipated the further I got from the last time we talked.
“It wouldn’t have mattered who” this person said in their post… that is the problem. It does matter who. People are unique and all valuable. And attention/compliments are shallow and fleeting markers of any person’s worth.
After all this I put zero value in compliments. I feel indifferent to them now, not because I don’t believe the compliments can be true about me or that I have low self-esteem, but because after going through what I did with this person I question everyone’s sincerity or reason for being nice or helpful to others, especially if there’s a flirtatious or “funny” vibe. I am kind and thank those who say nice things but don’t put much stock in the words.
This person I knew wanted to hear others say they were attractive, appreciated, etc. not just a normal amount but constantly. And this person only gave others compliments because they were fishing for them themselves. That became clear later on, after I’d already been subtly put down and dismissed enough times when I was trying to connect genuinely with them, then found out they were carrying on in attention-seeking ways with others while being selectively cold to me. It broke my heart. There are no words for what it felt like to be there for someone and to trust them, then to be slapped in the face like that when I least expected it.
They told me it was because they didn’t feel good enough. I never understood and probably never will – why would you want to make another person feel that way? One you “supposedly” love or care about? I guess people can really be that different in how they “love” or relate to others. It’s sad. But some people just aren’t good for you, and no amount of effort or love can change that.
We get it’s not about us when others do this kind of thing. It’s about their own issues. But it still can do damage to relationships and healthy people won’t put up with much of it. As I ultimately did not.
To the author of that post, if you read this… even if you’d had an abundance of those things back then, attention, compliments, etc, I am pretty sure it would not have opened your eyes – that person had it all from me and with every gesture I made, still acted like I was irrelevant until they knew they couldn’t have me, then… suddenly they had “screwed up their chance” and felt bad for themselves, while somehow skipping over showing any sort of compassion for what they had put me through. The irony, to me, is how straightforward it would have been to not screw up. It took an immense amount of energy to crush my heart like that because I’m a pretty resilient, loyal, and compassionate person.
I noticed in the post that the author did not express any sadness for what the other person they lost their chance with may have experienced. Only for themselves.
The person in my case didn’t seem to see me when I was there for them, and then after they destroyed everything good we had, they wallowed in self-pity. What they did not do was try to fix any of the damage or voluntarily apologize. That would have meant a lot but… it just didn’t happen. They didn’t even seem to see my pain in the end which was very difficult to experience.
Over time I gave many chances but after being hurt or confused beyond what I could handle, I reached a breaking, door slamming type of point. I had felt tons of compassion for them over time and forgave and tried again and again, but once they trampled me one too many times I stopped feeling bad for them and started seeing straight about how bad it was for me.
After too many unbelievable experiences I knew I just couldn’t ever go back. After enough time, I truly knew I didn’t deserve any of that. Nobody does. It can be worked through but only if the other person wakes up, repents, and truly changes… which there is about a .05% chance of happening. People changing, that is.
If you push someone away who loves you (or fail to “see” what is obviously there till too late) – that’s on you. Not them. They should not have to chase you down and fight you to get you to see reality. That’s not how healthy relationships work. That’s drama. The way you see yourself, your level of confidence, etc., no one else can fix those things. If you hate yourself, you need to do some deliberate, humble (as opposed to self-pitying) soul searching because until you learn to see outside your head and realize that a) you are loveable and unique and b) so is every other human (equally, objectively, though we are all hopelessly subjective about it) you will be incapable of loving others and even without meaning to, can really hurt them.
And sidenote, if you are addicted to hurting others to maintain or boost your own self-esteem or get something out of putting people down that’s twisted, and I hope you leave good people alone until you can get your act together.
Thinking you’re so different from others, that there’s something wrong with you – if that’s inside of you already everything you see will confirm it. And looking for external evidence to disprove the negative lies you believe about yourself is one of the most efficient ways to self-destruct. Believe me, I know.
I wish I had lots of love and affirmative words to say to people who have similar qualities to the one who hurt me or the author of that post, but I said them all before and learned the only thing that truly works with someone in that place is tough love and saying it how it is. Stop blaming what is outside of you for where you are, take responsibility for what is behind, and do better moving forward. There is a spiritual enemy out there and the root of all dysfunction = lies and fear as opposed to truth and love.
People are people. To be loved you must love others. No one is going to swoop in and rescue you from yourself. No human. Maybe a higher power, if you seek and have faith. But it’s time to wake up. Learn to truly see people as whole human beings in their own right, not attention, sex, or compliment machines there for your benefit, and have empathy for them the way you wish for it yourself (and probably already have had a normal amount you just didn’t see because you were looking for something else at the time).
This person probably has no clue how I felt for them. They may think they know. But they have no clue. They may have a sense they screwed up but… they will never know the full extent. I am pretty certain of that.
In the meantime, I have accepted I will never be the same… but I am doing well, and I will not make the same mistake again of letting myself be hurt in the name of love. What I thought was love must not have been, because love does not treat others the way I was treated, not on purpose, not accidentally, not ever.
Real love isn’t confusing and it doesn’t hurt. Lust, emotional unavailability, ego issues – those things are false substitutes/ obstacles to real love and destroy the hearts of good people.
Good luck to anyone this may be relevant to.
PS – I did not reply to or name the post I mentioned because this isn’t exactly a reply, just sparked by it, and I do not want the person who wrote the post to think I believe they’re exactly like the person in my situation because of course I don’t know them at all. I just noticed some similarities in some of their phrases and themes that arose with the person in my life.
