Beneath your beautiful

You tell all the boys no

Makes you feel good

I know you are out of my league

That won’t scare me

Oh no.

You have carried on for so long

You couldn’t stop if you tried to

You have built your wall so high

That no one could try it

But I am gonna try

Would you let me sleep beneath your beautiful

I wish Emily Sunday and Labrinth sang this song during my early years as an adult. It would have saved me so much time and trouble.To be exact between the ages of 21 and 29 years. It would have been liberating and freeing.

My playlist is filled with lots of music from gospel, hip hop, old skool kwaito to RNB and lastly Jazz but nothing is as precious as this piece of music. My Blog is inspired by this song and I hope after reading this post you will share it with someone who identifies with it or you will do your best to try and understand us and not seek to change us but just love us and more than anything just support us. I only shared an extract of the first verse.

Fear of abandonment is as real as cancer and suicide in our community. Many young adults fear chatting about it because like most things that people fear they just discard or ignore. Sometimes they are told to snap out of it. In worst cases people around them try to fix them. They want to quickly jump onto the Fixer band wagon and become Olivia Pope instead of listening and understanding. Who needs drama when you have the “Olivia’s” in your life?

Before I knew I had fear of abandonment. I thought I was just being myself and being in control of my emotions and well being. I had an idea what love looked like and I wanted it but I was good at running away to ever experience it. In my mind every man that came my way came to destroy . He came disrupt. They were no good I used to say. So I built this little safe place where I could hide. No one was good enough even if they tried. Sometimes I doubt if any of the men I dated even know the real me. Sadly for most of them I chased them away before they showed me who they were or before the real Loraine rocked up.

Sometimes I could see that a person had good intentions but my heart would not let me trust them . I could not trust myself with loving someone else either . I was too broken to know I was broken. What existed in my mind or rather what fear had allowed me to create is what was real and it was what I trusted.

Fear of abandonment stems from childhood issues that are mostly attached to one parent or both. In my case it was my biological father. The man was non -existent but somehow managed to contribute to how I saw and perceived myself in a relationship.

It takes most adults ages to find out or even realise they have fear of abandonment. Even when they do it is all they know and trust and because they fear being hurt, they would rather be alone or continue running than actually stick around and find out what real love is.

I would lie to someone I was dating that someone else was hitting on me and if I did not get a reaction then in my mind that man did not love me enough so, “boy bye”. At times I would find fault where there wasn’t any because if it was smooth sailing it was not real. Something had to be wrong. Then to perfect this illusion in my mind when he leaves it’s a perfect ending because he was going to leave anyway. Looking back I would say some of these poor guys got a raw deal because they never knew what hit them unless by some sheer stroke of luck they follow my blog, but I doubt it.

We believe in a happy ending but we do not believe in it happening for us because secretly we believe we are damaged goods and we are not worthy of love. We do all we can to sabotage a good thing and it ends . When it ends we are kinda surprised it has and we shift the blame on the other party. We are a disaster on rails rolling down the street and about to roll over and fall. We can barely stop ourselves because the pain or how we sabotage ourselves is an addiction we have. We feel safer if we are in control. Generally we would rather be wrong about ourselves in what we are doing than let you be right or happy.

It sounds messed up and too dramatic but it’s real. The upside is we are romantic, loyal, loveable, fun people and extremely passionate about anything we do.

So why did I just share that? Sometimes you will love an impossible Loraine who once had Daddy issues and is still healing and she needs time and patience. Sometimes the issues stem from something tragic like emotional or physical abuse. She could be your daughter, sister, niece or partner.Be honest and gentle in your approach. Help her take down the wall she has built. It is not whether she knows the wl is not necessary it is showing her why she does not need one. If she is worth it , that means your hard work will pay off and you will reap the rewards soon. She has a pile of dirt in her past that has nothing to do with you. She has to take time and do the work and remove all that rubble and see you for who you are. Or it could be a him.

It’s a Sunday and I would love to take some time off and relax my mind. The next blog post will be about raising a child with such issues or being a friend to some one going through this. What role do you play? In the mean time be aware and compassionate.