“What you are attracted to when you are broken, disgusts you as you heal”~ Unknown
After reading this quote a few times, the feelings began to stir. First it was the butterfly feeling in the belly, then the tightening of the belly and the heart rate kicked up. As I tuned into these feelings, I realized I was overwhelmed with feelings of guilt, shame, and a lot of “shoulds” and “should not haves” swirling around in my overthinking brain.
First, let me share that you are never broken, nobody is. Nobody needs to be fixed. That part of this quote I would re-write. We feel broken when we are unhealed, we think we are broken which is why so many of us look for the quick fix. Either the fix is something we ingest (drinking, drugs, food, sex, etc) or the fix is someone telling us to “snap out of it.” We may bypass those emotions and say everything is fine, shoving those emotions back into our bodies where they wreak havoc on us, and we ignore it.
When we are unhealed, when parts of us are hidden, we don’t feel whole and feel as if we are broken. When we feel less than whole, we try to find ways to fill the void, hence the amount of addiction that we have surrounding us. We also try to fill the void through relationships, different courses/school, therapists, retreats, etc.
My go-to void fillers were food, shopping and sex. I used all three to make myself feel better. I used all three to not feel broken, to feel more worthy of the life I had created. I remember when I was building my new walk in closet in my house in 2015. I gave away over 40 garbage bags of clothes. I still filled a 10 foot by 12 foot walk-in closet as well as one other closet in my home. I had more clothes than any one person ever would need. I had blazers for work in every color of the rainbow and then some. I had gowns….so many gowns.
I certainly ate my way through my feelings of inadequacy, and unworthiness. I ate because I could, I had control over that. Some people don’t eat because they have control over that. Both create patterns and issues for us.
But this quote hit harder, this stirred something that I have not wanted to actually profess or say out loud. I am disgusted by the thought of having sex again. HUH!!??Are you kidding me, I actually said that for all to read. It’s not that I don’t want the unparalleled feeling of release that comes with an orgasm, I want that. I don’t love the idea of having sex with someone else again. I had so much sex, my appetite was never quenched. I could reel in someone so freaking easily, for a moment, for a brief moment I felt like I mattered. That was all I wanted, to feel as if I mattered and to feel loved.
These various men, from all walks of life, didn’t profess love for me, most may have forgotten my name by the time the sun rose. For a brief moment, their arms around me, lips and breath on me and hands caressing me, made me feel loved. That was all the unhealed parts of me wanted then. Now that they have healed, the thought of all of that sex actually does nothing for me. I don’t believe it is that I don’t want sex, it’s that I won’t have indiscriminate sex; there has to be time and effort put into our relationship before I decide if I want that level of intimacy.
Healing means deep reflection, taking responsibility for your behavior and actions, and then changing so that you become a better version of yourself. My better versions know her worth, and love herself so freaking much, she doesn’t need someone else to validate her. She doesn’t need that sex to feel as if she mattered. She knows she is worth more.
Healing does allow us to see what we used to tolerate and convince ourselves we were happy. Now you get to choose differently.