A Reason Why You Should Invest in Relationships

We have all found ourselves in a deep emotional pit that seemed we would never be able to climb out of. Our friends and family are suppose to be there for us when we need to be pulled from that pit. We should see our relationships as of large importance because they grow and flourish the more we invest in them.  We all have ‘relational spaces’ the broadest of which is our ‘public’ space. This would be people that we don’t speak to but are an encouragement to us, celebrities for example. The next space is ‘social’ space. In this space are people that we talk to regularly but not on a deep or personal level. They may know the ‘Surface you’ but they don’t see the ‘real you’. Next we come to our ‘personal’ space in which people may know a great deal about us but they don’t know everything that we have been through in life. Lastly, is our ‘ intimate’ space. Our intimate space doesn’t necessarily  have to be someone that we are intimate with, significant other. Although most commonly it is. I want to give you a reason to invest in the relationships we currently have and why we all need to find that one person we can bring into our intimate space.

Investing in Relationships Stops Us From Falling in to Isolation

Isolation is the result of a person not learning how to bond with another person. A lack of bonding may lead to depression that becomes so dark that the only way for someone to feel free from it is self harm or in extreme cases suicide. People use self harm as a way to tell their brain that they are still alive because they feel the darkness so strongly that they feel like they are dead inside. The pain and hurt tells them that they are physically alive.

Symptoms of not bonding can include but not be limited to depression, feelings of meaningless, feelings of badness and guilt, addiction, distorted thinking, emptiness, and fears of intimacy.

I personally have struggled with the thought that I would die alone. It wasn’t for a lack of a genuine person that wanted a significant or intimate relationship with me. Each time this person would suggest the idea of dating, I would always deflect and make excuses on why I didn’t want another relationship. My go to was the failure of my past relationships as the excuse why I did not want another relationship. Wherein all actuality, the real reason that I didn’t want the relationship with this person was because I was (and still am) afraid of becoming like my Father. My parents have done the best they could for my brother and myself. Don’t get me wrong, I love my parents dearly, but they are not the model of a marriage that I want for myself.

I strongly believe that we all on some level do not want to become our parents. My parents would not wish their struggles and problems that they have endured on their worst enemies. They don’t want my brother and I to be in the same boat they are. I’m not going to lie and I’m not going to sugar coat it; my father is not the male role model of what a husband should be in a family structure. For the better half of my (young) life my father (more or less) was absent from my life. The most that I would see him was in the mornings before school. I would go to bed most nights and he would still  be at work. It was strictly my mother that raised me. The closest relationship I have with anybody in my family is my grandma. She is a wonderful woman and is an inspiration. She has been that person for me to lean on in the dark pits that I find myself in. My grandma is the Real MVP. We all need to find that one person that can pull us out of the darkness and make us laugh harder than we ever have before. For me thats my grandma.

So let me ask you; Who is ‘person’?