This Blog is going to be way more personal than it needs to be. But its my little spot on the web so I will write what I want!
Many people don't understand how hard it is to function in life when you have had souls crushing low self esteem.
Especially when you are the type of person that shows up on paper like a confident individual.
I try my best to fight it but sometimes I get reminded just how poor my self image has been for most of my life and yesterday was one of those days.
I told myself, there is no point in trying to date if my esteem is so low that I just settle for having people in my life that abuse me, especially emotionally, and I smile and think "ok I guess this is just how it is so accept it."
I tend to be a pretty timid person around people, but I smile big and talk as best I can asking them lots of questions about themselves and hearing their amazing life stories and wishing mine was just as amazing as theirs is. Not realizing my life actually is and that I am loved.
Anyway, I went to a chiefs game with my God Niece. I think that's the best way to describe her. Her family is so amazing. Her brother is a pro heavy weight boxer with his own gym, her mom is a retired colonel from the military that travels the world and she just got her masters degree and will be working in public health.
She shines with so much enthusiasm for life and excitement to travel and just live to the fullest . Me on the other hand I feel like I am always thinking of the things I cant imagine every having the opportunity to do like living in another country of finishing my comic series.
Anyway, while I was at the Chiefs game I got approached 2 times by some rather attractive men. One of them was crazy tall and I was really surprised he was even speaking to me. But honestly that is how I feel anytime any handsome man speaks to me. Its hard for me to get my mind on a level to recognize they might actually like me. Or that I am someone they might want to actually have a conversation with.
I am perpetually in a state of mind where I don't make eye contact or fear physical contact cause I believe no one likes me and I will be rejected especially by men unless its a blatantly sexual advance of some sort. And I hate it! To think someone, especially of the opposite sex is talking to me for a reason other than I am drawing them, or something work related, sometimes blows my mind.
I hate it cause I FEEL like I'm SEEN as worthless to other people unless they feel like I have something they want. So a sweet smile and a embrace from a cool stranger I just met is often met with not just fear but surprise.
"What! You like me just because I'm me! That's all I ever wanted in life!" Is the sound track that runs though my head
Last year I received a loving gift from a friend that made me cry like a baby. After struggling through covid they sent me a gift I did not ask for and I asked them, but why do I deserve this. What did I do? And they told me I didn't have to do anything that they just did it cause they cared about me.
It felt so foreign to be on the receiving end of kindness. I feel like I'm always the one that's being giving and kind and caring for others while they take the kindness and just keep asking for more and more until I have nothing left to give.
I reached that point with much of my family. I reached a point where I felt so tapped out that I had to remove them out of my life cause I was drowning under my own giving to the point I couldn't do anything to help myself. And while I drowned they were still asking me to help them while no one was throwing me a life raft so I could get out. I was just watching my life flash before my eyes and I was not happy about failing own self.
Its why I fight so hard these days to see things change. Whether its better health, better income, positive environment, or just a peaceful evening to myself. I feel like I am battling to love myself enough to feel like I deserve love from others.
Otherwise, the alternative is a life where people do treat you like a meal ticket or a personal sex doll for their enjoyment.
When people talk to me about there loving family or men express how much they love thier wife and kids, it just seems foreign to me cause its not my story. When I am invited to sit in the front seat instead of the back or sit at the adult table instead of with the kids or to be the reason for the celebration instead of a last minute guest or the entertainment, or even the server, it is like a new world I have never seen before opens up.
All I can thing is , "wait...I have friends? People actually value what is say? People see me?"
Getting my work at the Nelson Atkins museum was such a huge deal for me. I definitely didn't feel I deserved it! And I definitely didn't feel like I fit in. Then to hear my work impacted people so profoundly was even more shocking.
Now I really know why so many say, "go where you are appropriate and not tolerated." Now if I can just have that all the time.