Attention and Happiness, Craving and Avoidance

I have had a love and hate relationship with attention for as long as I remember... This goes really way back to my childhood.

Putting it simply, I hated attention, for attention meant that I did something wrong, and as such, I would get punished by my parents… And well, while I can make a huge rant on how horrible some parents can be to the point that their child actually fears receiving their attention… That’s not my point here.

What I want to delve more is in this mixed relationship I had… Because it wasn’t only on my house that I hated attention, but at school too… For people paying attention to me usually meant it was someone bullying me… Or the people that worked at school scolding me for fighting against a bully, which led me to get a warning, and then when I took the warning home I’d get punished by my parents which made… Well, everything worse. So attention was horrible.

Or at least, for a long time I thought it was… But truth is, I also loved attention… But not from everyone.
I feared getting attention from my parents, I hated getting attention from bullies or the people that worked at school… But I craved for the attention of my classmates, I wanted my friends’ attention, I wanted them to listen to me and pay attention to me… And not only them.

Teachers, all teachers knew my name… Not because I was a smart kid (I had good grades on most subjects tbh, but that’s just because I had good teachers and paid attention to classes), but because I interacted with them a lot, I talked to them, and to classmates a fair amount… I always thought of myself as a good girl overall, because I paid attention to classes, answered the teachers and stuff… But looking in retrospect, I was a troublemaker for a good part of my school life too… And even so, most of my teachers (save for a few really bad ones… >.>) really loved me… And I loved being loved.

I also remember one particular time in a family dinner, in which I tried to talk about something, and I was stopped, because I was cutting in… And that I should wait until it was my turn to speak, and couldn’t simply cut in people’s speech… And well, my time never came, obviously it never came, it’s not like common dialogue between people have turns for speaking… And I was really really annoyed by how I couldn’t speak at all. I wanted to speak, I wanted to be heard, I wanted people to take my opinion into account… What was the talk about? No idea, it must have been some 15 years ago, I don’t remember it… I just remember the occasion by itself, and the ridiculous idea that was shoved down my throat that I needed to wait for my turn to speak.

And this was… A family dinner. The same family that I dreaded getting attention from, that I feared receiving attention from, for it meant I would be punished… I wanted their attention too. I mean… Which child doesn’t want their parents’ attention?
With time though, I definitely stopped wanting their attention, for I stopped wanting to interact with them altogether… But that’s beside the point.

I also wanted to be a teacher, it’s been a dream of mine for a long time, and the uni I went to was for the sake of being a teacher, took me 4 years to give up on it even if I was clearly disliking it by the 2nd year… I still pursued on on that dream for a long time…
And if there is one thing that any half-decent teacher wants… Is attention. Teachers are all attention seekers, teachers want students to answer them, to talk to them, to interact with them, teachers all crave for attention, and any that says otherwise is either a horrible teacher, or is lying. And well… It was a job I was really going after.

At the same time… I usually am quite a low-key person, like… I am close to my friends, I enjoy talking to them, and I want to be heard when I talk, I hate being ignored… But I don’t really try to put my opinion out in general, I almost always just go with the flow, I don’t want to cause trouble, I don’t want people to get bothered by me… I don’t mind being that one person on the background… As long as the other people on the background pay attention to me.

That’s how it has been for me for the most part… A strange relationship between wanting and avoiding attention altogether… A relationship of simply… Wanting attention from the right people at the right time I guess…

And that was when I realized I was acting weirdly recently… Because I craved attention. I wanted attention from anyone I talked to, I wanted everyone to stop everything they were doing and look at me and solely at me… I wanted all of it, and I got hugely bothered when people didn’t give me the attention I craved for.

Why did I want so much attention...? Well… I was happy. As simple as that, something wonderful happened to me, and I was happy, like… Not just happy, I was super duper happy, I was the happiest I have been in the past 2 years… Maybe the happiest I have ever been, I don’t know, it’s hard to compare my two happiest moments, and I don’t want to compare them either… I just know I was very very veeeeeeery happy, and I wanted to spread that happiness to all corners of the Earth, and wanted everyone to congratulate me for my happiness too!!

I was really surprised when I noticed I was craving for this much attention, especially because, for me, attention had always been a synonym of a bad thing… That’s how it had been on my head, and it is why this much attention craving became so so horribly weird… I needed to stop and think carefully about myself to realize that I always craved attention too, to realize how much it has always been important to me.

I guess that… What I really wanted was acknowledgement. It’s really hard to move up in life, it’s really hard to clear our goals, it’s really hard to obtain the things we want the most… But when we do get it… It can’t be wrong to desire some congratulations.

That is the word I wanted to hear the most… Congratulations, it’s a simple word, but it really meant a lot to me… I think that part of my problem was that what made me happy, isn’t something a lot of people consider as something serious, or significant… But it was the biggest thing in the world for me, it is the biggest thing in the world to me… So not getting the attention I so rightfully desire (at least on my own head) really irked me.

It got to a point that I slightly altered the facts just to make people care more about it, and I was like… “No, that’s wrong… That’s not what this is at all… It’s not exactly like that.” Because I hate lying, I hate creating misunderstandings, I hate not telling things as they are… But I needed to in order to get the acknowledgement I wanted, and even then, it was a lot smaller than I think I deserved.

It became kind of bothering… So I stopped talking about it… Rather, I became silent, because I didn’t want to talk about anything but that, for that was the only thing on my head, but people didn’t praise me for what I got, they didn’t congratulate me for what I desperately wanted to be congratulated for… So I simply waited for time to pass and got back to the thing that I actually cared for, and each second waiting for it was agonizing, for I couldn’t wait for it at all.

I was really surprised at myself for how much attention I suddenly started craving… Even if I did want attention before, it was never ever remotely similar to what I felt now… Which just showed me how much I cared for this, and how much should I nurture it.

It made me think of the meme (can I call this a meme? I dunno) about the girls that post photos of themselves saying how ugly they are, only to seek some self-gratification by being told how beautiful they actually are… I only knew one girl that ever did that, and she was one of the most beautiful girls I had ever known, rather, I even had a crush on her for a while (she was straight though… T.T)… I couldn’t help but wonder… Why? Why do this kind of thing? It’s obvious that she was gorgeous, why say something like “I’m so ugly”?

People call those people attention seekers I guess… I hate the term, she wasn’t seeking attention… She was craving it, just like I have been craving it these past few days… Everyone has a reason to do what they do, no action is done “because”.

Hmmmmm… I think I kinda lost myself here, digressed some, took some tangents, and kinda forgot if I had any conclusion that I wanted to make out of this, so… I guess I’m happy, I’m so so happy that I wish all attention in the world to be pulled towards me.

I wonder if this is a normal feeling when people are absurdly happy, or if it is just me… In any case, it is how I am feeling atm, I think it will pass soon, but… For now at least, I’ll be sure to enjoy this unsurmountable amount of happiness that is making me want everyone to look at me and only me~

Ah… It got big again… Oh well~