Zander's Inside Voice

Yes and no.

Yes when I am in a good place and I feel comfortable in who I am and what I am doing.

No when I am desperate and don’t want to be alone, or I think I need some form of validation.

When I first started therapy about 7 years ago, I wanted to work through why horrible things kept happening to me when I was old enough to have control over situations. It took me a long time to understand that I was letting people into my life who didn’t have good intentions. I didn’t think I was worth anything. I let people use me and I put up with it.

In more recent times, my circle has gotten much smaller because I don’t allow those people to be in my life anymore. It’s one thing to accidentally hurt my feelings once or twice in a completely understandable situation. It’s totally different to hurt me on purpose with no remorse. That’s what I was allowing for most of my adult life. No more. Better to have a small but dependable circle, instead of a large, hurtful one.