Addicted to Validation
On needing to hear it from someone else — and the long road of learning to believe it from inside.
Validation is one of those quiet addictions that doesn’t show up in the data. You don’t notice the dependence until you go a week without it and realize how much of your weather depends on someone else’s reflection of you.
I’m addicted to validation
Obsessed with sensations
Of acceptance and blessings
When will I learn my lesson?
Why am I at ease
When I’m someone else’s peace?
I can get so high, despite my inner lows
Without confirmation, I feel so many woes
But when you tell me what I want to hear
I’m smiling from ear to ear
Why don’t I believe myself
When I say I’m beautiful?
Why do I only believe
Someone else’s point of view?
If I don’t hear it from you, I worry
Even though they don’t know
A fraction of my journey
The cruel part is how responsive the addiction makes you to the people whose opinions matter the least. The strangers who don’t know a fraction of your journey can swing your whole afternoon with a comment.
I haven’t beaten this one. I’m pretty sure most of us haven’t. But naming it is step one — once you can see the loop, you can at least catch yourself standing in it.
— JTC