8/31/10

Are you Feeling Ignored?

I grew up a bit of an attention-seeker. Being the youngest of four siblings in a single-parent home after my Father passed away probably made me a classic case.
There are a few symptoms I notice from attention-seekers;

Guilt; they make you feel guilty for not spending time with them or energy on them.

Passive-aggressive: They give you a free pass for supposedly ignoring them, but make sure they insert a last minute blow of sarcasm. Along with it they’ll throw some quick facts in to try and confuse you.

Anger/Tantrums; they will imagine up a reason to be angry at you even though you didn’t do anything wrong.

Tears; whether real or crocodile, they are a classic tactic to drum up sympathy.

Lies; they might even vilify someone else in your life so you will wipe the others from the list and therefore your schedule will be clear for them.

I have used all of these at some point or another with the exception of making up stories about some third party. That takes it to a whole other level.

It seems to come from Desperation. It really strikes me as a symptom of plaguing loneliness.

When I was depressed, being in a room with anyone at least supplied some external energy (good or bad) to suppress my inner demons. But one of the real traits I was plagued with was envy.

Generally if a person doesn’t have hours and hours to spend with you, it means they have some things going on in their own life. They might have a successful job or another life-fulfilling purpose that is racking up the hours. For a person who doesn’t have much going on in their life, that doesn’t seem like something to be proud of in a partner. Their happiness or success is a constant reminder of what the sad person doesn’t have!

For me, I didn’t have the mental capacity to chase anyone else around anymore. But more than that, I realized that my fulfillment could not come from someone else.
The next question I asked myself, “While I am busy sucking the emotions of others, what am I actually GIVING?” It’s very difficult to come to that point during a terrible depression. My depression was a combination of selfishness and self-pity mixed with self-loathing and low self-worth. So try to un-blend that mess after you’ve hit high on the blender.

Creativity, my hobbies, my passions and spirituality are what broke me out of it all. I started to see that I had to bring the self-loathing into the middle from the left and the self-pity in way from the right. They seem to be meeting in the middle now and I am starting to see I am both a small part of this world and a very important part of the world which seems like a healthier blend.

I hope that you are finding YOUR spirit as though nobody else exists. Then, when we develop something to share, we can start being part of the giving team. The world is full of takers. Some don’t mean to be and some absolutely mean to be. With some encouragement, I believe everyone has the capacity to be giving.

And if you are one of those people who believe you have given too much, are you sure? Giving is supposed to be rewarding, right? If you are still feeling like you give and give and give, are you still expecting something in return? If you are feeling ignored from giving too much, what are you expecting back?

I think the people who give and are happy doing so, just keep moving on to the next thing and don’t look back for the praise or reward.

Much love on you!
Karen :)

“The value of a man resides in what he gives and not in what he is capable of receiving.” ~Albert Einstein

1 comment:

  1. I think I've run the gamut on this, though for slightly different reasons - my own specific shortcomings, but think I'm finally cool with having more reasonable expectatios of myself.

    oddio

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