So I’ve come to understand that the ache I feel when I’m alone originated from how I was made to feel as a child.
It’s that feeling that I don’t deserve to exist — and that everyone’s life would be better if I simply didn’t exist.

I couldn’t articulate it earlier in life, but every time I come across this idea it deeply resonates with how I feel inside: being placed in a role where everything was my fault. I was led to believe that I couldn’t do anything right.

This role protected my family from facing any of their own issues — the fact that they were miserable people in a miserable marriage, parents who weren’t good and who didn’t have friends or family, who lived with an inability to love. Rather than facing or learning to deal with that, they projected all of their shame onto me.

As a child, I internalized it — because children are egocentric. And it’s such a shame, because those beliefs are deeply inscribed into my psyche.

The Echoes Today

My immediate response even now shows it:

  • If I’m walking out of an elevator and someone bumps into me, I apologize.
  • The reflex is “I’m sorry for existing.”

It shows up in my choices too:

  • Friendships where I feel undervalued.
  • Relationships where I’m criticized and belittled.
  • Jobs where, at some level, I knew I would be treated poorly.

It all feeds that original idea: that I don’t deserve to exist, that everything is my fault, that I’m the worst human in existence.

The Hard Truth

It’s a hard truth to sit with. There’s so much grief that comes with it, and so much frustration at how difficult it is to overcome. Every time I act in line with that gut response, I get frustrated with myself again and again.

And yet, it’s not my fault at all that I was treated like that. It makes sense that I adapted this way. If I could be heavily critical of myself, I could prevent extra suffering in childhood. By preempting what others would say or do, I could act in a way that reduced the pain as much as possible.

Coming Back to the Ache

It’s such a difficult thing to sit with, and a shame that so much comes back to childhood. But perhaps this is the reality of it:

  • To understand the ache.
  • To sit with it.
  • To notice how it resurfaces again and again.

Each time I return to this idea, I understand it more. Then I let it go. Then it reemerges. Each time I question if it can really be true.

But the reality is — it was.