Validation

Validation addiction for me is related to fear of other people’s communication patterns and my interpreting every interaction through the lens of my insecurity. I realize lots of people have been communicative with me; most do not connect through social media; some are responsive through email, others not so much; sometimes I will text someone and not get a response and feel rejected and then they call me back later. Especially when I am tired like now I may read into the ways I felt ignored or feared that lack of response was a cold shoulder, and I might question everything that felt positive early in the day. Like someone just said it’s supposed to rain a lot tomorrow and since I’m so tired now and just felt something that felt like rejection I said, oh, they probably only invited me to get my hopes up because it’s going to rain and they knew we’d have to cancel anyway. But CBT might be helpful here: I am doing as much of a favour to them as they are to me, anyway, of course that is not it! Sometimes I listen to people talk to others and pretend they are talking to me, just to see if I would take it personally or be sensitive and read into it and it is true sometimes I would. I think it is a roller coaster: I get a break from feeling hopeless for a little while and feel a little bit validated but then when feelings of fear come back and I don’t get validated as I hope I start to doubt it all. Tonight I didn’t hear back from someone I didn’t know and it felt personal; it probably wasn’t but it relates to one of my biggest fears right now; about that same moment I heard back right away from someone I do know and questioned their sincerety because I was feeling rejected by this person I didn’t know who I assumed must think horrible things about me and that’s why they ignored me and didn’t respond to my email! Tonight my legs are starting to kill me; at least I can maybe afford a massage. I just hate my money to go to that unnecessarily…