@ Am I addicted to attention?
By: Laura Simonow
Tags: Addiction, Success Story, Wellness, Recovery, Mental Health

Attention whore. Egocentric. Show-off. But what if it came from a deeper issue?

August 19th 1991. 26 hours of labor later, I was born. My mom to the nurse : “Take her away for the night, I need to rest”. And that’s how it began.

My need of attention from others can be as barely noticeable as absolutely unbearable. To me, and I believe sometimes to others. Most of the time, I’ll let you know that it’s because I’m a Leo, I’m a solar sign, I need to shine and people to notice. But in reality, it’s much deeper than that.

I don’t consider myself any better than anyone in the room. Yes, I tend to judge. But I never forget that we’re all good at something and we’re all born equal.

This year has been a therapy on its own for me. I got a hell lot of time to reflect on my life and my own person. I started off 2020 with a month of couple therapy with my now, spoiler alert, ex-husband. To end up with a dog-sitting job where I never came home and moved straight in with my best friend. Five years married and I never felt so lonely. My desire to be constantly seen, to have all eyes on me, led into me facing the biggest issue of my marriage : I didn’t get the attention I physically and mentally needed to be fulfilled. Now, that sounds like a very spoiled kid statement. Hear me out : I left my entire life in Belgium behind at 22 years old to move to the US to marry what I thought was the man of my life. I tried to be the perfect wife. Three course dinners from scratch, weekly surprises, trying to spice things up on a daily basis. Now, when you make so many sacrifices to be with someone, the least you can ask is that person’s attention when you’re in the room. Otherwise, what on earth are you doing there?

That question opened me onto a lot of thinking. A load of anxiety. And made me make the best decision of my life : divorcing. That led me here, living my best life, learning who I truly am and what I want to achieve in life. And also, most importantly, work on my bottomless need for attention.

Therefore, I’ve started to analyze my past and some patterns that came with.

I’m an only child. My parents always worked opposite shifts so I would never be alone. If that happened, I would spend a full week at a friend’s house. I would cry when my parents came to pick me up from school, I wanted to keep being surrounded by my friends at all time. I made sure to excel at school so I could spend all my free time with my neighbor or with my hens in the coop. Yes, I was that weirdo who talked to animals too. I always had a Pleiad of animals, from the common cats and dogs to chickens, hamsters, birds and even a gecko. I start from the principle that any living being is a potential companion.

The radio has always been on in my house. My dad would say that a silent home was a geriatric home. He introduced me to his amazing taste in music and that led us to our first music festival. I got instantly hooked on it. I couldn’t get enough of that feeling, being surrounded by thousands of people, singing along to the same songs. I felt I was a part of an entity, we were all there sharing our love of the same artist.

Throughout the years, I kept the exact same group of friends. We’ve known each other since we were 2 years old with most of them. Now that I’m living 6000 miles away from home, let me tell you, the struggle is real. Being an expatriate is a hard task for someone like me who needs her clique around. Trying to build a solid group of friends as an adult is not a piece of cake. Just try to move to an unknown place across the world and you’ll see. The amount of hours I spent crying for not being able to hit someone up with the only solely purpose of hanging out, even doing nothing (something I used to excel at with my best friend back home). I would even Skype (that prehistorical software we used once upon a time) friends in Belgium and watch simultaneous movies, just to feel a presence.

At least, none of what I just mentioned was toxic or detrimental to me. But one thing was. My romantic life. Oh my. What a beautiful chaos. That’s where this attention issue screwed me up.

I’ve never been single since I was 13. I’m not a model looking woman, I don’t have an Instagram worthy body, I’m not especially gifted in anything. I’m just good at manipulating people to like me. Or better, to love me. I’ll do anything to get what I want. And if it’s about dating the person I have a crush on, I’m unstoppable. I’ve done some petty things, and yes, I cheated. As soon as I didn’t get the required attention, my eyes would land on the next prey, someone who seemed much more interested in me than the actual partner. And I repeated that pattern over and over. How much did I need to be satisfied? I was too demanding and it wasn’t fair of me to do so. What I should have done was to learn to live on my own. To learn to be alone with myself. Which I never did. Until this year.

So, yes, I’m dating again. But there’s progress here : yes I do have a roommate, but not sharing a romantic interest with the person you live with is a huge step. Even better : the amount of hours of free therapy I got with her are priceless and led me to the, I think, more stable, less needy person I am at the end of this crappy year. After extended nights of existential conversations, I can now see clearly who I don’t want to be. My needs have grown with me. I feel like this year was worth 10 years of learning experience.

What do I truly need to be happy? Not other people’s attention (well, a little bit). But actually my own.

Despite a quite cold introduction into this world, I got my shit together now. 29 years later.