I have a metaphor for myself that I’ve used a lot. It really got to me recently, so I thought it would be a good time to write about it. It’s an extension of the internalizer reality. Internalizers apparently create fantasies in which they will be loved and cared for in the way they want… yeah, guilty. They also create a role-self to meet the needs of their environment, and that is the foundation of my metaphor. I’ve said many times that I’m just a doll. I’m in the window of the shop, and everyone thinks I’m so pretty and perfect, but no one wants to see what’s behind it all, no one wants to take me home.

Something I’m deconstructing is my role-self, my “doll” self. I don’t want to be a fucking doll. I want to be a person. I want my feelings to be acceptable and not rejected. I want to be imperfect, but still lovable. I want to be cared for and loved for who I am and not just my exterior. I want people to realize that I do so much because if I’m not busy, my brain overloads. I want people who bring calm into my life and support me in the loads I take on. I want people who realize how much I care and love everyone who comes into my life, whether they deserve it or not, and that I still love those that ran away. I don’t expect their love in return, I just want to find someone, someday that loves me back. It’s okay if it isn’t them, I just hope someday, there’s someone.

I’m an internalizer, not an externalizer, so when they don’t love me back or they run away – I’m not mad, I’m sad. I say to myself “okay. It wasn’t them, that’s okay. Well, it doesn’t feel okay, but it’s no reason not to love people. You can love them from a distance; let them go.” The externalizer thoughts always come, but they don’t stick and I never act on them. “He was too immature…” “He wasn’t ready…” “He has some shit to figure out…” If I get more specific, it might be too much. One example, though, was realizing that a man I loved “preferred the fantasy to the reality.” He reinforced the doll image, but not the reality. The reality broke everything.

My fantasy is much like any other internalizer, I just kept thinking that if I put in more work, I would eventually be loved. It doesn’t work that way. The only way to be loved for who we are is to be who we are, not the role-self. So, deconstructing the doll is important. Finding out my true self is the key. Being true to my true self is what I’m working on. I think I’m the closest I’ve ever been to my true self, and I don’t expect there’s a specific point at which I “get there.” I think, like most things, it’s a progression or a spectrum. I’m the best I’ve ever been, so perhaps, in time, I will be loved for my true self.

My story this week is about a doll I got for Christmas…

This is a story I feel ridiculous for telling as I’m about to… because no one outside of my therapist has been supportive of how traumatic it was for me. I mentioned previously that Christmas was already a traumatic time in my family because my dad’s mother passed away on Christmas morning the year before I was born. So, it was a depressing and stressful time every year. I didn’t often get the gifts I asked for, so this was a year that I had been clear that I only wanted a karaoke machine, I wanted it so bad that I don’t think I asked for anything else.

My dad decided to pull a prank. Some of you will find it funny, okay, so did he. I didn’t find it funny. I was pre-teen, and I desperately wanted that karaoke machine. He took a large box, filled it with newspaper to make it heavy so it felt like it had a karaoke machine in it. I was so excited for that Christmas when I saw the box and felt how heavy it was.

You know what I got from my dad that Christmas? It wasn’t a karaoke machine. It was a raggedy-Ann-like doll. He made it appear to be the only gift I wanted, but inside was a gift that I didn’t even want. Maybe that’s a fun prank for a fellow adult (I don’t think so…), but it was devastating to me as a child. I don’t remember getting anything else.

I probably would have been able to recover and move on if he didn’t repeat the gift experience ten years later. I think that was the last Christmas I ever spent with my dad. I went into our room, dropped to the floor and cried. I didn’t need gifts at that age, but to be put in the position of reliving something that was traumatic for me as a child – he didn’t understand. He thought it was fun. I think it’s the ASD in both of us that made it so bad, he didn’t understand my pain and I didn’t understand his humor.

I’m done with dolls. I’m done being a doll. I hope you find your “true self” and are loved for it.

You are Loved, -S.