It’s a self-esteem issue. Again.

But in a different way this time!
Because there is no part of me that isn’t affected by my upbringing is there?

I used to be pretty confident in my decision making, in my self-sufficiency and independence. But time and time again I fall into the same pattern of desperately looking for approval from those around me.
I have lost touch with my intuition.
I have lost confidence in my own thoughts, feelings, and decisions.
I have once again fallen back in my unhealthy wish to appease, to please and to make sure that I’m making the best decision according to other people.
I don’t trust myself.
I have extremely low self-esteem.

But for the first time, I finally realized this broken mindset, so at least I’m moving forward.

Two years ago, back in 2018, I was completely dependent on the approval of my coworkers, their every refusal to spend their free time drinking with me felt like a personal rejection of my existence.
I spent the bigger part of 2019 without seeing those people, building myself back from the ground up bit by bit, searching for the real me that I had lost years before.
I thought that I had become my own person, finally trusting myself, my decisions, my morals, and my inner compass.
I thought that I had started being more vulnerable with my parents in hopes of rebuilding (or rather building for the first time) the kind of relationship where we could be open with one another.

Turns out that hasn’t been exactly the case.

I just changed the people whose opinions mattered to me.
Instead of my coworkers’ opinion and their choice to spend their free time with me, I turned to my parents and sister to look for approval.
How ironic considering that I pretty much ran away from home due to feeling like I will never be good enough.
And so recently, whatever little change happened with my plan to move back to Europe, whatever hindrance and whatever thing bothering me came up, I would write it all out to my parents.
I did it all believing that I was working on building a proper relationship with them, which to an extent was the truth.
But after being completely shut down for the idea of traveling to London instead of Lithuania, I noticed how absolutely crushed and unmotivated I felt, just how much my parents’ opinion and stance on my life decisions still mattered to me. I’m 25, I’m supposed to be a grown adult yet here I was, still desperately looking for my parents’ approval and support for my ideas. I never received it before, yet somehow got the idea that this time it will be different. 

To be fair, I didn’t even realize how naive it was of me to think that things will change just because a lot of time had passed, just because I grew somewhat, that they will appreciate me standing up for myself for the first time ever. No, I am labeled angry and discontent with them, and that’s the end of it.
Why am I letting my parents’ opinions influence how I feel? After all this time. After 6 years of scoffing at and ignoring everything they suggested, at some point, I had once again started turning to them for approval.
I never learned how to be content in myself and trust my gut, all I did was switch the people whose approval and support mattered to me.
I feel pathetic, not going to lie.

During my childhood my parents made me feel like I was a burden, a nuisance, a bother. From spending all of their savings on my sister’s future and suggesting to me that I stay put so that I could drive our grandparents to the hospital, to blaming me for the fact that dad had to drink anxiety medication and being abandoned at our grandparents’ house, yelled at to fucking stop calling dad.
When I decided to apply for the MEXT scholarship, my parents never supported me, dad even mocked me saying that someone like me had less than 5% chance of getting it. [Best friend] was the only one during all that time supporting me, telling me that she will believe in me until I can believe in myself. I’m sorry, [Best friend], that it’s taking me so long to start believing in myself, I still struggle with it up to this day 7–8 years down the line… 

And yet, there’s still a part of me hoping, earning, reaching; desperate for my parents’ approval.
After being made to feel like I was a waste of space, not good enough at anything I still cling on, I still hope, I still try to make amends to our relationship.
I let their ideas completely destroy my trust in myself, I ignored my own intuition, I ignored [Best friend]’s suggestions and support. Instead of trusting someone who has been by my side for over 10 years, I let my parents’ opinion get the best of me.
I got frustrated, lost, and now completely distrusting myself.

Self-help and self-improvement is an infinite spiral staircase.
Time and time again you end up at the same location when looking at it as a two-dimensional XY plane. But you’re not at the same place, there’s a Z-axis and you may be a level or two above where you’ve last been. It is difficult to remain positive and facing forwards when it feels like you’re running into the same issues, same bad character traits, same toxic conditioning.

The truth is that I also feel like I’ve been here before, I have learned how to trust myself, I had started to pay attention to my intuition, but ever since a couple of months back, I could feel something lacking.
I had lost a part of myself, a very important part that connected me to my subconscious, to the universe.
I felt lost, displaced, disconnected.
But I ignored that feeling not knowing how to approach the issue at hand.

There was a thunderstorm last night, the lighting bots so bright and loud that I was afraid of going blind from looking at it. But I sat in front of the window and I asked myself, I asked the universe to help me find what I had lost, I asked for signs in my dreams or just any kind of help that the universe or my own subconscious could offer as I could not live in this lost and lacking state no more.
My dreams were muddled, but for the first time in a while, I did at least remember bits and pieces of what my weird-ass mind had made up. But I didn’t have any answers, just a weird inkling in my heart.
I went for a short run and in the cold shower afterward, it hit me.

I lost my trust in myself and in turn, I put all of that trust in other people, time and time and time again…
This time the people being my parents, which turned out to be a true recipe for disaster considering the history.

And so…

I choose to let go.
I choose to only care about the opinion of people who have been by my side and who have my best interest at heart.
I choose to stop looking for approval.
I choose to live my life according to me, even if that means making mistakes along the way.
I choose to listen to myself first and foremost.

Deep breaths.
I choose to let go of my wish to get my parents’ approval.
I choose to stop hoping for my relationship with them to change.
I choose to stop letting my parents’ in on my life at every step and turn.
I choose to stop being their daughter first, and I choose to be my own person above all, and their daughter second or maybe even third.

I choose to trust… myself, my intuition, the universe, and the people who have earned my trust.

I’m the one calling the shots in my life.

I trust my intuition.

I trust myself.

I already feel more whole than I did last night.