• I spent so much time giving as a firstborn, now I only identify as a receiver
Image: PEXELS
Journals are good. They are like a storage space for all the different versions of yourself. I like to write journals and today, I was going through some of my previous writings.
I always say that 2022 was my rock-bottom year. Every bad thing that could have happened to me, happened in 2022. I had a truly terrible year, and reading through some of the things I was writing is brutal.
There was a period where all the guys I had been dating came back to my life, and then all of them ghosted me in the same week. I don’t blame them; I honestly would not have been hanging out with myself either. Everything seemed to be a trigger for me, and I was reliant on other people for validation and love and happiness, and that is exhausting.
In November 2022, I was heartbroken because that was the first time my ex and I had broken up. Five minutes later, I was dating a new white boy but still crying in my journals about how much I missed my ex.
Five minutes after that, I had a newer white boy and the journalling had evolved from how much I missed him to how much I loved him. I had a lot of random and not great sex as well that month. I slept with a boy who ended up giving me a UTI, and I remember that was the wake-up call I needed to fix my shit and get my life together. I couldn’t be out here getting American UTIs like I could afford healthcare.
In February 2023, I made a covenant with myself. I remember hiking to a beautiful overlook in the forest and writing down 21 promises that I wanted to keep to myself that year. I signed the covenant and sealed it with some tears.
I also wrote myself a letter that I opened at the beginning of this year. I was so exhausted of needing people and them disappointing me. I was so tired of being depressed and feeling like sh*t all the time.
It was also around this time that I was admitted to the psych ward. At this point, I had lost all my best friends, I had no new friends in this country, and I had made so many mistakes, I had nothing else to lose. It was either the psych ward or the morgue, so I tried to be the person whom I wished other people would be for me.
It’s now March 2024 and I don’t think anybody loves me as much as I love myself. Which sounds like a cliche statement, but for me, this is the first time that I actually mean it when I say I love myself.
I know myself so deeply and intimately and I am my biggest cheerleader. I’m selfish, which is something I was never allowed to be. As a firstborn African daughter, self-sacrifice was the only parenting technique employed on me.
I used to feel so much guilt when I did anything for myself, and I used to think I was happy as a giver. I wasn’t. I was simply conditioned to give and think that it made me feel content. I had been running on empty for years and by the time it was 2022, I had nothing left to give. To anyone else or even to myself.
This recovery has been brutal, but it has been worth it. I’m still working on myself, but I’m definitely not the same person I was a couple years ago. I stay away from people who have nothing to give me. I like receiving things now. I spent so much time giving, now I only identify as a receiver. My dating affirmation for 2024 is: Men with money who like me are flooding at my gates.
It’s working as well; in the words of Nicki Minaj, ‘Broke b***es so crusty (disgust me)’.
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