on being unknowable

the desire to be seen despite it all

On being unknowable~

I have had a series of realizations lately that have to do with my ability to be seen for who I am. It’s dawned on me that I have purposefully kept people at a distance, and have not once ever allowed anyone to truly know me. I can run through all the reasons that this may be true, but ultimately it’s a combination of trauma, the inability to trust people, and the fear that I’ll be abandoned and rejected for what people find.

I’ve spent most of my life silently suffering and letting very few, very select people into my life, but only briefly, and never with any amount of actual vulnerability. Even in my longest relationships I was always being someone other than myself, in order to please and protect them from having to care for a broken girl. Stoic, unreadable, aloof, distant. I wore these qualities like a badge of honor, and surrounded myself with other broken people who I hoped would allow me to care for them instead of caring for myself. I abandoned myself out of the fear that whatever lied under the surface was unlovable.

Moreover, I was never safe or supported enough to explore my depths in a healthy way. This has lead to some habits that don’t serve me as well anymore, like dissociation, using drugs to cope, self harm, risky behaviors, basically anything that can detach my body from my mind in order to feel ‘normal’, or become who ‘I’m supposed to be’, or to numb out and endure.

Recently, I was hanging with some friends and I opened up briefly about how I see myself, and my friend said, “I’ve never heard you say anything like this, or seen this side of you before,” and I was so thrown off because damn. That’s true. I was also surprised because I have convinced myself that I am vulnerable and authentic, and that I do show people who I really am. But that isn’t the whole story, or even half of it.

A lot of the reasons why I keep to myself are rooted in shame. What I have experienced has brought me shame, and that is exasperated by people’s reactions when I have shared parts of my life. Some of the things that made me who I am feel too horrible to say out loud; they’re shocking, a real bummer, and I don’t like talking about the feelings attributed with the memories. When you open up and are met with shame for doing so, it shuts one down even more. I never had a caretaker who encouraged me to be vulnerable with my feelings or was capable of holding them, or even just allowing them to exist. I was never allowed to exist.

Now, I have realized that 1) it’s not my fault if the truth of my life makes someone uncomfortable, 2) I can retell the story in a way that re-frames the survivor I am without getting down into the weeds and 3) I am allowed to exist. I never had anyone in my life who I trusted with the truth of who I am. But that’s all changing…

The inner monologue I have to challenge is that people actually do want to hear what I have to say; they want to know me, to understand me. That’s why my friend’s comment threw me off so much—they actually noticed. My boyfriend wants to know me, wants to see my heart and soul, and is capable of holding it. This brings me to tears.

My core belief is that no one cares or desires to know, and if they do, they’ll surely change their minds when I reveal the truth: I am a human, with deep feelings, who is incredibly sensitive, and has had to endure unfathomable things. Yet I rise, and I love, and I care, and I show up for the people that I love. I want to finally be free from all these stories that once kept me safe, but now are holding me back from expressing my true person-hood and experiencing supportive love.

All the songs, stories and poems I want to write, the art I want to create, all of that has been cinched closed out of fear that people will really know who I am. It’s so damn scary, and so damn lonely. I don’t want to be lonely anymore. I want to be known.