The Game of Pretend

In my young adult life, I combined The Damsel in Distress, The Femme Fatale, and The Hedonist to create the ultimate escape life.

“Let’s see if you can save me”

(Spoiler Alert: No One Else Can Save You. Have you heard?)

“I want you so badly but you could be anyone” — Sky Full of Song, Florence + the Machine

“This victim of trauma bonding minimizes and denies the abuse to uphold the positive image of the perpetrator while distorting the reality and being misguided by fantasy love, not real love.” — Psyche Central

“How dangerous it is to love a person not for who they are but for who they could be.” — The Random Stories

After the crumbling of my relationship with my first love, I vowed to never love again.

I liken it to Scarlet’s speech in the closing of Act 1 in Gone with the Wind:

“As God is my witness, as God is my witness, they’re not going to lick me. I’m going to live through this and when it’s all over, I’ll never be hungry again! If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I’ll never be hungry again.” — Scarlet O’Hara

Of course, my version was, “As God is my witness, as God is my witness, I will never feel this way again. If I have to lie, steal, cheat, or kill, as God is my witness, I will never love again.”

Although I had decided True Love was off the table, in the Game of Romance, I was all in.

“Love is...Love is...Love is the drug” - Roxy Music

Love Addiction (which should really be called “Romance Addiction” because it’s not an addiction to love, it’s an addiction to romance. I feel it’s very important to distinguish the two.)

“In love addiction, our attachment trauma causes us to attach quickly and without truly getting to know a person… then our fantasy keeps us hooked even when the reality of who they are becomes impossible to ignore.” -Jodi White

My future relationships would vary but at the core, each one carried the essence of my search for The Patriarchal Father. Someone who I thought could help me survive The Matrix. Someone who would rescue me… from me.

“No one wants the Patriarchal Father like the Wounded Maiden.

“‘Please come home, See me, Stay.’” - Sarah of Magdalene

With my disorganized (avoidant & anxious) attachment style, it was also like this:

Go away. Wait, come back, I love you. Fuck you! Go away.

One of my therapists calls this push-and-pull dynamic a telltale sign of dysregulation.

THE DAMSEL IN DISTRESS

The Whole Damsel in Distress thing had its roots in the Mother Wound; it was not safe for me as a young woman to be vulnerable, creative, and independent. Narcissistic mothers don’t like that very much, it’s threatening for them.

Without the shelter of maternal care, I became vulnerable to men. Men made me feel wanted & loved. When a guy liked me it gave me a feeling of safety & belonging.

Low Self-Esteem & My Descent Into Superficiality

It’s easy to fall into wanting to stay on the surface level when you have serious demons hiding underneath.

Vanilla Sky used to be one of my favorite movies. I love how my movie interests shift according to what I’m experiencing in my life. I am always attracted to movies for certain reasons. Movies are one of the ways my guides communicate with me because when I’m watching a movie I very easily and automatically drop into a hypnotic state (hint, hint… watch what you watch, my loves). I was raised on movies (Disney on VHS, baby), it’s one of the oldest, most ingrained ways I calm myself down and so my system responds extremely quickly. Sometimes if I’m hyperaroused (and I’m home) I can turn on a movie and in seconds my system calms down. Know what works for you! How interesting that 90% of Vanilla Sky is Tom’s fantasy & how interesting that Tom’s fantasy turns into a nightmare because of his subconscious guilt.

“I wear bespoke suits, I swim twice a week, I socialize with people I can’t stand, I’m relaxed, personable, I don’t indulge in self-pity. It’s true what I read; we’re so accustomed to disguising ourselves to others that in the end, we become disguised to ourselves.” — The Goldfinch (movie)

“We were happy pretending to be other people. We were the happiest people we knew. ” — Amy, Gone Girl

“It’s become very common for women online to express their identities through an artfully curated list of the things they consume, or aspire to consume- and because young women are conditioned to believe that their identities are defined almost entirely by their neuroses… these roundups of cultural trends and authors du jour often implicitly serve to chicly signal one’s mental illnesses to the public.” — Rayne Fisher-Quann

Although the deeper part of me was more Damsel in Distress, my more outward presence was THE FEMME FATALE.

