Fears and Being Vulnerable

I feel like I utilize this saying in almost every area of my life, mostly because fear is usually right beside me while I do anything and everything.

It's hard to allow fear to be a part of my life without letting it consume me. I try to accept that I have fears but I haven't figured out how to let go of my fears.

This post is hard and vulnerable for me and I'm shaking while I write it because it isn't a post I'd like to discuss. I'm ok with talking about fears---OCD fears, fear of death, fear of the future---but my deepest, biggest fear keeps coming into my mind these past few weeks as I've been spending time with a boy. A boy that I might have a crush on. A boy that might be the first boy I could see myself trusting. A boy that hardly knows I exist. Dating is stupid...

But everytime I think about him or am around him, I feel it.

The fear that I'm not loveable.

The fear that a person could not physically love me.

Because I am not skinny enough or pretty enough and my teeth are crooked and I have a double chin and my stomach is all sorts if ugly and I have stretch marks. I just can't imagine someone picking me when they could pick someone better.

I spend my days with girls prettier than me who have flatter stomachs and better smiles. I try to tell myself that my personality will make up for my lack of physical beauty but it won't. There are pretty girls with great personalities.

And boys like pretty girls.

I keep having this reoccuring dream that isn't actually a dream but more of a daydream. It'll happen sometimes when I'm driving or when I'm laying in bed or even when I'm at work. I'll picture myself being intimate with a man and most times, the daydream ends with him sizing me up and choosing to leave instead. Each time I feel it, the pain in my heart is physical and gut-wrenching. I start to get anxiety. I overanalyze everything I'm doing. And I consider that someday, this could happen. It doesn't matter that it hasn't happened---I still feel like it has. I don't know if my heart could've broken anymore had Peter walked out on me in the middle of sex. Because I just don't know if it's possible to hurt more than my heart has been hurt.

Because intimacy is such a vulnerable activity for me and the ONE person I've ever had sex with left me.

He left me.

And even when he was with me and complaining that we didn't have sex enough or that we should be more adventurous (whatever the hell that means), he was viewing pornography. I wasn't enough. I don't give a damn whether his brain was broken---I still wasn't enough.

And I don't know if I can ever forgive myself for not being enough.

A thousand people can tell me it had nothing to do with me but I'm sorry---it did. Whether it had to do with me not being sexually pleasing or whether it had to do with me not being a trusting enough wife that my husband could talk to me about his addiction, I wasn't enough.

And now I just don't know if I have it in me to do this all over again because the pain of rejection gives me a severe amount anxiety. The pain of rejection is something I fear more than anything else in the world.

My eating disorder feeds lies into my head and tells me I'll never be good enough and guess what? I think she's right. I think that although I can focus on the happiness of motherhood and the great friendships I have, I just won't ever be able to heal from the trauma of being rejected.

Doing this all over again, this time with a ruined body, just seems too much. I look at the guys I'm attracted to and think, they would reject me in a second. I'm not good enough for them.

And what if that's really true? What if I'm not good enough? What if I ask someone on a date and they say no because they aren't attracted to me? What if I never get asked out on a date because of how unattractive I am? What if I am never loved like that again?

That last question pisses me off just thinking about. Because what the hell does "loved like that again" mean when I wasn't loved enough the first time around? Why do I look at my marriage and see so much happiness when I think about the physical intimacy between Peter and myself? It makes me feel stupid and horrible for even having memories like that. Because he was probably looking at me the whole time and wondering why the EFF he was with me when he could go look at skinny porn stars instead. He was probably thinking about other women while he was having sex with me.

My heart hurts from writing this out because I don't want to acknowledge it. I don't want it to be real. I want to be strong Wendy, the girl who fights and is brave and loves herself. But instead I'm codependent Wendy, the girl who fears ever being loved.

In a perfect world, men would look for a wife who had a great personality but especially now with the effects of pornography, I think men want a wife who is gorgeous and as close to perfect as possible.

And I am not that. I don't think I can be that.

So now I have to choose whether I'm going to swear off men forever so I don't have to think about the pain of rejection or whether I'm going to be brave and fight for myself.

I can't think about this any longer tonight. I can't feel this way and feel vulnerable because I feel so freaking unsafe! I don't want to push "publish"...which is exactly why I'm going to push it. Because this is me practicing vulnerability. It's the best I can muster right now so if it doesn't seem like much, sorry.