So, my buddy 'Fear' shows up today.
Tells me He is taking 'Growth' out with a kick.
I asked to see my former sit partner,'Depression'.
Fear's big cousin, 'Failure', promised to send her my way.
I'm not lonely, 'Rejection' lives next door.
atleast 'Disappointment' texts me occasionally.
FEDEX just delivered my birthday present.
Wow!!! I’ve always wanted 'pressure' for a gift.
Thanks 'Unhappy', you truly are my bestie.
Ooh wait!!!!
I hear 'Death' is coming to Loser's party.
See you soon.
#ImNotAlovePoet.........
Idoko
💔
The Sequel
So, FEAR moved back in with me
I let him in, thought they were delivering take-outs
So, SANITY had to leave
You can't have two Captains steering a Ship
FEAR came with his twisted cousin, RAGE
She brought a Friend too — HATE
Now they are in my living room
Talking about 'Cleaning shit up'
So here is the plan
FEAR takes out COURAGE,
Replace that whore with a 'kiss up'— MEEK
HATE sneaks up on PRIDE
Turns that flame up
Lastly,
RAGE murders Love in her sleep
Along with everything related.
This is the house I live in
Since you took my hNme with you.
Some of us may remain at the space of what we grow up to understand love to be. Many people equate love with angry burst at their partners because they see their parents go at each other’s throat often. Some have come to understand love to mean something you offer from a distance as most have only seen their father be available when he requires his own need to be catered to. For such people, they don’t see being the one who have to make sacrifice as important, for them, sacrifice is something that is expected of the other party, so when they feel overwhelmed by their significant other wanting attention and care, they up and leave. When they see their children struggling with health and emotions, they disappear. These kinds of adult grow up thinking it’s not up to them to be the one who give love.
On the other hand, there are those who have come to accept that love is about just getting money from their spouse, it’s about how much their partner is willing to spend on them. When he’s broke and unable to provide they feel unloved and unwanted. In addition, there are ones whose love language is to spend money, just concentrate on buying and spending in their relationship so much that if their love interest rejects their gift it becomes a pain to cure, for them lent can buy love is a mantra to live by, they feel like the rejection of their monetary gift is a rejection of themselves, this sometimes can be hard for them to understand especially if their partners love language is quality attention or physical presence or touch. So they might find it hard to be present, without inserting a gift that can be weighed in its financial cost.
History of how most people have come to accept what love means to them is often steeped in their upbringing. Mostly from watching their parents show affection either by way of giving, listening, being available be it emotionally or physically, or just by doing, helping around the house or just getting things down together. As children, we pick these nit bits about how to respond or how not to answer to love. So as adults because we’ve seen our parents go through their own circle of what love is, we in turn demand that our partners do same with us, we look to them to continue the circle of love we have come to grow up with, we become blind to our own partners unique demand, we let our past prejudice us into believing the others don’t care for wanting a different kind of expression from what we are willing to offer. So we fight. We reign in the chaos to affirm our authority, and insist our knowledge of how love should be given or received is better than what our love interest think or feel.
Photograp by @NAC
What we don’t look at trying is create our own pattern. We often don’t see how sometimes our love language might not be wholesome and how it may not even be serving us as a person how much more serving our lover. It’s why therapy helps and open communication is important, as this allows both party to see through each others experience and help the couple forge a new way to make sure our language is better understood, reconstruct if need be, and solidified when necessary. Sometimes, all that is required of each other is to adjust expectations, shift focus to what the other person is doing right and give less attention to what the person might be getting wrong.
Working around a different love language from what we are used to accepting can be frustrating for some people, taking time to accept that our own love language is abusive can be inundating for a lot of couples. It’s like tearing the very foundation of their existence, for some it feels like you’re questioning their being and their essence. Some will fight to keep the status quo, many we withdraw from receiving love or showing love, while some others will put in the work to refine themselves and find a middle ground just to make things work.
