Unseen.
The title of this blog accurately describes how I’ve felt and how I’ve seen myself my entire life. Being and feeling unseen has caused me to live a life of selfishness, striving to be seen, known, heard, needed, and manipulative.
My Childhood.
I think it’s safe to say that I grew up isolated and alone. My siblings were much older than I was and because of the age gap we experienced life at very different times. School was socially difficult for me. I never really understood why but I was never able to connect to my classmates or most of the kids at school. I was bullied, talked about, and judged for so many reasons. I remember I would sit with a group of people at school lunch or be in a group of people in class and feel like an outsider. I never fit in.
I didn’t have a best friend or even a good friend or a group of friends that I felt truly connected to. There were times that I felt myself connecting to specific people but those friendships were ruined by my over-zealousness to please and prove my worth. When people would express interest in being my friend I wasn’t able to connect because of what I had experienced with most other people. I would automatically think that people were tricking me or just messing with me.
Naturally, I began to search for companionship in any and everyone. Girls at school, teachers, coaches, and finally romantically with boys. I faced constant rejection and abandonment in all areas. This began to make me feel small and unworthy of attention or having friends (didn’t know that then). I wanted to feel valued and needed by people but I never could.
This dynamic has followed me into my adulthood. I often find myself at a table full of people I know/love and feel alone, ignored, and unimportant. I see myself as less than others and I feel a constant need to prove myself to people and be impressive so that people will want to be around me or need me. I often see myself as a child among other adults and I feel that is the way I’m seen by others. Now when people try to befriend me I automatically think they are pitying me or see me as a charity case. I’m completely unable to fathom why people want to be around me or have me in their life.
How this has translated?
As a result, my whole life I’ve struggled to have real and lasting friendships. I’ve always felt unseen, unheard, ignored, and unimportant. I began to see myself as worthless and as a burden to those that I am closest to. I often feel like no one cares for me. At times the need to prove myself to people overwhelms me. I’ve turned to overcompensating, manipulating, over explaining, and over doing. This has caused others to perceive me as dramatic and as someone who boosts or over-exaggerates.
The feeling of being small has crippled me and keeps me from being open with people. So much so that people think I don’t like them (I used to think my emotions were the cause of this). I often see people that I’d love to be friends with but I just don’t think they’d want to be friends with me. Even in potential dating interests I talk myself into why that person would never be interested in me because of various flaws and issues that I have but truly it’s because I don’t feel worthy. This dynamic has also led me to unhealthy friendship behavior. In these friendships, I constantly feel like anything I do wrong will result in the friendship ending. I often feel that I have to work hard to keep friends by doing things for them.
This dynamic has also affected how I see my beauty. It’s caused me to look in the mirror and see a visibly unattractive and undesirable person.
This issue has permeated almost every area of my life.
But what’s The Truth?
Recently, God has been revealing this dynamic to me in a deeper way.
The truth is, that this is NOT the truth. How I was treated in my childhood is real. The things I faced are real and the feelings I feel about those things are valid. However, the truth is that these feelings don’t apply or pour over into my whole life. What is actually happening is that because of those hurts, I began to see myself as small/unworthy and I began to project how I felt about myself onto others. I became convinced that all people viewed me this way when in actuality they didn’t.
As I have become more aware of this, God has begun to show me the way he sees me. I’ve been able to, first, find peace in the fact that he SEES me. This has been my first step because for my whole life I’ve felt unseen. So realizing that he sees me has begun to help me see the other ways that he sees me. He sees me as beautiful, he sees me as a wonderful friend, he sees me as important, he sees me as special, and he sees me as impactful.
“13 For you created my inmost being;
you knit me together in my mother’s womb.
14 I praise you because I am fearfully and wonderfully made;
your works are wonderful,
I know that full well.
15 My frame was not hidden from you
when I was made in the secret place,
when I was woven together in the depths of the earth.
16 Your eyes saw my unformed body;
all the days ordained for me were written in your book
before one of them came to be.
17 How precious to me are your thoughts,[a] God!
How vast is the sum of them!
18 Were I to count them,
they would outnumber the grains of sand—
when I awake, I am still with you.”
“You are altogether beautiful, my love; there is no flaw in you.”
This is probably one of the hardest things for me to write about because it’s still very much a struggle for me. It’s one of those things that runs deep. It’s rooted and it’s something that is definitely taking some time to process. The beauty in this is that I’m beginning to be able to distinguish between the truth and the lies. I’m aware of my pain but I’m also aware of the ways the enemy has distorted my pain, and ultimately distorted my view of myself. Even though I don’t feel it, I can walk in it by faith, expressing to God that I don’t believe the truth but I choose to operate as if I did (this is hard).
I honestly don’t know why I decided to write this. It’s embarrassing and it’s so specific to me but I’m praying that it speaks to someone else in some way. Your situation may be very different than mine or maybe it’s similar but you responded in completely different ways. I just wanted to point out that maybe the way you think others see you is a reflection of how you see yourself. I just wanted to share to encourage someone that the way you see yourself is NOT the way God sees you and it’s not who you are.
I’m still in this currently. It’s still a huge battle for me. For example, writing these blogs actually trigger this dynamic because I’m wanting to prove myself in some way through them. I just know the truth and I know that no matter how many people read, how many people comment or share that God loves me and honors what I write. I may not always feel this but I know it.
You are not alone, God is with you. You are worthy, because christ made you worthy. You are special because you are his child. & you are seen.