Dear SallyDaisy,

As of right now, you are living in a bubble. A bubble that you have created out of the need to rationalized what is happening in your life. And in that bubble, you keep telling yourself the stories ‘I am worthless, I have no value, I am a failure’. Your confirmation bias is also looking for other stories, i e your abusive ex, to support and uphold your critical view of yourself.

Right now, you believe those stories. You believe yourself to be worthless because your environment, the people around you, have never encouraged you to have faith in yourself. Your environment was/is hostile so what you see around is a lot of hostile elements with little safety spaces. Your defense mechanism is on alert mode, ready to leap out at the moment you perceive danger, no matter how imaginary. Because anyone can be an enemy, it is simply easier to shut out everyone, than hope for a single ally. And that’s why you are still in contact with your mother. As much as she is not your ally, at least you know her brand of ammunition. You’ve stood before her line of fire, it is something you can predict and that’s easier to response to. What’s predictable is less scary than what is not predictable. Hence, your ex was an abuser, similar to your mother. You’ve lived in that hostile environment for so long that it’s easier to surround yourself in a similar environment than change to something you don’t know.

What’s worse is that humans tend to be their own cruelest enemy because your mind is the best tool for self-torment. Especially when you were only taught by your mother that you have no worth as a person. It seems you were your mother’s verbal punching bag. She also didn’t approve much of what you did, did she? Especially if it makes you happy because you weren’t allow to be happy? At least in her eyes. And because you couldn’t be happy unless your mother was happy, you’ve learned to put yourself at second best. You’ve learned that your value lies in pleasing other people. Hence, once of the reason why you constantly seek love and affection and approval and validation from other people. You kept chasing after love the only way you knew how.

That void is what is left after the chase. It is a bit of hopelessness along with self-derision. It’s an emptiness that has hollowed out your heart. And because there is nothing in that emptiness, you don’t have anything to fall back onto when your mind constantly questions your value, your worth, your significance. Because it’s empty, you can only filled it with other people’s opinion, taking it as the truth.

You did not live an empty existence, you simply don’t know how to live a full existence for yourself.