I was playing around with an image-altering AI using one of my favorite photos and I kept getting the same blurred-out eyes no matter what prompt I used. I guess I’m not the best prompt writer in the world, or maybe the AI knows something about me that I don’t. Regardless, I kept the image anyway.

Something about the depersonification struck me.

The eyes are the window to the soul. Stare into someone else’s eyes long enough and you’re bound to feel a connection. You can’t help but recognize buried emotions.

The ability to depersonify, dissociate, detach, and disconnect.

These are skills I know all too well. As I begin to thoroughly examine myself, picking through everything that I perceive to be wrong with me, I can recognize the more profound truth not only in myself but in others as well. I have been hurt by loving men who were unable to care for me, respect me, or value me. In my healing journey, I’m waking up to the reality that my trauma responses have kept me in this vicious cycle of feeling worthless and unlovable. When my trauma is triggered I start fawning and people-pleasing to avoid feelings of shame and rejection. When I feel worthless I jump into action trying to prove my worth. When I feel unloved and uncared for, I begin to bend over backward, neglecting my own needs and boundaries, to earn their love.

I deserve all the love, effort, appreciation, and consideration that I offer and am willing to give.

Why do men cater to bitches but mistreat good girls???

It’s the same reason why women love “bad boys”. The source of it all is trauma. We are all reenacting our trauma. We subconsciously seek out experiences that remind us of our traumas in an attempt to heal. We know that we are worthy of love, respect, adoration, consideration, and effort. But our trauma has taught us that we aren’t worthy, loveable, or good enough. So there is this war happening below the surface that propels us to resolve this conflict once and for all. How? By reliving the same bullshit hoping for a different result. This rarely, if ever, works. All this does it reinforce what we learned in our trauma. It retraumatizes us. It compounds and magnifies our trauma responses. Many times it introduces new trauma because different people will be toxic in different ways. It snowballs… Until it’s an avalanche of pain that is so torturous you have no choice but to become obsessed with figuring it out.

We are fucking starving!

We live operating on autopilot—a slave to our subconscious desire for connection. Like a zombie’s obsessive, all-controlling need for brains, we too are brainless and unable to control our desperate search for healing. The least healthy of us are the most clueless. It has nothing to do with intelligence. Anyone that meets me and speaks with me will vouch for the magnitude of knowledge I hold. Knowledge has been an addiction of mine for as long as I can remember. Yet, I was just as blind as everyone else. Maybe even more blind because I have so much trauma. So many things triggered me and I have so many unhealthy core beliefs that were affected and need to be resolved.

I’ve said it before and I’ll say it again. I feel blessed that I was so deeply injured. Because without all this intense internal suffering, I might have never searched for the answer. I could have lived and died never feeling at peace with myself or experiencing genuine, healthy love. I’m also blessed to be a mother, because if it weren’t for my fierce dedication to protecting and doing better for my son, I may have killed myself long ago to escape my misery.

I want to be cared for. Nurtured. Supported. Important. Loved.

Isn’t that pretty much what we all want? Isn’t that the foundation of a healthy relationship? I’m not asking for too much. I know this now. We all deserve it. We’re all worthy of it. But when we’re ruled by our subconscious, and operate from a place that lacks self-awareness we reject it when/if it’s ever presented to us. Why? Because it doesn’t trigger us. It doesn’t stimulate the depths of our emotions as trauma does. It’s boring. It doesn’t excite us.

Needs are at the core of all motivation. We need to feel connected and like we belong. That’s how we’ve evolved and survived as a species. We are slaves to our emotions if we aren’t self-aware. Emotions are just perceptions of the environment. They provide us with information about what kind of situation we’re dealing with, helping us decide how to behave in that environment. We can’t help what we feel, just like we can’t help what we see.

I am the source of all my problems.

I manifest my future. I am the creator of my reality. I know exactly where I have failed. It’s centered on my trauma. It revolves around everything I’ve rejected and won’t allow myself to accept.