With rejection in my life, I was very tired of being hurt. My mom was always my biggest advocate and she hurt right along with me. I think when you have children, as a mom, you feel the pain and / or the joys right along with your children. My mom definitely lived my emotions while I was living them. I started feeling rejected as a young girl with being one of the only kids in my kindergarten class that had to wear glasses. Glasses for little kids these days are so cute, but they didn't have much of a selection back then. I had to start wearing glasses at 18 months old, but it didn't really bother me too much until I hit school age. Kids are not very nice with their comments.
I was a pretty sensitive and intuitive child. I was blessed with a real accurate gift of reading others. I could often have a great perception of what they were thinking and feeling. Sometimes, as a child, that was more a curse than a gift. I often wish I didn't pick up on little comments or actions of others, because often it was just plain hurtful. I remember having a lot of anxiety as a young child when my mom had to drop me off at the babysitters house. I was very attached to my mom because she was the one person in life I knew loved me unconditionally. I hated that she had to go to work everyday. I felt, even as a young girl, that NO ONE understood me the way she did. I didn't have great experiences with my baby sitters, and that was around the time rejection and abandonment started playing a more significant role in my life.
Here are a few of the emotions I had to work through do to MY perception (not meaning it was always correct) . . .
One of my stress relievers I used in life I learned at a very young age. I learned to use food as a comfort. I became an extremely picky eater and I formed an unnatural fear of eating food I didn't like. I would get so upset if we were going somewhere to eat, because what if I didn't like it and I had to eat it. My anxiety was out of control. I think now, looking back, that it was the one area in my life I felt I could take control over. This obsession led to an early set on of obesity in my life. The obesity led to a worse self esteem and more rejection. Again, I hated what I looked like with glasses and being larger than other kids my age. Different is not good when in grade school. I was different and I knew it.
My parents weren't sure how to help me. I mentioned that I was a very anxious child, and that started even as a toddler. I liked to know what was going on in every aspect of my life. I am sure, that due to my anxiety, I asked a ton of questions and I was probably pretty annoying at times. I catch myself now, wanting to tell my young anxious daughter, to just relax and give mommy some space when she is pounding me with questions. :) I guess things come back full turn. So, with that said, I can imagine I was very annoying and in fact, I often sensed that I was getting on people's nerves while I was asking questions, but I didn't know how to stop. I had lots of fear of things being out of my control and as a young child, not much is in your control anyways. The gift of perception was hurtful at that time in my life because I often sensed I was bothering people, but I didn't know how to change my actions or what to do differently. It seemed the harder I tried to make them LIKE me and Accept me, the more I felt I annoyed them, thus leaving me confused and even more rejected. This was a lot to try and process with my little girl brain and my mom would counsel me on how to hone in my worries and fears so as not to lean on others. In turn, I leaned on her a lot.
There were a lot of politics in my fathers' family and that didn't help matters either. Sometimes, without even realizing what they are doing, adults allow prejudices toward another adult, to carry on to that adults' children, simply because they remind them of that person. Predetermined emotions that are not warranted. Another example is that my dad and his sisters didn't have a good relationship. Because I knew my aunts carried a lot of resentment and contempt toward my father, when they would say, "you are just like your father." I knew they were not meaning it in a good way. This was an issue that I felt rejection from, but again, had no control over. I am not sure to this day, that these individuals even know what was going on. I know they would deny that any of this ever happened, but I perceived it that way, leaving me with a real sense of rejection and hurt.
My mom spent hours trying to help me deal with all these situation, and had she not put so much time into my emotional well being, who knows where I would be today. Once Rejection gets a foot hold in your life, it starts to show up in many different aspects of your life. It manifests and leads to yet again, more rejection. Over time, rejection leads to hurt, leading to jealousy, bitterness, and many other horrible things.
These are a few examples of how rejection entered my life as a very young girl. I will be showing, in my next blog, how rejection manifested in my life later on and the consequences that came from it. Then, I hope to end with how God has renewed and healed my broken heart, kicked rejection out and of my life and opened my eyes to keep them focused on him. :)
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