Some people don’t understand how broken they are until it’s too late to do anything about it.
I’m one of the lucky ones. I crashed early enough in life that I was forced to face who I really was. Up until my early 30s, I thought I was the Golden Child who would change the world. I had been successful and praised and envied.
And then I crashed. I failed. And the fall was hard.
I really was everything I had thought I was. I was brilliant, talented, driven, creative, empathetic, insightful. Those were the things I put on display. They were the things I wanted everyone to see. I impressed people. I made them love me or envy me or hate me. But I was in denial about the broken parts which I barely acknowledged to myself — the parts which I hid from the world.
At the core of my brokenness, there is a desperate need. A hunger. I can acknowledge it now, but for years, I was so ashamed of my deep hunger for love and attention and approval that I covered it up. I’m sure it showed at times, but I did everything in my power to hide it.
That desperate hunger is still there today. Most of that brokenness will never heal.

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