Are You Hard to Love?

I originally wrote this in March 2024. I still remember the feeling of it and how different my life is today, over two years later. I'm sending the 2024 version of me some extra love today, and I'm sending YOU some extra love, too, if you're currently in a rough season of your life.

I got some news yesterday that made me anxious and sent me into a planning frenzy, leaving me feeling overwhelmed and weepy. It was one of those last drop, last straw things that made everything that was already barely manageable roll over the cliff.

I went to bed sad, and I woke up sad.

I’m very behind on work, and feel like a slacker. I send emails with too many sorries. I don’t respond to texts from friends, because I don’t want to wear out my welcome (yes, even if they’re the ones texting me). I’ve been going to bed exhausted, grateful for the escape.

I've been hiding.

And then it hit me today that part of the hiding comes from being ashamed that I’m not doing better. That I seem to be getting much worse at sucking it up and moving on and just fucking repressing that shit and saying I’m fine when asked, so nobody has to be uncomfortable around me. And as I was making it about other people, I already knew that it was me who was uncomfortable around myself.

I don’t hide from others. I hide from myself.

Shame is so sneaky. It’s hard to acknowledge to myself how sad I feel. It’s hard to tell anyone else, even though I am surrounded by loving people. It’s almost impossible to say out loud that I need something, that I want help, that I can’t do it alone.

There are two reasons for hiding my needs, one is more comfortable to admit than the other:

1.      I know in my head that this is what happens to parentified children. I grew up to be hyper-independent. It took me nearly 40 years just to realize that’s less an amazing personality trait and more of a coping mechanism—a trauma response to being left to fend for myself. Not physically fend for myself (I always had food and shelter and clothes), but emotionally. My parents were dealing with addictions and emotionally immature so they couldn’t be present for my needs.

2.      My shame over being needy and weak and sad comes from my equally strong pride of feeling better than everyone else by always yelling come at me bro, what else you got, I can take it, pile it on top, I’ll smile through gritted teeth and tell you it “didn’t even hurt.”

It’s easier to say oh, I don’t want to impose because my parents made me feel like my valid needs were too much. That’s true. And it’s also true that I built my whole identity around being “the strong one” who had her shit together. Supermom, employee of the month, the one who would never, ever cut reps at the gym, and knows if you want it done right, do it yourself.

The shame I felt today made me realize how much I’d used recovery and healing tools and resources to prop myself up in the hopes that I wouldn’t need to ask for help as much. I’m using self-care and recovery and therapy to replace all the negative coping mechanisms of people-pleasing and manipulation and overwork and a million other things, but they serve the same purpose: to keep me from admitting that I can’t fucking do it sometimes.

I’m whiteknuckling the shit out of this, using a ton of tools every day just to regulate down to neutral. I wrote a list of just the basics I do to maintain AVERAGE functioning. Not to make you feel guilty if you’re not doing all of them but to show how much it takes for me:

• I go to somatic therapy once a week to help me regulate my nervous system.
• I go to an Al-Anon meeting once a week to deal with childhood stuff from my alcoholic parents.
• I go to a Codependents Anonymous meeting once a week to deal with my addiction to love, sex, and relationships.
• I work the steps and have a sponsor.
• I journal most days to write through my feelings.
• I lift weights five days a week to access my anger, which I have repressed for decades.
• I started doing yoga again and use mindfulness exercises.
• I do breathwork.
• I sleep at least seven hours a night, eat mostly plant-based, drink enough water, and don’t drink alcohol.
• I maintain a close romantic relationship, consistently parent my kids, and invest in friendships.
• I go to my primary care doctor, OBGYN, and dentist regularly.
• I go outside at least a few minutes every day and go for walks several times a week.

It’s a lot. It’s hard work. And many days, I still end up in a heap on the bathroom floor or screaming in my car.

The thing that drives me nuts? I feel ashamed for how much it takes for me to feel okay-ish.

But guess what? When I couldn’t do any of these things, a decade back, when my kids were smaller, and I wasn’t getting paid enough and I was locked in a terrifying custody battle, and I lost so much weight and so much hair, and I had no friends and worked all the time and could barely cry because I was so numb and had no health insurance or therapy or recovery or healing to speak of, I was also ashamed.

I was ashamed that I didn’t do all those things. I thought I should do better so I could feel better.

And then I did do “better” and still didn’t feel better. And then I blamed myself, because what was wrong with me? How privileged was I? How many resources and services would I need to suck up to feel fine? What about the people living in war zones?

Regardless of how little or how much I invested in taking care of myself, I always found some reason to feel shame.

I’m the most stable I’ve ever felt in my life. The most myself. The most resourced when it comes to love, time, money, and energy. And yet, things keep falling apart. And I’m embarrassed that they do and that I can’t seem to hold things together anymore. That everything feels like it is slipping out of my hands.

It’s a terrifying privilege to fall apart. I know I’m falling apart now because I can. Because there is a safety net. Because taking a day off won’t mean I can’t pay my bills. Because I can afford health insurance and therapy. Because I’ve deepened my relationships. Because in my life there’s currently no custody case / ugly divorce / chronic illness / mental health emergency / recent death in the family / insertwhatevertypeofemergency that put you in survival mode.

I’m finally in a place where my brain is like, okay, you probably won’t freak the fuck out and drive your car off a cliff if I let you touch the edges of the big, dark, terrifying thing.

Falling apart sometimes means it’s finally safe to do so.

The shame is trying to make me feel bad for acting like a mortal. My ego is giving me the death stare for letting people see me weak and scared and asking for help. For letting people see how much it takes for me to function not at peak level, but just average.

Finally, I saw how, over the last weeks, I’ve been saying how proud I am of doing all the things I need to do for myself to be okay. You can find that wording in the posts from a few weeks ago. Then, today, I felt shame.

What would happen if I let go of both the pride and shame and just accepted that this is what it takes right now?

Maybe for a second, I could stop asking myself why I feel ashamed.

Sometimes, the why is helpful, and often, it’s not. Sometimes searching for the why takes the energy away from doing stuff that’s good for me and that will get me out of the shame spiral. I’ve just been conditioned for too long that I must understand the reasons before I’m allowed to say I can’t do this. I need help.

I’m not unfuckwithable. I hope I never run out of fucks to give. I will never own a “good vibes only” shirt. I’m not living the American dream. I’m living my privileged, but also hard life. I will not pull myself up by my bootstraps. I will not write a fake-ass happy post when my happy moments are rare and precious right now.

If you’re also going through a character-building season in your life, I see you.

If you are venturing deep into the dark woods, here’s something to whisper to yourself on the way:

You are not too much.

You are enough.

You are easy to love.

Today is the last day to submit a piece of your writing in response to this week's prompt, so I can consider it for sharing with the community (juliane@bergmannconsulting.com).

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