David McElroy

I was a terribly naive child. I was out of touch with social reality.

As my family moved from city to city, I was never among the popular kids at any school. I told myself it was because I was always the new kid everywhere, but some part of me knew better. Some of my peers always had something that made others like them. I seemed to rub people the wrong way — and I never knew why.

Despite this, I expected to be a leader. I knew I was smart and I was able to do things that few of my classmates could do. I thought that would take me far in this world. My childhood goal — a very serious one — was to be elected president of the United States.

As a teen, I had leadership roles at school and at church, but it wasn’t because my peers liked me. It was simply because I knew how to get things done. And when push came to shove, I was handed power and leadership when things needed to get done. But it didn’t make me popular. And I knew that.

I’m decades beyond those confused early expectations, but a part of me has never escaped them. I thought when I became an adult, competence would matter. Nothing else. Sometimes it did, but I often still can rub people the wrong way. Even when I knew how to be popular, I didn’t want to be.

And now I realize that I’m doomed to failure in the media world if I rely on popularity that comes from social media. Whatever it is that social media wants from a man, I don’t have it. And that means I have to make some changes.

Keep Reading

When I was a little boy, I experienced a hunger for something that I could not name.

Since that hunger was never satisfied in any lasting way, I didn’t know what “normal” should feel like. I didn’t know what it would feel like to have my needs filled, so I couldn’t even name what was wrong. And for all the decades of my life, I’ve felt something missing.

The missing piece was love.

I was hungry for a kind of healthy love and acceptance that I’ve never known. And that missing piece at my core left me with the vague knowledge that something was wrong.

For many years, an angry voice inside my head has asked, “What is wrong with me?!”

It didn’t seem like a serious, rational question, but rather reflected the way I felt inside — about some horrible shame lurking at my core. I mostly haven’t been able to put words to the feelings. I’ve just sensed a horrible mixture of fear, shame, anger — and a tremendous terror that I could never be “good enough.”

At every stage of my life, I have tried to find things that could finally chase away those fears — something that could fill the void, that could make me feel loved and connected.

I felt as though I was the only one who felt this way. I felt as though nobody else had experienced the core wound I felt — and that nobody else had gone through the horrible and confusing patterns that I have put myself through.

But I finally understand that everything I’ve done — and everything I’ve felt — was common to people who had suffered childhood trauma. The psychological term for what I was living with was complex post-traumatic stress disorder (CPTSD).

Keep Reading

What would it take to make you happy? To feel content? To feel satisfied with life?

We use different words to talk about this, but almost everybody instinctively knows what I’m talking about. Most of us have some story we tell ourselves about what it would take for us to feel at peace with our lives.

Some people think more money would make them happy. Others care little about money but crave the love and acceptance they’ve always needed. Others want power or social status. They want others to see them some particular way. They think if they had a particular house or car or boat — or something — they would be able to be content with the world and at peace with their lives.

I’m no different. I’ve had money in the past, but found it brought little peace. At this point in my life, I’d love to have more money, but I know it wouldn’t change my satisfaction with life. It wouldn’t give me the peace I crave.

My holy grail right now is connection — to be loved, accepted, valued and understood. Some deep part of me believes I would be happy — would have peace, find contentment, whatever you want to call it — if I simply had a family and some deep community connection. I have a beautiful and loving picture of what that life could look like. And I feel as though it would change everything.

But I have the nagging intuition that I’m wrong. In my gut, I have the terrible feeling that if I can’t be happy or content or at peace right now — when I’m alone and lack many of the things I want — I wouldn’t find those things if all my dreams suddenly came true.

Keep Reading