This is hard. Hard to acknowledge you, harder yet to try and talk to you. In acknowledging you, I'm talking to myself. I realize that, a part of myself that I hate and yet love. A part that I want to be more like in some ways yet less like in others.
In you...In the positive, I appear outgoing, friendly, braver than I am, a demeanor that I am known for. I am able to cover over the social anxiety disorder and most people never know. Another thing is that most people would never guess that I'm suffering from depression. So in that sense you've protected me. I've always hid behind my smile that was always there much like a mask, put in place whenever I left the house so that one need not know how unhappy I might be...and yet there is much about you that is negative.
In the negative, you are people pleasing, acceptance seeking, constantly waiting on the other shoe to drop, and awaiting rejection and abandonment. Never feeling like I completely measure up. I built walls so tall so strong that no one could get in as protection from rejection. Isolating myself so well that I had no one to turn to, no one with whom I could be real...until I lost what the real me ever was. I find myself asking who am I really and what do I really like, because somewhere in all the people pleasing I lost myself. Sad thing is some people you simply can't please and when I can't please then I don't know how to proceed.
I know you served a purpose of protecting my tender feelings however, I feel like you are costing me a lot in lost friendships, bad relationships, and controlling my life through fear. Fears of what others think, fears that I'm not accepted, fears of failure, fears of success, fears of being inadequate, fears of drawing attention, and fears of being ignored. You terrorize my mind with thoughts of rejection, that people can't love me and accept me for ME. Until those very fears become fulfilled. Then there is the never being good enough, when people see the real me that they will walk away.
You have become the storm clouds of my soul. Creating problems, enveloping me in fears, overwhelming myself to inaction, and causing me to fail before I start. Keeping me from stepping out in the past, although now I do more through the power I have in Jesus Christ. I'm learning to step out in Christ and do it afraid. Guess what I've survived. You are losing your precious hold on me.
You use my secrets to keep me from ever becoming truly comfortable in any relationship. Why should I always fear that people would not accept me? In a way I was protected for years because without letting people close, I was spared the rejection. But you reinforced that lonely idea with so many fears and judgements that I was made into a prisoner. A self-made prisoner...only now I've found the prison is to small and I now have the keys.
The key is Jesus. As I present you at the foot of the cross, you start to appear smaller and as I focus on what Jesus says you began to lose power over me and my life.
I've come a long way and yet I'm still trapped in this prison. I've decided that its time I fight back, not passively as before, but actively. I've hated you for a long time (thus hating myself), even planned ways to kill you off. Then I'm reminded that you are out to kill me and steal my chances at happiness. So I can't kill you, that would mean killing myself, and that's not an option, at least not when I'm in my right mind. But from now on you don't get a voice, unless it aligns with God's word. I'm taking you and your lies to Jesus. I don't pretend that it will be easy, nor that you will ever completely go away. But you will be controlled...your power is slipping away already with the power of His Word.
Yes, I realize that you are a part of me, but that part shall soon be mastered as I learn anew Who I am in Jesus Christ, and I give him power over you.
My Better Self,
Deanna
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