Rejection.
I've been thinking about it a lot since Tuesday when I heard Jia Jiang share his own experience with rejection. He started by painting a picture of a day in school. You can watch it here.
As he shared, I started thinking and trying to pinpoint the earliest moments in my life where I felt rejected. Here is what I came up with:
P.P.
A.O. & J.A.
A & J
L.E.
A.C.
And then I thought about the big moments of rejection I've experienced in my older years...
M.
Family
S.
A.
K.
Each of these things, these experiences, I'd say I'm still experiencing because my actions, the choices I'm making today, are based off fear of the past.
These are the lessons I learned, or maybe it's better to call them what they are—the lies I learned and how they have impacted me:
P.P. (2nd grade; age 6)
She was my first friend, and my only friend at that time. We were best friends. One day her family came to school to visit and she told me not to hang out with her, that she wanted to spend the day with her family. I said OK, but then recess came, and I realized I had no other friends and was so lonely. So I hung around the space in the big field where they were playing. I think I was hoping she would see me and invite me over to join in, but instead she got really mad. Afterwards she told me we weren't friends anymore. Excuse me?! We had been best friends for the whole. School. Year. Which in kid time was a long time! I couldn't believe she ended our long friendship over that. There was no forgiveness for little ol' me and that was the end of that.
Lie learned: You make mistakes, you get let go.
Result: Super afraid of making mistakes.
A.O. & J.A. (3rd grade; age 7)
I had managed to make another friend. We sat together, we ate together—she introduced me to ramen, hellur—and I did her homework for her. Yep, we were best friends. Then along came J.A. She was prettier, rowdier, and funnier than me. And just like that, I was displaced and eventually disowned. What really hurt is when I found out they started having slumber parties without me. And it was over pretty much after that.
Lie learned: This friend has [blank] now, she doesn't need me anymore.
Result: As soon as my friend makes a new best friend or expresses their affinity for another friend, I end the friendship. No more texts, no more hanging out. It's just over.
A & J (3rd-4th grade; ages 7-8)
These were the first boys to call me fat. J was the most popular boy in our class. A was not so popular, and yet when he called me "fatty" it didn't hurt any less.
Lie learned: I am fat and I am ugly.
Result: I hate and resent my body, and I keep it covered up.
Lie learned: I am fat and I am ugly.
Result: I hate and resent my body, and I keep it covered up.
I had finally made it to the big kid playground! Things were changing, everyone was "growing up" and the group I had managed to get to know was already interested in boys and makeup. I could tell they weren't really interested in me. I think I was bringing down their cool factor (because I was "fat"). One day, L.E. said, "We're going to hang out with the boys today, are you suuure you want to come?" And the way she said it, I could tell she was hoping I'd be scared off and leave them alone.
Lie learned: The group doesn't really want me there. They don't value me. I'm forcing myself on them.
Result: Try to be what the group wants me to be so I fit in OR try to go unnoticed so they can't notice that they don't like me.
A.C. (6th grade; age 10)
My best friend got a new set of friends and I didn't matter anymore.
Lie reinforced: No one wants me.
Result: Stop trying.
M. (9th grade; age 14)
He pretended to be nice to get what he wanted.
Lie learned: People are only nice because they want something from you.
Result: Being paranoid and thinking people have ulterior motives.
Family (2006 & 2015)
Family is only happy as long as you're doing that they want you to do.
They never say they're sorry.
Lie learned: I can't share my true feelings. They don't want to know and won't understand.
Result: I don't open up and I'm never fully myself.
S. (2009)
Lie learned: People will just leave for the next best thing. This is along the same lines of A.O.
Action: Don't get close to people.
A. (2011)
Lie learned: People just leave. I don't matter.
Action: Don't get close to people.
Church friends (2014)
So many of my church friends—people I thought I was close to—did not come to my wedding and did not even RSVP no. This really hurt because it made me question myself and my feelings. We were close, right? We hung out all the time, they knew me, knew my heart...did I just make-believe we were close? Did they mean more to me than I meant to them?
Lie learned: I don't matter. Don't trust my feelings.
Action: Don't get close to people.
K. (2013-2016)
Out of all the hurt and rejection that I've experienced in life, this one is the worst.
I opened myself up.
I let K in.
I forgave K over and over again and again.
I took the abuse.
I took the lies.
And when I stood up for myself, it made things worse.
At work.
At home.
With family.
K hating me made no sense because nothing in the whole situation made sense and I internalized it all.
Don't open up. It'll be used against you.
Don't let people in. You can't trust them.
Don't trust people. They don't care.
Everything I say is analyzed. Say nothing.
The experience of being disliked, being rejected so hard that someone tries to make your life miserable in any way they can. It's insanity!
There was something else that happened too. In addition to all that mess, it separated me from my friends, too. It made me feel so alone, because no one could relate. All the Lifetime-movie-esque type things that were happening to me, and no one could understand. It was like unintentional rejection. I don't know if that makes sense, but when people can't relate to your pain, it's like there's a wall between you and everyone else.
It's 4 years later and I still find myself tearing up, thinking of everything I went through with that. But isn't that the power of rejection? It sticks with you. And it has the power to bring you back to those very painful moments. Some of the events I mentioned above are from 1993 and I still remember those moments so vividly. Jia even said in his talk, "I gotta put that 6 year old boy back in his place."
I think that's one reason I so enjoyed Jia's talk, because of his vulnerability. He put his earliest painful memory out there for us to all share in. He's human. Just like the rest of us.
The other things I enjoyed were how he broke rejection down, to remove its overwhelming scariness, to shrink its monumental stature over our lives:
Rejection is an opinion.
Everyone has a different perspective and has experienced different things, leading them to think and see differently than us. One person's opinion of you is not everyone's opinion of you.
Rejection has a number.
For every one that says no, five will say yes.
We are our own worst rejector.
Let the world reject you, don't reject yourself.
I end this entry knowing that a lot of this post is painful, messy, and unhealthy. This is vulnerability. Putting those things out there, shining light on them. The very reason I'm writing this is because I don't want to be this person anymore. And if I'm honest I don't even know who I am because I've been pushing the pain away for so long.
So that leads me to my ultimate goal. To find me. To find me and to love me. That's the whole reason for this blog—I am seeking out the lovely. A reminder that "Saint Francis and the Sow" by Galway Kinnell is not about one ideal standard of beauty; it's about each of us being lovely and us being reminded of that. Thank you for being on this journey with me. Here is to us loving ourselves!
