External Validation

Looking at where we are now in this day and age, I’ve realized that we’re all looking for the same thing. External validation. We update our Facebook, Twitter page, Instagram, blog, Tumblr, send Snapchats. And so many other social media tools. We’re all looking for a way to be recognized and be heard. Why is that, I wonder? Is it just what we have evolved to, or evolved down to? I had been thinking about why I personally want validation from others, and I started looking back in my childhood and trying to pinpoint what could have pushed me towards seeking validation. When I started looking around me, it was then that I realized most everyone does. It’s how our generation is built now and what it’s continuing to grow around. 

I started this thought off with where it all stemmed from. But I think that it’s not the where that is important, but how to control it. For me personally, I’ve noticed a pattern of mine that I’m not particularly fond of and I want to grow away from it. I find myself always looking for validation to those I care about and letting it define me. And for me, I keep wondering where did I pick this up. Where did I pick up that me believing in myself or what I was doing was not good enough? 

I never felt my childhood was a bad one. I actually felt despite growing up in a lower income family that it was a pretty good childhood! I grew up with both my parents who loved me and a little brother. Like any family, nothing is perfect, but overall, I look back on my childhood with pretty fond memories. So, where did the validation come from? I remember I always wanted to impress my parents. I felt like being the oldest, I had to make them proud of me and set a good example for my brother. I rarely acted out or got in trouble, always made good grades, set goals for after finishing high school. I’m not quite sure where the initial impression of wanting to impress them came from, however. Maybe we all have that initial impression as kids to want to showoff to our parents and make them proud. And maybe how your parents react to that is what defines you. Mine loved it! Which made me want to show off more and do better. I wanted to give them what seemed to be what I thought they desired. Then as I got older, while my brother was going down a dark path, I felt I had to be even better. Get a job, no get two, still make good grades in high school so I could go to college. I wanted them to still be proud and not be upset about my brother, so I tried to show off what I could to divert their attention. And I loved it. I really did. 

Growing up, I never had “boyfriends”. Even in high school and college. Oh sure, I had crushes, but I got bored easily and never attracted the right guys so I never really dated in my teen years. Then as teen years led to my twenties, I found it to be much harder to meet guys. I’ve never been much of a partier, or a very social person, which made it even harder to meet people. I had my group of friends, and I met people from work but that was about it. I’ve tried online dating with not a lot of luck. So, with that being said, after trying to validate myself to my parents, it bled into validating myself with my friends. I have never had a significant other, so validating myself to a partner, or sharing some doubts of myself and where to go, I looked to my friends for. They became my validation. Thinking back now, I always had a best friend. Or a small group of friends. And, truthfully, seeing the trait pattern now, my best friends have always been strong minded, and very strongly opinionated. They new who they were and were typically pretty driven. I always looked to them for direction on where to go in life, and what was the best decision for me. Why? I guess I felt like they had their shit figured out, they’d be good candidates to help me figure it out. 

So, now that I’m in my thirties, as I’ve come to realize this about myself, it begs the question, why did I never feel I was not good enough? Why do I not think I am capable to make my own decisions and trust those decisions? Why do I have such a hard time believing in myself, and tapping into the good traits that I know have to be in there? And why do I have such a hard time finding those good traits to begin with, and focus on the negative ones? 

I’ve been trying to focus on a mantra that I came up with a couple months ago when I first started to connect these thoughts. “You are good enough.” “I am good enough.” “I am worthy.” These lines I repeat over and over in my head when I want to reach out for that validation. When I look at my stronger willed friends and think ‘They are so much more successful than I am’ or ‘They have this going for them, and they’re so great at this, what am I good at’. I know I chose strong, independent people as my closest confidants to be able to look up to them and aspire to them. But sometimes it’s hard not to let them overshadow me. It’s also one of the other reasons I chose that trait to be a close confidant so that they would overshadow me. So that I could play it safe. I don’t want to spend my life playing it safe. I want to push myself out of my comfort zone and instead of saying I wish I could be that person that tried this or that, I want to say I did try this or that and I succeeded/failed, because at least I could at least say I tried. And not only did I try, but it was my decision to try.

The Answer to Life

Before I dive right into the answer, I want to give a back story. Okay, fine, it’s fish oil. But the story would’ve given it away so really I had no choice. Back to the story!