This is were emotional maturity comes in. Many grow from their experience, and use their past love to form a different language with the person they are with. It could be making a whole 180 degree turn from what they are used to. This could mean being present in the now, showing up for special events, writing a love letter, taking a walk around the park with your lover, holding and touching your partner, giving a helping around the house, listening to them, making effort to make them
happy, buying gifts or just saying I LOVE YOU. The list is endless.
Photo by @NAC
However, not many people will be able to recognize when to stop hanging on to a different love language they grow up seeing and accept to form a new one. This shouldn’t discourage us from trying to show love anyways, caring about people whose love language doesn’t match ours is allowed except when their love language hurts us and those who are reliant on us. Like having a partner who leaves home whenever things get hard leaving you to handle your pain alone, or one who refuses to show concern about your emotional needs and deliberately starve you of communication and not caring about your happiness. We must know when to try and make things better, when fixing something shows signs of positive response and when making things right is dead in itself because the other person has chosen a path to hurting us badly. We must try to understand each other, make effort to learn one another’s love language, put in the work to tweak ours too to fit the others style and need, but what we must not do is remain with someone whose love language endangers us or others dear to us. Much as we must try to be supportive and understanding of others people’s interest, we must be able to glean from other’s experience in deciding what is a healthy love language to stick around for, or the one not to bother fixing.
[x] When we learn to unlearn and relearn our own love language, it opens our mind into understanding others and showing them love in ways that fits them perfectly. We must remember some people love in all of the signs they see and have experienced, while some just love in one singular way. Knowing is multiple love language is the style of your partner will help you in exploring what ways to keep them happy and satisfied.
For more stories you can follow me on medium adaezenwakwo5
I once loved a man who didn’t know how to love himself. So I loved him hard hoping it will help him heal. He was so abusive and dismissive of my feelings. He constantly tried to make light of my demand for him to seek help as me being too obsessed with him, and yeaa, I was, in a dumb sort of way. I felt caring for him was my responsibility, I thought it was my duty to make him see himself better and worthy of a healthy lifestyle. So I accepted his dismissive attitude, I let him treat me like trash and constantly make excuse for his bad attitude. I tell myself, all I needed to do was show him more, I needed to let him see me better for who I am, it doesn’t matter that he took another girl to a party he promised we would attend together and kept me dressed up all night waiting for him. Sadly enough, I didn’t even recognize his behavior as abusive, I never saw him as controlling. I thought I was the one who had too much expectation of him, to make up for that, I told myself to reduce my standard, to shrink myself, to act small around him and accept his shabby treatment of me.
When he chooses to starve me off communication, I suffered, yet kept hoping he would see me, notice me and be back again. Yes, he always does that, he comes back wanting nothing but sex, making me feel like he was fine just so he can be back to me for his salvation. So I look forward to his return, I make myself ready for his journey back to me, I had come to believe his philandering character was not so bad, so long as he keeps coming back to me to mend him. What I never knew was that mess is how he seeks me to abuse as same with every girls. He feeds into the emotional side of me seeking to help him. He displays self pity and emotionally blackmail me to accept him again and again. He would riddle me about his incline to suicide, how I’m the light he needs to recover from his darkness, he makes me feel like his breath is dependent upon my own misery and my wanting of him even when all I wanted to do was not be disturbed by him anymore. Like every empath, we love to see the good in others, we aim to please and work extra hard to sacrifice our happiness for people. So we glory in our suffering for love. We convince ourselves that our pain is for the greater good of our significant other. So we endure, and when we think we can no longer continue to affirm their pain, we get overwhelmed in shame and regret. We become too ashamed to seek help, our remorse is never enough to let us flee. We become so engulfed with the societal humiliation that we refuse to leave. It gets worse, he keeps humiliating us, now he has power over us, he knows we can’t leave, because we are too ashamed to leave. So we stay. We stay hoping that one day we will get the courage to leave. But you see, leaving is not the hard part, making sure we don’t go back to the past is the hardest, following through with our resolve not to go back is the toughest thing some of us have ever made.
