Please, please like Me.
The class clown, the addict; the boy who simply wanted to be seen.
I’ve always wanted people to like me.
Not love me, per se; for love in its authentic state would demand they call me out on my personal pitfalls. Which as a problem gambler, I simply would not have been able to handle. My want to be liked by people is probably best described as a craving; a yearning for inherent approval from everybody in my life. Which probably has you saying, ‘Well, yeah, don’t we all?’
And to a degree, I see your point - however I would hesitate to guess that my ‘cravings’ be at least slightly above the norm. To dig deeper into that would be to chip away at more of my psyche than this crisp Monday eve would allow. Though, I suppose it important to extrapolate on who I mean by everybody. By everybody, I mean everybody—the crowd gasps(!) are we witnessing the next literary genius at work—though each at differing levels.
Who was I really trying to impress?
What created this inner turmoil; this hole in my heart that cried out to be filled - with seemingly greater intensity than my peers? Was I missing approval from key figures in my life? Or was my self-esteem at critically low levels?
Probably both, as I’ve come to learn.
What is also important to acknowledge, is that the more I reflect and process the past decade or so, the more I’ve learnt that rarely are things such as ‘lack of approval’ the faults of the aforementioned key figures in my life. More often than not, it’s largely a fault of my own. I seem to struggle to give people the chance to react to my decisions or actions; instead choosing to believe how I think they would react.
I can, with full honesty, say that this has not been beneficial to me in any way during my journey out of addiction.
I’m not sure when I started consistently assuming the worst in people; believing that they would react to my Gambling with nothing but vitriol and disdain. But doing so has only caused me so much unnecessary pain; only prolonged my healing in so many ways.
This was prevalent when reflecting on my fear of first sharing about my Problem Gambling with loved ones - especially those who had the ability to immediately step up and help me out. As I’ve mentioned in the past, shame played it’s part in me holding back from telling a lot of people.
I’m not sure when I started consistently assuming the worst in people; believing that they would react to my Gambling with nothing but vitriol and disdain. But doing so has only caused me so much unnecessary pain; only prolonged my healing in so many ways.
If I can try to impart even just a small piece of wisdom, it would be to try assuming the best in people. Especially loved ones. Sure, not everybody—but at the same time, yes to everybody! For is that not the point, to not necessarily pick and choose who we trust? Allow for people to let you down before assigning them to the ‘untrustworthy’ box.
If you’re sitting there thinking “well this guy doesn’t know what he’s talking about, I could never trust ‘X’ with ‘Y’, because they’ve let me down so many times before!”. Well, you’re partially correct! I genuinely have no idea what I’m talking about. But you’re also making the same mistake I did for years; missing the point by looking at the problem through a binary lens.
For all your faults, there is a reason why those close to you have remained in your life, and allowed you to do so in theirs. For all the negatives that you could imagine - all the reasons they could have chosen to run away - they haven’t.
Maybe, they’re still here because they want to be...
The Class Clown.
My desperation to be liked characterised so much of my anxiety through my teenage years. Even in my childhood years, I strove to be the class clown, until roughly the latter years of Primary School. These higher year levels possibly challenging me enough mentally to divert my anxieties, if but by a fraction.
But I can’t honestly blame my improved behavior on increased challenges within the classroom - for would this not then mean that High School would have me do no wrong? It’s not something that I like to do, but I do have to take a moment to gesture generally in the direction of my late-stage ADHD diagnosis here; my classroom buffoonery perhaps explained by nothing more than a young mind, dopamine-chasing.
Because there is something truly inexplicable to me when it comes to how I react to people’s laughter, in reaction to a joke I’ve made. It’s carried through and shaped my personality as an adult, as it’s one of the purest forms of dopamine that I’ve experienced outside of gambling. Don’t think for a second that I think myself to be a professional comedian at any level, but to deny my inherent knack for ‘micro-comedy’ within my friendship groups would be silly.
Please, please like me.
The topic for this piece actually presented itself to me last week, as I was watching TV. Something funny was on, and a minute or so after a particularly good bit had played, my housemate wandered into the room. My immediate reaction was to call him over, and rewind my show back to the bit I had just found hilarious.
With zero context, it probably wasn’t anywhere near as funny for him, but this action of mine brought back sad memories. It was the exact same thing I did as a teenager to my older Brother. Whilst I don’t remember the hundreds of times that I’m sure he humored me, sitting down to watch the little clip I’d rewound to; I sure as heck remember the crushing feeling when he didn’t.
This extended so much further than just a small clip, though. Sometimes I would choose the exact thing I was going to watch that night; having already watched it the night before, and finding it hilarious. I would plan to re-watch it again, simply so that he would maybe sit with me, and watch it.
