I have always feared abandonment. I suppose it was something I developed from my emotionally unstable parents. They would break up and make up every week.

My father is an amazing person but really struggled with being faithful to my mother. My mother, well she’s Venezuelan, so you know how that goes. She’s a firecracker; if you mess with her, you’ll get burned.

Growing up, my household somehow always ended up hosting scenes like that of a really bad soap opera.

I’m used to the sounds of slamming doors, shattering windows, and changing locks. The phrases “show me your phone!” and “when are you coming home?” were often thrown around.

Your dad is supposed to be the first man you can trust. While mine is my superhero and my everything, he also showed me that men lie.

Why is it that you can give them everything, yet their eyes still wander?

My mother projected a lot of her insecurities onto me. She was really hard on me and would sometimes make me feel like I wasn’t enough. She would shut me out when she was going through emotional heartaches or passionate rages, she would even give me the silent treatment when I did something wrong or “shameful”.

The intent here is not to bash my parents. They did what they could with the cards they were dealt. They still managed to provide for me the things I needed. However, my past with them led to me having attachment anxiety in my grown-up relationships.

Different degrees of attachment styles are commonly developed based on childhood experiences. Attachment anxiety is when you become co-dependent in a relationship; you want to be close, yet you aren’t always able to be intimate; to maintain a positive connection, you give up your needs to please and accommodate your partner; since you don’t get your needs met, you become unhappy. With attachment anxiety, you’re preoccupied with the relationship and highly attuned to your partner, worrying that he or she wants less closeness. You often take things personally and in turn, you project negativity outward.

I had a habit of pouring everything into friendships and relationships. I needed to feel needed and wanted. When my friends would leave me, it felt like the end of the world. All I could think was “what’s wrong with me?” or “why am I so unlikeable?”.

After going through a very toxic and abusive relationship of my own, I realized that I would never be the same. I put myself through so much emotional pain because I was attached to someone who gave me an unhealthy kind of attention. As they often say, “when you aren’t feed love on a silver spoon you tend to lick it off knives”.I was prone to becoming attached because of my overwhelming fear of being alone.

This summer, I had a breakthrough. Once again, I was left in dreadful solitude. There I was, no friends, no boyfriend, and barely any relationship with my family at this point.

I was alone.

The one place I was never comfortable being in. I was alone with my own sick thoughts. I went to work, came home, and repeated that painful cycle day after day. For a while, it was foreign and empty.

Then one day, things started making sense. I found comfort in my daily baths, my makeup routines, and in the music I sang along to daily. I was living in the moment. My dreams for the future started to morph, my work ethic increased to excellence, and finally, I started to reconnect with my soul.

Someone once told me, “you have to be comfortable in your own company” and they couldn’t be more right.

Once I gained awareness of my own thoughts and how I perceived myself, I realized why I attracted so much negativity in the first place. Everything roots from your thoughts and how you treat yourself.

I needed to take responsibility for myself because I created my life experiences with the choices I made and the vibrations I put out. Everything and everyone was just a mirror; an animation of myself.

How could I expect someone else to love me when I didn’t even know how to love myself?

We all have messed up childhoods, but we also all have the choice to grow up and change the pattern.

Every day when I wake up, I look in the mirror and I tell myself, “I am beautiful. I am strong. I am special. I am a total badass!”

Yeah, it’s corny, but it really does make me feel better.

So, where do I go from here?

I’m not quite sure. What I do know is that I’m still growing and I’m always learning. I vow to never give up on myself.

Here’s to more life!

With lots of love,

Val