Nobody Wants Me

My mother told me my birth story the other day. I realized that because of some circumstances that happened that were out of her control, I was basically born with the script of "Nobody Wants Me" ... and it was completely and utterly ingrained in me within my first 24 hours of life. I just realized that is the main script that has been running my life for 35 years!

Ever since then, I have been looking for "evidence" that this idea is true. My sister was born 18 months after me and I was jealous. I would bite her fingers when my mom wasn't looking. After all, my parents must not want me if they decided to have another baby.

During my growing up years I repeatedly heard the story about, "You cried all the time and we didn't know what to do with you. Mom tried everything and nothing made you happy except hanging Christmas lights above your crib. You must have been colicky." They didn't realize that it was because I was immediately taken away from my mother upon birth and didn't see her again for who knows how long?

It was hard for me to make friends when I was younger. I was too "shy". But now I see that it's because I thought that nobody wanted me. I skipped first grade because I could read before I was in Kindergarten, and I was sure that none of the kids in second grade wanted me there. I always "knew" they were jealous that I had skipped a grade. I was the weirdo.

Instead of being happy with the friends I had, I always wanted to have the friends that seemed unreachable. I always wanted to be with the "popular" kids. But I wasn't pretty enough, didn't have the right clothes, wasn't cool, was too smart. So, when they didn't want me I had more evidence!

I never had a boy ask me out until college. I knew there were a couple of boys who liked me in junior high and high school, but they were the "nerds" ... not the super hot, most popular guy in school that I always had a crush on. So, I rebuffed their admiring and I had a crush on the completely unattainable guy instead. Because I knew that "nobody wanted me".

I have been married and divorced twice. So, obviously someone wanted me at one point, but then somehow stopped wanting me. I can choose to let this destroy me, or I can learn the lesson that the Universe has for me to learn.

Why do we do sabotage ourselves? I believe it's because our brains have an insatiable need to "be right" ... We love self-fulfilling prophecies. It is part of the "Natural Man". It's one of the things we need to overcome while we're here.

So, I'm learning to tell myself that God wants me, and I want me, and that's enough. And you know what? I can see plenty of evidence throughout my life of people that "want" me... for a friend, a sister, a mother, and a lover. And I can make that mean whatever I want it to mean.

I choose to feel loved. I choose to feel needed (in a healthy, non-codependent way!). 

I choose to be Wanted.

What do you choose?