Find it funny, enjoy it.
Enjoy being around me.
It’s crushing to type, thinking back to how desperate I was for a simple bit of companionship. That I would be willing to disrupt my entire night just to maybe be liked.
This is completely unfair on my older brother, mind you, for a multitude of reasons. I don’t mean to dump on him in a public platform. I take full responsibility for this mindset of mine, and only really include him so directly as to help you make more sense of just how desperate I was for approval.
Gambling. My one true friend.
Gambling presented itself to me with the promise of being the friend I needed. The friend that would sit with me, like me for who I was; heck, despite who I was. If gambling liked my good components, it loved my negatives; it thrived off them, even.
I didn’t need to rewind my T.V. show to share in the funny moment with Gambling - he was already there watching it with me. Bad day at work? He was there for me, to soothe. Good day at work? He was there, to celebrate.
The problem was, the lines soon blurred. My bad days at work were due primarily to having lost money overnight, or during my shift. My good days at work slowly become fewer and fewer — I would have good moments, sure, but then I’d be trapped. I’d spend the rest of my shift waiting for it to end, and for the late afternoon sports to begin. But I digress.
I truly believe that a big reason that Gambling was able to both jump into and then take root in my life, was due to the anxiety that was so prevalent, and went hand-in-hand with my innate need to be liked.
The fact of the matter is that there was something inside of me, broken and yearning to be loved. Was this a self esteem problem? Was I trying to fill a spiritual hole created by my lack of love for self, with an overabundance of others? Well, again, I’m no Psychologist - but yeah, probably.
Trying to patch up a Spiritual hole.
This hole, for lack of a better shape, is what I relate to most when reflecting on my Gambling. Up until the moment I placed my first bet, I had been able to patch this hole up with numerous things. My classroom antics, sports, relationships - even, I would err to suggest, my Faith.
This is not to say that my Faith is in the past, nor denounce it in any way, I am and continue to be firm in my Christian beliefs. The fact of the matter is, however, that when Gambling reached out to me, I did not have a firm enough grasp on these beliefs to shake it off.
Which of course, can be said for most major challenges in our lives. Would we succumb to alcohol or pornography if our we were completely fulfilled spiritually? If I truly, wholeheartedly believed that Jesus died and rose again, leaving me void of Sin, would I have been so deeply buried in the shame of my gambling in the years to come?
No - but it’s also not something that I would say is an easily achievable level of Faith, regardless of one’s age or wisdom. There’s a reason why those with such firm foundations in their spiritual beliefs are regarded so highly, even by non-believers.
So, yes, Gambling hit me like a tonne of bricks. It lit up something in every fiber of my being that - up until then - I would only liken to what I felt when I first realised I believed in what Jesus did for me on the Cross. Or perhaps how I felt when I first told a joke in the classroom; or saw somebody laugh whilst watching a video I had re-watched, just for them.
That innate aching inside of me that I believe goes hand in hand with simply being a human was quietened again, if but for a moment, when I placed my first bet. And it was that initial inner-peace, that I continued to chase for the better part of 8 years.
To my Younger Self.
You were worthy of being liked. Heck, you were liked. You can believe what you’d like about why you were liked - whether it be due to the facade of humor or what - but the fact of the matter is that you would have been liked irrespective of these things.
With them, you were you. You were who you had to be at the time, sure, but the fact that you were that person in the moment means that you were you. Without them, you would’ve been you. It’s like reading a brain-injured Dr Seuss, I know.
Because, despite what your brain would have you believe, your faults weren’t to be hidden, or looked down on. Dr Seuss may have been on many things, but perhaps he was onto something with his many cheesy quotes of self belief.
Perhaps, the love and self-acceptance you’re seeking so desperately for needs to first be found within. Maybe, you don’t have to earn being liked.
Possibly, just possibly, you’re more than enough, just as you are.
Just something to consider.
Love,
Sean. Day 613. One Day at a Time.
(Also your metabolism is dead; it’s never coming back. Start working on that now.)
In order to keep pieces like these accessible for people trapped like I once was, I have decided to never paywall my story.
If you’re in a place where you can support my writing financially, it would mean a lot to me, whilst also helping me to continue to do this viably alongside my full-time work.
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Thank you for your deep and sincere honesty. This is the work I’m doing too. I think there’s something so profound about just taking it in -realizing that you really are delighted in and loved for who you are. Why is it so hard to take this in? I am working on amplifying, inside myself, the way people love me and really letting myself feel it, really allowing it to penetrate.
This is a really brilliant piece of writing, mate! So introspective and raw. I can relate to so much of it, too. Thanks for sharing it.