Fear of rejection

[Risingashes]

I have a feeling that the basis of my issues come down to a fear that people will reject who I am.

 

Not through anger, mistrust or disgust- rather a simple process of becoming bored and moving on.

 

It started with being picked on in primary school, 6 years of my life being the one people turned to when they needed someone to torment must have hurt a lot more than I ever let myself believe. Once you don't fight back the first time it just becomes too easy to not fight back the second time, to do so would be unexpected, rude even.

 

Being the intuitive scamp that I was, I took high school by the horns and did the only logical thing, I imitated what I saw as the best parts of bullying behavior. And for years I was happy. While it started out a simple process of making the lives of the vulnerable hell, I couldn't help but try to offer them a way out, pushing them to the very edge but faking a vulnerability letting them get a shot in. Maybe I was just trying to reassure myself- what I mistook for some kind of underlying benevolence was really just an attempt to convince myself that my weakness, my apathy was in some way justified.

 

Bullying really doesn't solve all problems however. In the end we do what we do and then try and retrospectively define who we are based on those actions, smokers wanted to start smoking, drinkers wanted to start drinking. The problem being that if you do too much you tend to lose sight of what you actually are and what you were pretending to be.

 

Picking on others in a school setting only serves to initially ally yourself with others who likewise want the attention or simply wish to remain out of the crosshairs. What is needed for true friendship is an actual closeness, something that I purposely avoided. Generalities, jabs and comical insults were as close as I ever let anyone get likely due to not wanting them to actually see me. No one really endears themselves to someone who wont admit they have weaknesses.

 

Of course the problem is that I truly don't know if there is anything left, I can be somewhat too good at hiding. I wouldn't put it past myself to of made up just about everything for over 6 years. How am I supposed to build upon something that isn't real.

 

I think I've done too much damage already, it might be best just to try harder at lying. Eventually someone will accept what I become.

[poloplayer]

Hi Risingashes,

 

Please realize that you are not alone. Everyone has fears, even celebrities and supermodels, and one of the most common fears among all of humans is the fear of rejection.

 

So you have been able to pinpoint why you have this fear, which is very good that you can admit that. Not many people can. Most people would take their fears and darkest secrets to their grave - a sad way to live out an entire life.

 

So what do you think the next step is? You admitted a fear. You know what drives this fear. How do you remove this fear? Think about it for a while, there is a way...