I was like a destructive “carefree”; “carefree”’s shadow. I was going for “unattached, unavailable, no needs, party girl” and at the same time, “please rescue me because deep down I’m really sad and desperately need help”. What a blend, eh? That was me. What can I say, unconscious dynamics cannot be blamed. I remember in my late teens & early twenties I warned the guys who were into me. I’d let them know in the very beginning, “I’m trouble”, with my most come hither, femme fatale look. They loved it (like I’ve said before, the men who were attracted to me also had mother issues). I knew I wasn’t good news back then. I knew I was destructive. I was honest about it. I let them know if they wanted to play this game with me- I played rough.

“If you’re lookin’ for trouble

You came to the right place

If you’re looking for trouble

Just look right in my face”

- Elvis Presley

“An un-evolved Aquarius will be way too detached and not know how to tap in with you emotionally. They may also be extremely rebellious without consideration of other people’s feelings and how what they do affects others.”- @aaya.thelight

Libra South Node — The Wanting to Win

“What Libra south node people tend to think they want is to win. This is because they’re anticipating things to be competitive even when they are not. Sure, there are some cis straight women who process winning as winning the attention of an unavailable man but not everyone processes winning in this way. What Libra south node people have to realize is that the ways that capitalism has taught them to win are often methods of self-harm. Healing is not about conquering.” -Alice Sparkly Cat

I wanted a man who would “do anything” for me and at the same time was attracted to unavailability in all its forms. I was attracted to guys who “never had girlfriends” (the players) or guys who were already in relationships. I loved the challenge of seeing if I could get the player to commit or if the guy with the girlfriend would leave her for me. I loved the idea of two men fighting over me, the idea of a love triangle. I needed proof of their adoration, proof of their love. I wanted to be the only object of their desire. I was extremely jealous. I had a kind of love obsession. I wanted to be the girl who changed them, the girl they couldn’t resist loving, the girl who made them stay.

“He seeks insatiability for admiration, of which he never gets enough because admiration is not the same thing as love. It is only a substitute gratification of the primary needs for respect, understanding, and being taken seriously- needs that have remained unconscious since early childhood. Often a whole life is devoted to this substitute. As long as the true need is not felt and understood, the struggle for the symbol of love will continue.” — Alice Miller, The Drama of The Gifted Child

“Happy or sad?”

“Sad.”

“Ok, but I warn you, I’ll break your heart.”

“Already broken.”

- Peaky Blinders

THE HEDONIST

Addiction (Jupiter in Pisces in the 12th House)

I moved to LA when I was seventeen years old. It seemed like an opportunity for me to start a brand new life, a chance to be someone else, and I took it. I got into FIDM, a fashion design school, in Downtown Los Angeles. I got a job assisting a designer who was featured in Vogue. I started dating a guy who worked at William Morris, which at the time was in the process of merging with Endeavor, making it one of the leading entertainment and media companies in the world. I was driving a new Volkswagen Jetta I named Jenny. I went to fancy parties and lived in Venice Beach. I felt like I had made it in the Matrix world. The only world I knew at the time. I have what they call, “High Functioning Anxiety”. Unfortunately, my “High Functioning Anxiety” was paired with “High Functioning Drug Addiction” turning it into “High Functioning Self-Sabotage”. I got really lost in La La Land. In LA my demons were celebrated; my drug addictions glamorized, my feminine shadow revered, and my lack of depth and preference for fantasy a welcomed seat at the table. My time in Los Angeles is when I truly forgot myself. Alcohol, cocaine, romance, and an endless stream of parties provided a plethora of distractions. I completely blacked out my past and my true nature. My softness & vulnerability felt unsafe, like an unprotected child within who was afraid to come out. I convinced myself I was someone else; someone who couldn’t be hurt, someone who didn’t feel pain, someone who was invincible. 

Yet, everything in my life kept falling apart; relationships, jobs, my emotional state.

“I kept running away from my darkness until I understood that in it I would find my freedom.” — Yung Pueblo