I grew up in an environment where talking about sad things or painful feelings was not encouraged.

Often I had to suppress my feelings. I was told and taught not to pay attention to situations in my life, which were painful. Often times I felt empty inside. I dont like to play the victim; but for the first time in a very long time I am telling my story for what it is.

Once I approached my mother with the idea that I might have some deep issues due to my unstable upbringing, moving around the world several times, changing schools about 12 times. My mother became very angry at me, how dared someone like me even consider therapy?! After all I did grow up in a wealthy environment. I started modeling at a very young age and had a successful carrier compared to most models my age. I worked in Paris, New York, Rio, Los Angeles and often traveled the world both for work and for pleasure. Considering this background how could I ever possibly need therapy or feel unhappy? At home any discussion of therapy became a huge issue. So I decided to drop the idea in order to please my mother.

Years later I did go through therapy, but I kept it a secret and to this day I have never mentioned this to my family, even though I was in therapy for three years.

My whole life I have been trying to please people and if you were not available to me, thats when I tried to please you even harder. I would go way out of my way to win your approval, which of course would never happen- I never got the approval I longed for and so I always failed.

To this day the search has never ended and I am left with a feeling of emptiness and loneliness, which for me is a very scary place to be; perhaps because I was conditioned not to feel. I was not allowed to be sad, or to feel pain.

I remember when my best friend died in a car accident. I was 18 years old, she was my childhood friend and my mother was very upset at me because I was devastated. I had to leave whatever I was feeling aside and pretend nothing was going on because according to my mother after all it was my friends fault; she should not be drinking and driving and I was forbidden to cry.

Eventually I became numb.

Numb to life and to the world around me. I developed high tolerance for pain, both physically and emotionally. My boundaries were blurred. I did not know boundaries or when to say enough. Behaviors, which for many people would be unacceptable, for me was the norm. It is so hard to see clear. To see things for what they really are, to remove the fog, to face my fears and face my truths.
Maybe if I remove all my issues, toxic relationships and situationsI am left with nothing, emptiness. That place requires me to go very deep and to be alone and to feel my true reality. At the moment my true reality isnt so pretty.

Every time I remove myself from destructive situations and I attempt to be alone, it can be very scary because I start to feel and deal with my deepest issues. So my defense mechanism kicks in and I go back into old patterns, allowing toxic people back into my life or finding new ones. My old people-pleasing habits, high tolerance for bad behaviors comes backafter all this is who I am.
This is what is familiar to me. It is what I have known my entire life. Its what I have been conditioned to believe its the norm.

Just as an alcoholic, a drug addict, or any one with addiction; I am an addict too.

I am addicted to unavailable people and to distorted behaviors.

I want to break my patterns. Just like an alcoholic wants to recover, I too want to recover.

I am tired of seeing the world through a fog. How does one re-wire his or hers entire history and thought patterns?

My parents divorced when I was about 2 years old. My father is an alcoholic who was emotionally unavailable while I grew up. My stepfather is a workaholic. My mother tried to make up to my two father figures and yet her over protective behavior always discouraged me of ever feeling sad or troubled. My brother who is only one year younger than me has down syndrome, which made it extremely hard on my mother and kept her very busy always trying her best to care take his health issues. From a very early age I remember being always worried weather my brother would survive or not. From a very early age I remember life being very serious.

My first boyfriend, who I always beyond loved and who I spent a significant part of my life with, weather it was romantically or as friends, was a full on drug addict, but he meant the world to me. About a year and a half ago on my birthday he killed himself.

I was with a man for five years, who I married. He was an alcoholic and emotionally unavailable to me.

I was in a two-year relationship with another man who was physically and mentally abusive to me and who also abused drugs and alcohol.

In every relationship I have tried to rescue these people. Each and every one of them had amazing qualities and they were extremely charismatic people, but arent they always?

I thought I could save them. I thought I could change them. What a silly ideaor is it just maybe that there is a part of me which enjoys the craziness and the chaos? For I do not know what it is to live life without it, never once have I experienced an intimate relationship without chaos.

So far I have gone through life getting involved with people who are emotionally unavailable to me. Due to my high tolerance of abuse, my lack of boundaries, my lack of ability to see things for what they truly are, my inability to face my fears, to face my truths and my natural ability to live life in a fog state, I am capable of carrying on these unhealthy relationships for a very very long time.

Am I afraid to be alone? Am I afraid to feel? Am I afraid to see things for what they truly are?

YES.

Why?

The reality is I do not think I am good enough.

What am I punishing myself for?

I know that the answer to that is deep, but whatever that is, I want to get rid of it.

Perhaps being alone in emptiness, being truly sad is what I truly need, but I honestly dont know if I am capable of doing that. Somehow when the going gets tough, I manage to fall right back into my old patterns. Now, my family is far away, but Ill start dating someone toxic again, or Ill get so busy I wont allow time to feel and before I know I am numb again.

I wonder what would happen if I did dive deeply into my pains, my lonelinessIf I faced all my fears, faced my true selfI wonder whats on the other sideassuming I would come out(?)

I wonder who is this other girl in me?

The one far away from all this pastthe one I was born to be.

Sometimes I do have a glimpse of that girl and I see her.

She is beautiful and she lives in a peaceful place.

That glimpse is what gives me hope.