My best friend has sworn by fish oil for as long as I can remember. He started taking it a few years ago because he had heard of some of the great benefits to taking fish oil and thought he’d give it a try. I remember shortly after he started taking it, he talked me into trying it as well, explaining a summarized version of the health benefits. (I won’t do it justice if I try and list all the benefits, so you’re better off googling.) I thought, what the hell. I have taken it for the past few years now on and off. Once I moved to Austin and started rooming with him, I started up again, as he convinced me even though I may not “see” the benefits, they’re there. 

A couple months ago my friend mentions that he had been feeling blah for the past week and had remembered that he had ran out of fish oil and had forgotten to get some. I thought it was curious that because he had been feeling blah, he attributed it to not having taken any fish oil so I inquired. He said he noticed that if he didn’t take the fish oil, his mood was a little off. Generally speaking, he’s a pretty positive guy, not usually moody. And as I thought about it, I had remembered thinking a couple days prior that he did seem to be in an off mood. Sure enough, he started taking the fish oil, and he was back to his usual self.

Cut to present day: I usually take fish oil every day. I definitely tend to forget to take it every day, but for the most part. Last week, I felt particularly bitchy. As we’ve discussed, I can be a monster, but I felt this was a little different. Some days I do feel my mood can be a bit all over the place. I’m sure most people have their off days and maybe some more than others, which makes them feel crazy. I certainly have mood roller coasters often which leads me to think I’m crazy, but I can usually trace the mood-coaster back to what triggered it. Usually. But last week, I just felt terrible. I was all over the place with my emotions, going from one extreme to the next. I love you, I hate you, I can’t live without you, I hate myself. Seriously, I really felt bipolar. While bipolar does run in my family, I’ve never literally felt bipolar before, so this was new. I kept trying to pinpoint it, each time. Each morning I’d wake up and try to be in a good mood, and sometimes I was, but then something would happen, or not happen and I just all of sudden felt like shit and felt moody and like I hated the world. It was like I was a 13 year old girl all over again. And then I’d feel nostalgic and reminisce about friends and family I missed. Then wish I were on a deserted island. Unfortunately, this went on for about a week. 

At some point towards the end of the week, I had realized I hadn’t been taking my fish oil. Simply because I’m in a rush in the mornings and forget to take it. I remembered the incident with my friend from a couple months and thought, what the hell (again lol), and started taking it again. After a couple days, I felt normal again. I didn’t quite realize it at first, but I remember I had that slow light bulb of ‘wait a minute, I feel pretty good about life right now… hmm, and I had a good day yesterday’. I made sure to keep taking the fish oil and took it all this past week. Aside from normal day to day events, my mood seemed to be relatively stable and I felt good about life in general. So, I decided to start keeping a checklist/diary about it. I just started today so I don’t have much to report other than what I already have. I did some research today and found a couple articles that pointed to fish oil being a good supplement to take with depression, bipolar disorder and anxiety disorders. I want to keep track of days I have taken it and how I felt and days I haven’t taken it and how I felt and see if I notice a difference. 

Quite honestly, I don’t believe that fish oil is the answer. I don’t believe there is one answer for life. How could there be?! There are so many variables and experiences. But so far, I noticed that I feel better with fish oil for my mental stability so I want to see if it is a placebo affect or the real thing. And if there is a natural supplement that is good for me AND keeps me sane, I am all for trying it!

The Day I Realized I Was A Monster

I’ve always known I was a bit crazy. I mean come on, we all have our crazy moments or thoughts. Those days you look in the mirror and think you are one crazy bitch. But then there are those moments. The moments where you have when you realize, maybe I have an issue. Why did I do that? Why did I act that way? Those moments where you have that dread feeling come over you as you realize it was you. You were in the wrong. You’re perception is what caused this whole issue and it was a very dark perception. This is what happened to me the other day.

While in retrospect, said event of the monster-siting doesn’t seem all that monstrous but deep down, it put things in perspective for me. I think it was the simplicity of what happened that really struck me as something is wrong. Inside of me. Why would something so simple make me come so undone.