I had to learn how to find my truth, teaching myself that I matter and finding ways to choose myself. I searched online for ways to cope and deal with pain from love. I wasn’t sure of what exactly I was looking for, I knew I wanted to end the relationship, but I wasn’t sure how to make sure it stays ended. I needed to be able to look this manipulator in the eye and tell him exactly what he was, I needed my resolve to reclaim my space, both physically and emotionally. It meant being firm when he shows up at my crib, it means not giving him audience when in public places where I run into him, it means finding zero interest in his affairs and not wanting to be his psychiatrist when he’s seeking who to vent to. It was hard, the journey was slow, but I was bent on crawling out of that hell hole, no matter how deep it felt. I knew I needed to breathe some fresh air, because the one I was inhaling was choking me. I needed my win salvation and I read all I could from people who had gone through the same thing like I did to get it. So I practiced shutting off the world, it helped me concentrate on my self, it taught me to listen to my need. I was able to teach my mind to accept my truth, that I’m loving and deserving of people who raise me and not pulling me down emotionally. I taught myself to accept that it’s the users fault that I fail at finding balance and not mine for not seeing through their antics. But I accepted the role I played in that too, for making my time available for users, for being easily accessible to them. So I learnt to fill my time with positive works and thoughts, I volunteered my time more, I made sure to be more useful to people who needed to be productive, the more I gave myself to young people, the easier it got for me learn to love me. In loving myself, I was able to learn to choose me.
You see, some of us get lucky, some not so lucky, a few people, hmn, they make it. I was one of those that made it. I followed through with my resolve to never walk back that dark lane ever again. So with each new day, it got better, with each communication, it got easier to let him go. As hours turns into days, and days into weeks. With weeks becoming months. Freedom was achieved. What was more exciting is that i don’t even hate him. He just look rather irritating to me, His antics to get back in my good books(bed) only got more puerile and offensive to my person. That’s when I knew I had heal. I couldn’t hate him, instead I felt repulsion, disgust for the trash I hung on to. Glad that I could be finally free from emotions for him. I don’t pity his loss, I don’t even care about it. I’m just glad I’m in a better place.
You can follow for more stories on medium @adaezenwankwo5
There’s been so much uproar concerning ladies who either ignore dms from men or are entirely rude, or the ones who call out men that send messages to their inbox. Some argue that most women can’t hold a conversation which explains why they would rather ignore a chat or simply give a short reply.
The reason is unknown.
But here is the thing, maybe giving attention to people seeking their time and space is the least of their concern. What if these ladies are not interested and they do not even wish to converse with the person in question? Do we even think of the number of dms they have to reply to, and how tiring it can be for most of them when all they want to do online is chat, enjoy banters and read up on trends?
Why do we feel entitled to another human’s time and space even when they are clearly not interested in sharing their resource with you? Why does their silence or no response cause you worry and lead to an attack on their ability to hold a conversation or not? Why do you think someone who isn’t keen on sharing their space with us will be fine carrying any kind of discourse with you? Do you have an idea how much of her time she will have to spend doing the same, given the numbers of people testing same waters as yours? Now imagine trying to prove a point by being nice to everyone in your dm simply because you’re trying to show that you can hold a conversation, what time then do you have to go about your own life and breathe for you? To please all, a lady would have to ignore her own space just to pacify men’s ego. Just maybe silence in itself is an answer, maybe saying just no or a short answer is good enough. Just maybe, we should consider that no matter how rich your profile is and no matter how hot your drip is, a lady might just not be interested in obliging you her time, neither does she owe you an explanation as to why she can’t give her time. There are so many “maybes” to consider. Just maybe, your timing was wrong and they are too tired to follow on with your chat, or they are too focused on other goals that your dm is a distraction, just maybe, there are many of you in her dm and she really doesn’t want to have to ignore her other responsibilities just so she can placate your feelings.
The assumptions are endless.
