Remnants of insecurity

I wonder if secure parents can raise insecure kids or vice versa.. It is just something that has been on my mind a lot this afternoon. I have a certain kind of social anxiety, it comes up every time I get invited anywhere or try to organize to get together with other people, a lot of second guessing of myself goes on, queries as to whether I will feel comfortable when it comes down to it I think I have just never really ever felt that ‘safe’ or secure around others..

I was thinking about it after reading a post from a fellow blogger with this kind of rejection sensitivity ‘disorder’ and after receiving a call from someone who I am meeting up with tomorrow.. I was supposed to reply by text to her reminder and I kept procrastinating about it.. I apologized when she called and we had a really interesting conversation as we usually do but I recognized I was feeling insecure and then I thought about this blogger and how many of his ancestors were killed in the Nazi death camps and the thought came to me that this fear of not fitting in or being rejected must stem back to our parents.

My own mother had one of the most lonely of childhoods, she was an only child left alone after her father died with not a lot of close family or siblings. None of us siblings have managed to sustain a lot of close friendships, we all tend to be loners in some way. Mum was the same.. She worked for most of her life and met and married my Dad at 17 years of age.. They were always together.. Dad had his involvement in Rotary but Mum didn’t really have any interests at all outside of family and work and it was only after Dad died and my sister encouraged her that Mum joined a Mah Jong group of ladies and started to try to socialize.. But I do know that when she and my sister were involved in the clothing trade they did have a lot of interaction with customers but a lot of it was in a business or staff management role.

One of the accusations leveled at me by my past partner when he broke it off was that I was insecure.. At that stage I had had the head injury and was pretty isolated.. I met him around this time of year so maybe this is why this is coming up today. Much as I try to keep my focus on now, I recognize this shadow of fear and insecurity dogs me and has dogged me through out many years. In many ways it has limited my life… I was just having a chat to my good friend about that self negating inner voice that tries to tear us apart.. She is a metal Ox like me and we both tend to be extremely conscientious but very hard on ourselves at times.. We talk about this issue a lot since we both suffer from it.

Anyway these days I pray for help with my insecurity.. I know now I am okay as I am… I just have some inner limitations which in the end, I guess, only makes me human. It was hard being told at the end of that last relationship all of the things that were ‘wrong’ with me.. those voices stayed inside me for a very long time.. But it occurred to me that a legacy of insecurity lying in the past may so easily be communicated to descendants.

When I think of how my sister suffers it makes sense to me.. There was a lot of abandonment she went through and then not a lot of help in terms of recognizing her own feelings and boundaries in relationships.. Having a ‘diagnosis’ slammed on her when she was struggling didn’t seem all that helpful either.. God knows its hard work dealing with a toxic inner critic that always seems to want to pull the rug out from under our inner confidence and sense of being ‘enough’ and ‘okay’. Uprooting those fear voices steeped in a lot of carried insecurity and shame is not always easy.. It really does take such a lot of positive mental work to overcome the part of us and others that only wants to tear us down or look on the dark or fear driven negative side.