Attention Seeking

  Why do you think babies cry all the time? Right, It’s their own way of saying “I want to eat. I’m feeling dirty. I’m in pain”. When they become toddlers, you find them crying over all the little things. Why? I know they are kids and all kids do is cry, but why do they cry in the first place? I think they just want some attention. Human beings tend to do whatever it takes them to do to get attention and that’s normal. “If crying will give me the attention I need then I will cry all the time”.

   I think as we grow up, our need for attention lessens. But sometimes, that’s not how it works. We NEED attention to keep going in life, it’s essential. If we don’t get enough attention when we’re young, then it’s more likely to crave it even more when we’re teens. That’s how most people in today’s world became slaves of the number of followers. Some would do literally anything just to see someone saying they’re beautiful or funny. People call them “attention ho*s” which is so offensive. If you put yourself in their shoes for a moment, you’d empathize with them. “How empty are they on the inside? What kind of childhood did they have?”, if you start thinking like that, a lot of things will be different.

   So what I hope you understand now is that attention seeking is NOT a crime and it’s completely normal as long as your life doesn’t depend on it. Sometimes it becomes excessive and abnormal due to some reasons. I, myself, had a personal experience with excessive attention seeking, I wanted to be noticed, I did everything thinking of people. To be honest, seeking attention is like a maze and your real self is on the other side of it and all you’re doing is following the instructions of others. They make you run in circles and finding yourself becomes almost impossible. You know it’s hard to get audience when you start a blog or a youtube channel, right? It would take time till it grows, till people notice you. My past self couldn’t understand that. If a post didn’t get the attention I imagined, I would delete it afterwards. I had two blogs before this one and they got deleted. I cared so much about people’s opinions about me. “They probably think I’m not good enough, or maybe that I can’t write”, thoughts like this caused anxiety. I suffered for years. I kind of had a duality at that time. I hated waiting for attention as much as I craved it. The voices in my head would tell me that I’m such a drama queen, that I’m faking it all. This led to a huge self-hatred. That was the first time I thought of myself as an enemy. This led to unhappiness and depression. I didn’t know back then that it was depression. I was surrounded by people who would make my sorrows and achievements look so small compared to theirs, ‘cause I’m just a child. What do I know about life?

   I started to slowly understand that waiting for others’ attention was toxic. It did give me a lot of bad feelings, so I became more introverted than ever. Every little bad thing they said about me would affect me deeply. Every time I got treated badly because I was expected to be one of the model students made me hate myself every time I made mistakes. This was mainly because of some teachers and classmates, my parents have always wanted me to be a decent human and they never stressed me out because of my grades. Still, it took me forever to realize that it’s okay to make mistakes. It’s okay because my grades don’t define my worth.

   Right after high school, I decided that I don’t want to live like that. I thought of throwing myself away so many times, but I never had enough courage to do it. So I decided to completely change. The change doesn’t mean having a persona or wearing a mask. On the opposite, I decided to be me, with all of my flaws and mistakes. I wanted to share my photos without thinking that maybe others will think I’m ugly. I have a lot of sides and I wanted to be able to show them all confidently. The truth is I thought I was an ugly person that hurt all the people around her. The voices in my head believed that so much that I was convinced people see me the same way I see myself. I couldn’t believe people when they said something good about me. It felt as if I was imprisoned in my body and I wanted to be free.

   That’s how I decided to overcome this all because I really wanted college to be a happy memory. It was hard and I kept giving myself a push. It’s true that what is ruined by others will also be fixed by others. I met awesome people at college. At first I was always stressed around them, stepping out of your comfort zone is never easy and it takes time. As time passed, I saw how special every one of them is and I loved being around them. I had my first job experience and it was so good and so special because of the beautiful people I worked with. I’m sure they felt weird around me because I wasn’t talkative, but when I visit you next time, you’ll see how much I changed!

   I wasn’t talkative when I first played VRchat either. I remember just standing there silently most of the time. I always waited for people to come and talk to me first (honestly just like real life). But this also changed so much. I meet a lot of people from all around the globe and this makes me thrilled. I got to know awesome and kind people through the game and now we’re good friends. There are even natives that offered to help me with Korean whenever I have questions!

   I was introduced to Adlerian psychology because of someone I met in the game. Adler says that we can be happy any time as long as we have the courage to be happy. He doesn’t say that life doesn’t get hard at times, instead he says that it’s temporary. His words left a great impact on me because I knew he was right. Even before I knew about Adler’s theory, I decided to change and be happy. I saw how life changed so much with this decision. This doesn’t mean that life doesn’t knock me down or that I don’t feel sad anymore. I just believe that nothing lasts forever, so basically nothing matters… in a good way.

   If you’re reading this and you’re in pain, try to ask yourself why is that? Is it really worth your sadness? If it’s because you lost someone you love, please take your time to heal. Nothing is harder than loss. But if it’s because of other causes such as refusing to let go of your painful past and trauma, then I have to ask you this… isn’t suffering for all this time enough already? Don’t you want to be free? You know it’s going to be hard, sadness can be so familiar to us that we become afraid to let it go. “What if I get hurt again?”, you might have such thoughts. But what if you make yourself strong enough not to get knocked down easily? If you still don’t have enough courage to be happy, it’s still okay. You will change when you’re ready to, so give yourself time. I wish you realize sooner or later that you’re living this life for you. No one can save you but your own self. You gotta put in mind that not everyone will like you either. No one can make you happy if you can’t make yourself happy. You have to love and accept yourself in order to be able to accept others’ love. Until this time comes, I hope you have some peace of mind from time to time...

 

“Wishing so hard to be recognized will lead to a life of following expectations held by other people who want you to be “this kind of person”. In other words, you throw away who you really are and live other people’s lives.”

-from THE COURAGE TO BE DISLIKED by Ichiro Kishimi and Fumitake Koga