“You Deserve Better”

I’m tired of always hearing that I deserve better. If you love me then why not just be better, or do better? Why act poorly, or treat me badly and then say “you deserve better”. It’s like a going theme in my life.

Recognizing patterns is the first step in breaking them, in changing your decisions and therefor your outcomes as well. This is an impossibly difficult task. Fear of the unknown is overwhelming. But the more you think about it, isn’t it scarier to keep repeating the same situation over and over? Isn’t this a type of psychosis?

And what about when you are able to clearly identify a pattern, but lack the courage to venture forth into the unknown. Slowly you regress, leave your lessons behind you, make excuses for how you’ve been treated, and take comfort in the habitual. You want to curl up in all that you have known, wrap yourself in memories tinted in a golden light and forget the darkness which surrounds them.

The key to breaking through to the other side, or rather breaking free of unhealthy relationship patterns seems to be in loving yourself and then having courage. Only you can fight for you. Yes it’s incredibly sad, and rather disappointing, realizing that your whole life all you’ve wanted is for someone to fight for you, yet all you’ve ever done is stand alone and fight for yourself. So you must love yourself enough to fight for you.

The thing about these unhealthy psychosis which we develop is that they start in our childhood. If we truly want to heal, recognize and change our patterns we have to look at our childhood and examine the relationships that were modeled before us. Sadly, some of us grow up in unhealthy family situations, and by no fault of our own we learn unhealthy relationship patterns, they are ingrained in us. I learned to be accepting of minimal effort where love is concerned, to believe in words rather than actions, to believe that you should stay committed and make the effort and never give up on someone who you believe in or who you see the good in (which in itself is not necessarily a bad thing), to believe that if someone says they love you then they must, even if they rarely show it. In someways, I suppose I grew up to believe in nothing, to try to make something out of nothing, to see something where there is nothing.

I’ve been making strides, and falling backwards, back and forth, back and forth, for 9 months now. Every time I fall, its incredibly disappointing, I question everything, my sanity included. I have some pretty deep seeded fears which make my unhealthy patterns all the more welcoming. But now, slowly, I’m starting to develop a fear of the known, or rather I’m tired of it. I wonder what a healthy relationship is like, I’m curious and afraid all at once to discover normalcy, well what I would consider normal. I know, “normal” is not the best word, I suppose “different” from what I’ve known and experienced, “functional”, an equal partnership where each person grows, and the two grow together and are able to build a life together and realize dreams together.

The only way forward is with courage. Finding the courage to know oneself, the courage to face the unknown and all of the uncertainties, the courage to face all of the unanswered questions, the courage to move forward ALONE. The courage to face, and accept that you are in fact alone, and to decide that you would rather be alone than repeat unhealthy patterns, because that decision is ultimately a gift to yourself, a chance at finding something truly beautiful, and meaningful, something you are deserving of. And so you see why you must love yourself? Because if you do not then you have no reason to face these fears, and nothing to fight for.

I suppose I should be thankful to every single person who I’ve given my heart to, to those who were careless with me, to those who did something that warranted them saying to me “you deserve better”, because it’s finally sinking in, I DO deserve better, the best in fact. I deserve to have people in my life who will never have to tell me I deserve better, because they will always give me the best of themselves, the same I give of myself to others.