I used to think that being loved meant being easy. Emotionally manageable, uncomplicated, predictable, calm. Somewhere along the way, I internalized the idea that if I wanted to be kept, I had to be careful. I couldn’t afford to be too loud, too intense, or too visibly affected by anything.
╴╴╴╴╴⊹ꮺ˚ ╴╴╴╴╴⊹˚
I started shaping myself early on. When I was little, as most people did, I noticed that some emotions made people uncomfortable. Sadness could make a room go quiet. Joy, if it was too loud, could feel embarrassing. Discomfort seemed to follow me whenever I expressed too much. Therefore, I stopped expressing. Or at least, I learned how to package things neatly. With a smile instead of a sigh, a laughter instead of a feeling. By the time I started entering relationships, this pattern wasn’t conscious anymore. I was already fluent in the language of self-adjustment. I became hyperaware of my effect on others. I paid attention to tone, to pauses, to every subtle shift in the air. If someone seemed distant, I blamed myself. If something felt off, I tried to fix it by being more agreeable, more understanding, more patient than I actually was.
╴╴╴╴╴⊹ꮺ˚ ╴╴╴╴╴⊹˚
I didn’t fully believe I was loved, even when I was told I was. Not really. I thought love was conditional—that it stayed only if I stayed within the limits of what was easy to deal with. I still deal with this. I kept a mental checklist of everything I shouldn’t be: too emotional, too reactive, too complicated, too opinionated, too attached. If I could just stay pleasant and light enough, maybe I wouldn’t be left. It was exhausting. But I didn’t have the language to call it exhaustion. I only knew that I felt constantly watched by a version of myself that was always managing things, always translating emotion into something safer.
╴╴╴╴╴⊹ꮺ˚ ╴╴╴╴╴⊹˚
What made me realize all these was meeting a person who doesn’t require that kind of performance to stay close. For the first time, I don’t feel like I have to rehearse who I was in order to be accepted. It was in the small things. How he learned not to rush to fix me when I was upset, how he didn’t turn distant when I was overwhelmed. How he didn’t praise me for being “such a cool girl”. He doesn’t reward emotional invisibility. He doesn’t feel the need to do so. Yet, the instinct to shrink still shows up sometimes. There are days when I hear the old internal voice urging me to simplify how I feel, to delay a message so I don’t seem too eager, to handle everything on my own so I don’t become a burden. But now I recognize it. I notice the reflex.
╴╴╴╴╴⊹ꮺ˚ ╴╴╴╴╴⊹˚
Love, I’m learning, isn’t about being easy to love. It’s about being allowed to be whole. I don’t want to be chosen because I require less. I want to be met because I’m real. There’s still a part of me that flinches when I need something. I’m learning to stay, to exist without trimming myself down for the sake of being tolerated. I don’t immediately scold myself when I notice these patterns anymore. The voices still come around. But now, I can sit with them, mostly. I don’t rush to fix myself. I watch.
╴╴╴╴╴⊹ꮺ˚ ╴╴╴╴╴⊹˚
I believe, What If I Had Been Untouched? relates to this. You might also want to read it.