It is high time we agreed that when we. request for a lady’s time and space, that her silence is good enough for an answer, that a short reply is just as good as a full sentence, and that people really do not owe us their time and space simply because we ask nicely. We ought to understand that no, is a full sentence, that silence in itself is an answer and that our sense of entitlement ends with ourselves only.
People are not tied to our wants and needs, they’re not created to soothe our spirit, and yes, no matter how disappointing people’s response to our request is, it is still their response. They owe us nothing, and we should simply learn to respect their space.
While we constantly seek validation from people and expect them to answer our every question about what we want from them, we must also remember that they have autonomy of self and can decide what and how to spend their resources; that includes their space and time.
We should also put in mind that you’re not the only person making unnecessary demands of their time and space.
And yes, NO is a valid answer.
This story first appeared on medium For more stories you can follow me on medium @adaezenwankwo5
Kindly follow my editor on twitter @Kinkynaijagirl
You see, there are moments when, no matter how ready we feel we are or how much we desire to be in a relationship with someone, we just can’t do it. There are periods when we are just not available to love or to be loved. Just like when we loose a signal in a certain area, and we climb up to the rooftop hoping that the signal will return; sometimes we even have to keep our phone in a certain way just to make the signal stay. It could be faint or distorted, but we try to keep the signal strong or at most make it stay for us to communicate with the person at the other side for the time being.
But you see, being in a relationship can be rough and hard, and just like getting a good signal, it can be so tough that even when the slightest hope of signal shows, it could cackle either from the person at the other end or the connection from our end is not just strong enough to link up. So most of the time, we look to others to make the signal stronger, we stay fixated hoping that the other person will move so we can connect better. Maybe, just maybe we are the ones who need to move. People can connect better differently on other basis and not necessarily as lovers, sometimes what is needed is a reconnection that stems from friendship and not as lovers. Who knows? But maybe staying fixed isn’t going to make the connection stronger or remaining in the balance wishing the other person sees that we are trying hard enough might just not be the signal we need to make the connection click. We may need to disconnect totally in order for us to get a clearer signal for or from others.
Being unavailable most of the time can be the energy that we need to recharge and refuel ourselves to connect better.
Though for some others, being unavailable is their first response to either fear of past experience or the anxiety of dealing with new feelings. So we deliberately stay unconnected to others so we do no have to do the work of making new connections, we ignore our need to socialize with others and help our minds explore new things and people’s ways and ideas. We stay rooted in our past fears and allow it to control our emotions and the way we respond to signals coming from other people.
We need to ask ourselves, why we let past memories direct our lives and make a decision. if we want to stay rooted in those worries or we can tell ourselves, that the past are just memories that have reshaped us and become a part of how we are learning to love and connect in a special and better way.
While some might be slow to connect, many seek connection from places where their energy gets deflated easily. These kind of people are afraid of their own solace, they worry about being by themselves, they abhor loneliness, get worked up over solitude and self control. Instead they do so much to find connections even to signals that are unhealthy to them, which bears the same results; they get shocked and burnt over and over again. We must understand that not every connection serves us, not every spark adds glow to us, some are takers and quenchers, they bring no value, instead they zap off what you have and drain you of the little energy you’re seeking to recharge. We just need to be mindful of places and people we choose to connect with.
As with all things great, there is the bad, so acknowledging our own role in building feeble connections is as important as feeding the right people. We need to know how to make ourselves accountable for who we feed our energy and vice versa. We must learn our own ways, know how and when we are or not open to connecting with others. We should never lead people on, sucking them up of their own power and making them weak from giving their resources to us. We need to learn to fill ourselves in ways that lets us know we are available to help others, and if and when we notice we are not available emotionally. It is best we communicate this and not goad the other person on for us to keep feeding off their energy. Accept that you’re not available, tell the other party you’re not interested and allow them find a better space to share and connect their emotions to. Never be the leech feeding off other people’s energy. Be truthful to yourself and others, tell your truth and do as you would others do unto you.
This article was first published via medium.
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This work was edited by @Kinkinaijagirl follow the handle on Twitter for tweets on wholesomeness.
