The Fear of Rejection

Last week I went to therapy and discussed this issue that I was having with people trying to get me to talk about things in certain ways and to see things the way they see them and stuff like that. In the middle of my therapist writing on her white board (which is a miracle since it always works) I realized that I had a serious issue with fear of being rejected. I left my session thinking and I’ve been thinking about it for the last six days.

All weekend I watched the women of Edel15 have fun on Instagram as I sat in Texas with my husband. I was having the absolute best time ever with him and yet there was some ugly feeling that I really couldn’t put my finger on. Saturday night after the best romantic dinner ever, I couldn’t sleep and I sat in a chair and wrote. I just wrote what I was feeling and that’s when I realized that  ugly feeling I had was the same one that I had when talking to my therapist about this issue that I was having. I was feeling rejected.

I really don’t know why I felt this way about not being at Edel at all. I know Jen and Hallie and they both were nothing but welcoming to me last year and I talked to them both before the weekend kicked off. Both of them expressed feelings of missing me some way or another on social media. And yet, I sat in my chair in a hotel room after God had poured Grace after Grace on my weekend with my husband feeling like I was the odd man out.

I am thankful for that point of view this weekend though because honestly, I was very sick of seeing all the shade being thrown at Jen and Hallie and it was good for me to see what it was like to not be able to make it to Edel. I don’t know about everyone else who didn’t go, but I know for me that the jealousy came from a deep wound of rejection.

It’s something that I have felt  my entire life but when I was dealing with the big gashing wound that was my sexual abuse, I didn’t really see the wound of rejection and how it worked in my life and my reaction to people and things around me. It’s been there my entire life. After thinking about it for a few days I realized that it came from not having a dad, having a mom who really wanted the best for me but tried to get me to see what was best for me by controlling me and from always being the weirdo of my family. I also have this weird thing called a big mouth that compels me to say things that most people pleasers just won’t say for the sake of pleasing people. Talk about a conflict.

What I have learned in life though is that if I try to please everyone, I drive myself bonkers. No matter what I do, someone has an issue with it and when I try to be 5 different versions of myself, I lose.

My issue had absolutely nothing to do with Edel, but everything to do with my entire life and not projecting that on Jen or Hallie or any of the ladies that went toe Edel was the most charitable thing that I could do. That is how haters are made, and lawd knows that I have plenty of haters so I don’t want to become one. And it simply is not their fault at all even if it seems to feel good to try and lash out at them for it.

From here on out I will only be myself. I will say no when I mean no and yes when I mean yes and I will discern the place that people have in my life. Because when I let you into my circle and you hurt me, that wound affects my family because when I am wounded, I wound them. It has nothing to do with being selfish but everything to do with respecting the order of importance people have in my life. God, my husband, myself, my kids, true friends, everyone else and some people are just people who are acquaintances who don’t get to be close enough to wound me. I have to learn to set those boundaries.  That is difficult because for one thing, I don’t know shit about boundaries and two, I’m a blogger.

I hope that if you are someone who was like me and looking on from social media at the ladies at Edel and you felt like you were on the outside looking in and that made you feel some type of way, that you know you are loved and valued and that you look at that wound. Christ came to heal us of all our wounds. Let us pray for one another because as Jen said in her post “This is a party for women who know that, no matter what we might go through, life ultimately has a happy ending.” If you are a Catholic woman, you are a part of that party because the one thing that we all have in common is that we know life ultimately has a happy ending.