I want you to want me

From an article on releasing attachment, "I discovered that my pain and deep wound comes from a childhood of abuse and never being loved. I gave myself and my love away to anyone who would give me any sort of attention. My longing to be loved so badly was destroying me in so many ways."

It's hard to say if my desperate need for attention and acceptance comes from the shadow side of my personality or my trauma. I suspect it's a cute little combination of both. I'm a high extrovert, love to be in the limelight, but then my back story issues tend me push me over the edge of what is appropriate. I used to tell myself to stop being "me", and that didn't work, so now I'm looking for my place in this world while living out loud. 

I've never been in the 'in' crowd in school, work or any other grouping. Allowed to hang on the periphery but never one of the inner circle people. The people I hang out with have always been an eclectic mix and getting them all together at once never worked. We moved a ton, and don't have relatives in the area, so I've always been envious of those with their special groups and support systems. 

Yet even taking into account my highly opinionated big mouth, my loudness, my eccentricities, my desire to be unique...I want you to want me. I know I'm not for everyone yet get hurt to find out someone doesn't like me. When I find out someone dislikes me I start a mental investigation to figure out what I did wrong. And really I did nothing wrong. I was myself and not everyone likes who I am. It's life. Move on. Upon thinking about this I see it triggers those core needs that weren't met. My father didn't like me and told me so on many occasions. Interesting that when I said the same back to him, "I love you Dad, but I don't like you." that it was held against me to his grave. He had core issues too. 

Where it gets sticky tricky is my insatiable desire for male acceptance. All the daddy issues jokes can be said here. When I was newly divorced, and getting an overwhelming amount of attention, I allowed a lot of bullshit just to keep that need met. Though I learned from each experience, I can still see where I fall hard for flattery. I see I am not asking myself the real question of "Do I even like this person? How do I feel?". My brain goes into 'I'm going to make you like me' mode and all red flags are ignored. I'm learning, and better, but mistakes continue to be made.

I also see in this hunger to have men want me, a feeling of power. I was out dancing recently with someone I'm seeing, and his friend who can't stand me was there. This friend has loudly vocalized to him, "Dude! You know she's a die hard liberal! Why?!". Apparently there was a motion to say "look at her" as a reason for allowing this screaming feminist into the ranks. The friend agreed that I was hot enough for him to understand this. After a few wines I was enjoying mouthing to him from the dance floor, "I know you hate me" while smiling and flipping him off. This wasn't being respected. This wasn't true acceptance. Yet I was drunk with a feeling of having complete control.

So as I become more vocal in my views, as I step into my power, as I fully own who I am, I'm faced with having to accept that I won't be accepted. I feel my need for approval is what often stands in the way of me living the life I want to live. 

As Dita Von Teese said, "You can be the ripest, juiciest peach in the world, and there's still going to be somebody who hates peaches."