The other night I came home after spending the evening at a friends house. My roommate and his boyfriend had their weekly date night the same night and were already in bed when I got in. When I walked in, the first thing I noticed was the smell. It smelled like really good home-fried cooking. I dropped off my things in my room and went scavenging for any leftovers when I realized they had cooked, and in the process left a pile of dishes in the sink. It was like a slow anger that built. I told myself it’s fine, they just cooked and left some dishes, no big deal. The pots were soaking and they didn’t feel like doing them. I get it. I never feel like doing dishes. But as I was getting ready for bed, I started to think about it and mull it over. One of the reasons it even bothered me in the first place is that generally speaking, I’m the one who does the dishes in the house. Which is fine, it’s how I like it and I’m the one who cooks, so it makes sense. With that being said, my roommate rarely does the dishes and if they cook, or his boyfriend cooks and we’re all there, his boyfriend will do the dishes. So, as I’m doing my nightly routine, I start thinking, well if his boyfriend gets up and leaves for work in the morning, and isn’t planning on coming back over for a couple days, that leaves the dishes to my roommate. Who rarely does them. You can see why it was a slow anger, because as I slowly started to connect the dots of the “typical pattern”, I realized that I was going to have to do the dishes. And not only that, they had dirtied up the kitchen. While, yes, they had cleaned a little, but I had specifically left the kitchen completely clean the night before because I knew I was planning on going to a friends house that night. 

I’m sure by now you can see where this leads. Now maybe some of you would’ve gone into a rage and immediately done something about it. left a note or even woke them up. And some of you would’ve said it’s no big deal, I’m sure roomie will do them tomorrow. Nothing to be concerned about. I did neither of those things. Instead I seethed. I tried not to. I tried to calm myself down and not think about it. I thought to myself ‘It’s just dishes, who cares. He can cook in the apartment and clean the dishes later if he wants. It’s his apartment too’. But as I woke the next day, I rushed out the door with barely a hello to either of them. Obviously, I had slept it off and was holding no grudges (insert smirk here). I had it in the back of my mind but the rationale side of me kept saying just let it go, and maybe just bring it up casually in conversation to my roomie at some point during the day. Since we work together, it was inevitable that I would see him. So, he came in to work, I attempted to push any thoughts away and ask him how his evening was. He told me they had cooked dinner and such and I made my first stab by saying ‘Oh yeah I noticed the dishes in the sink so I figured you guys had cooked’ and quickly tried to cover by saying I’d looked for leftovers and it smelled delicious. A little while later we were talking about what each others plans were for the evening. I was going to a work dinner and he had decided to stay at home. Yes! Another opportunity to bring it up again. I said great, you can relax and work on your projects and do some dusting and dishes. Okay maybe just the dishes. (How obvious was I?) It was then that he, after I pushed his buttons, confronts me about the dishes. During our conversation about it, he explains that yes he had left them because he didn’t want to spend time washing dishes on their one date night but had every intention of washing the dishes. The one thing that really stuck with me is that he said he had hoped I would have had enough faith in him to know that he wouldn’t have just left the dishes for me to clean when I wasn’t even home. There. That was the moment. Slowly it started to sink in. Slowly I realized it was me. I was the monster.

I found myself asking why. Why had I let this simple incident consume me and not only that, but then make jabs at him all day and make him feel like shit. Which made me feel worse. I am the worst kind of monster. I didn’t just go into a rage and get it over with. I didn’t plot a revenge. I simply seethed and stewed in my anger that wasn't even warranted. I made him out to be the bad guy when I hadn’t even given him the chance. I sat down, thought rationally about it and still acted the way I did. And that is why I am the worst kind. I bring you in, make you feel warm and fuzzy. Slowly my colors start to show through. But it’s too late. You already love me and care about me, so it makes it that much harder to just let me go. Not to mention, when I do act ridiculous, I typically realize I was in the wrong and then make up for it. I apologize, I buy you a peace offering or do a nice thing for you. You think to yourself, it was just one thing, no big deal. She really is such a great person, and then I do it again. And again. And again. I don’t even realize I’m doing it. And these events are not happening in rapid succession so their fresh on your mind. No. They happen randomly with plenty of time in-between. I’m the worst kind of monster because though my intention is not to be a monster, and I draw you in and spit you out. I take that spit-up-you and console it and admit it was my fault and you’re hooked again. I’m a monster with good intentions and as we know, intentions are just that. Warm thoughts and bad actions.

I knew I was crazy. I had finally come to terms with that. I’m a girl with hormones. I’m a person with emotions. I’m an animal who survives. But I don’t want to be a monster. I don’t want to be that person who everyone is afraid of or is walking on eggshells around because they don’t want to wake the beast. I don’t want to be that person who you fear will freak out when you tell them bad or unhappy news. So, I’m working on it. The first true step to anything is admitting. I’ve admitted it and now I have to start working towards figuring out why I am a monster and what I can do to tame her.