Insecurity

This post is hard for me to formulate because my struggle this week has been complex and I have just in the last day or so begun to untangle it. When I say there is unending self-discovery in grief, I mean un.ending.

“Insecurity”–
a word used by a friend to describe a thought that has lingered in my mind since a couple weeks ago.

When I’m in the middle of my deepest sadness and anxiety, and I want to reach out to someone for comfort or to be heard, I’m stopped in my tracks by insecurity. I don’t know how long this sadness will last for, and I don’t know how many more times I will have to send out an SOS text. What I do know from experience is empathy is difficult to maintain over a long period of time. I don’t want to put the burden of empathy on my closest people and I also don’t want to get hurt if their responses become disingenuous. ‘How long will it take before people expect me to be fine again? Will they get impatient with me and only listen out of obligation?’ So I lie in bed feeling suffocated, afraid to text the wrong person and also wishing someone would sense my need and reach out to me first, thereby reassuring me that someone is willing to listen. I inflict paralyzing isolation on myself.

If you asked me in high school what my biggest fear was, it was that I would be abandoned by the people around me. Subconsciously I have allowed this fear to present itself in subtle ways. I avoid conflict as much as I can. If I share what I’m struggling with I share how I’m overcoming it, not how deeply it is affecting me. Unless the right questions are asked I present a picture that is more comfortable for other people to process, and which takes away the possibility of awkwardness. Only a handful of people have known me at my most vulnerable, but nobody has known me in the depression I now face on and off each day. This is partially why blogging has been so helpful to me. I can’t speak the deepest hurts without watering them down, but when I type it out I don’t mind being raw and real.

As I drove in the car yesterday, I began to contemplate where my insecurity stems from and I felt myself spiraling. I’ve never had an anxiety attack so I wouldn’t go so far as to say that I was on the brink of one…but I was not doing well. I thought about friends who are now no more than acquaintances, and I thought about times when I needed people and they weren’t there. Self-pity and hopelessness quickly mixed together in a confusing concoction that made me feel like I couldn’t breathe. I have nothing, no evidence to hold onto, that says, “They’ve stuck by you in your lowest low before, and they’ll do it again.”

Thankfully, by the time I reached my destination I was welcomed into the presence of a friend who always makes me feel safe. After patiently hearing everything from beginning to end, she offered that perhaps God is reminding me in this season of my life that I am a different person than I was before, and I have a different community that won’t make me feel ashamed or feel like a burden. Maybe He’s teaching me to lean on and trust the people He has given me, simultaneously teaching me to lean on His provision. Her suggestion offered me a little glimmer of hope that often comes when I’m reminded of God’s faithfulness to me.

Since that conversation, other friends have confirmed God’s provision by also reassuring me in their own ways that I am loved and treasured no matter how long it takes. “No one expects you to be okay right now” is probably the phrase that put me the most at ease this week. I could be myself and I would still be loved, listened to, and prayed for. There is no expiration date on my journey, no hard and fast rule saying I ‘need to be okay by such-and-such a date to receive love’. God has given me the things and people I need as I face this unprecedented season of my life. Thank God for that.