“You yourself told us that in the final analysis we are our own betrayers, playing Judas to our own Christ”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Self-abandonment is exactly what it sounds like. Put me in a room with a thousand red flags, and even though every hair would be on end, and every nerve in my body would be screaming to leave, I would likely stay. Against my own better judgment. Against my own wishes or desires. Against my own sense of self-preservation. This has shown up in small and big ways throughout my life. One small example: Once I was chatting with my daughter’s nurse. She was sitting at the kitchen table and I was chopping something for lunch. She was in the middle of telling me something — like what she did the day before. Neither of us was that invested in what she was saying. Suddenly I sliced my finger quite badly. But she wasn’t done talking and I didn’t want to interrupt so I stood there, in pain, with my finger bleeding profusely. Just to avoid the possibility of being rude. I remember going into the bathroom afterward and looking at the cut, which was pretty deep. It was a bit of a wake-up call. Why hadn’t I interrupted and taken care of myself? Why was my instinct to ignore my own needs, even when the stakes were so low?
A big example of self-abandonment was my first marriage. I didn’t want to get married. I didn’t love the man or even feel good about being together. But he asked and I didn’t know how to say no. Then I didn’t know how to break off an engagement. Every cell in my body was telling me to run, but I didn’t listen. And I didn’t even have an excuse. It’s not like I ignored my better judgment out of desire. I just froze, and as a result, married someone who was abusive. How could I do that to myself? Why would I do that to myself? It’s embarrassing because it doesn’t make any sense, and I am not a stupid person. But I am the villain. I have harmed myself through my decisions over and over again. For absolutely no reason.
“The reason I am so popular is that I give others back what they need to find in themselves. You need me not because I tell you what I want you to do but because I articulate and justify what you want to do.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Upon reflection, I believe my self-abandonment was rooted in the ideology that self-sacrifice is the highest form of praise. I was a devoted Christian, and in my thinking, denial of my own needs and wants was the only way to prove my worth. It’s not that I didn’t love myself. I just didn’t choose myself. It didn’t occur to me to ask myself what I wanted, so life just became an endless pursuit of fulfilling the needs of others. I knew that service was important to me, and I didn’t want a life of bitterness, so I threw myself into it without any expectation of a return. I wasn’t a martyr. I was a saint. But eventually, my service would become at odds with my integrity. I wanted to serve, but not at the ultimate expense of the beauty I wanted my life to project. I wanted people to look at my life and see goodness, and as soon as that admiration ventured into pity, I was done. If not for that one small thread of vanity, I would still be “serving” my way into heaven.
I was equally driven by the flaws I saw in my mother. She had pursued misery her whole life, constantly choosing what she couldn’t have and resenting the world for it. She was judged harshly, and I suffered under the weight of her choices. I never felt that my family was respected and I hated that. I wanted to be better than her, so where I saw her as selfish, I became selfless. As a result, I hid in the only place I felt above reproach — in service to others. But it’s hard to choose relationships on that premise. They end up being unequal and are often draining if not abusive. After my first marriage failed, I remember reading this excerpt and feeling like I unlocked a piece of myself:
“It is because these characters depend to such a high degree on their own sense of integrity that for them, victory has nothing to do with happiness. It has more to do with a settling within oneself, a movement inward that makes them whole. Their reward is not happiness — a word that is central in Austen’s novels but is seldom used in James’s universe. What James’s characters gain is self-respect.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
My desire to self-abdicate was at war with my self-respect, so I found myself in a vicious cycle of choosing against myself — than for myself, over and over again. This pattern has persisted throughout my life, changing only recently. In a flash of self-actualization last week, I told my therapist that “I am tired of making other people feel ok about the way they choose to love me.” It’s not my role to accommodate anyone’s abuse or neglect. My job — and my responsibility to myself — is to know what I want and pursue it. But how do I do that when I’ve never thought about what I want? I only have ever known how I want to be perceived.
“The fact is I don’t know what I want, and I don’t know if I am doing the right thing. I’ve always been told what is right — and suddenly I don’t know anymore. I know what I don’t want, but I don’t know what I want,’ she said, looking down at the ice cream she had hardly touched.”
― Azar Nafisi, Reading Lolita in Tehran: A Memoir in Books
Esther Perel once said that people engage in extramarital affairs because they offer another way to see themselves. That resonated with me because I realized that I have been in pursuit of the right version of myself for a very long time. I chose partners based on what I thought my identity was lacking. I wanted to be taken seriously, so I married a man who was older and had two children. The second time around, I wanted to be seen as someone who was respectable, so I married someone who I thought would lend me that credibility. I was seeking my reflection in other people, and I relied on those relationships to shape the way others perceived me or assigned value to me. It was a huge revelation when I realized this. No wonder I was in failed relationship after failed relationship. I wasn’t even choosing people I liked — just people I thought would increase my value.
So, I’ve started thinking about what I want and who I am. I know I want my life to embody these two words: beauty and adventure. I know that all of the qualities I was looking for in other people are things I can cultivate within myself. I know that I am enough. And that my own perception of my worth is the most valuable to hold. In the last year, I have begun to make some real progress. It dawned on me that I get to choose what this life looks like. I can choose kind paths for myself. My life doesn’t have to be an endless pursuit of validation. I have reached a level of self-love that I didn’t know existed. I don’t just love myself. I am choosing myself. For the first time in my life. I am choosing what is kind, what is nourishing. And I am looking in the mirror — peering into the reflection of my life — and I don’t just feel self-respect. I feel happy.
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This post was previously published on medium.com.
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