My IDGAF mindset stems from childhood trauma and repeated rejection and failure.
“I want to become a person someone could prioritise and put me as number 1.”
Failing is like second nature to me, it embraces me from behind and caresses my forehead saying ‘It’s okay.’ If anything, it’s the self-acceptance and love I built for myself — and only for myself.
Rejection feels foreign, but when it comes, it’s a rather blunt driving force that doesn’t do much to my armoured skin.
The armour I built for myself is made from childhood trauma, neglect, isolation, rejection and failure. The barrier of IDGAF.
Love, big ones and little ones, the gestures or actions that usually can’t be seen with rose-tinted glasses, are the ones I watch out for. The slight comment ‘This made me think of you’, ‘Saw this at the market today, I bought it for you’, the notion of being remembered, prioritised is hard to come by.
It is hard to confess that I didn’t receive much love growing up, because I have parents, a big family with many cousins. But, favouritism played a huge role in this, having a younger brother who excelled in many things won the hearts and souls of my family. A social butterfly, a scholar of studies, sportsman, a man full of wise words, a humble heart, and good looking. And, he is on that pedestal.
In school, it was always hard and difficult to have long-term friendships, they’d always leave me behind for something or someone else. I really started to question if the problem itself is me, which triggered the spiral of self-loathe and hatred.
An uncle, whom I had lost to natural causes struck me hard because I could really feel his love for me. I had lost someone who smiled when he looked at me, who’d remember what I liked and what I didn’t, thought of my brother and I as equals — nothing more and nothing less. He’s not here with us anymore.
My motivation is to create the love I never received, so that I could become a better person through the things I give to myself. Being content and happy with the things around me, practicing gratitude, and being myself.
It felt empty, dark, sad and I always wanted to crawl into a dark cave and never come out. I thought I didn’t deserve it, for a long time that is, until I started to look at the relationships around me, familial, friendships, and through everyones’ kindness in this world. However harsh the things we’ve gone through, whether it be grief, sexual assault, rape, injustice etc., we can hope for there is still some warmth within the people around us.
3 prominent tools I had by my side, that helped me overcome my dark cave.
1. Spiritual awareness
Turning to tarot reading as a form of spiritual awakening sparked my interest to learn and grow what I believed to as a High Priestess. It also made me learn more about myself through the cards and what the universe is trying to tell me with their guidance. I read an article weeks back talking about how demons are everywhere, in our minds, souls, and not just figurative beings. Encompassing your own control and energy via identifying and making friends (not enemies) with your own demons.
2. Putting in habits into my routine
I extinguished goals and replaced it with systems. A book I read a while ago ‘Atomic Habits by James Clear’ mentioned that although creating goals set a direction, it doesn’t help with progress — systems do. Committing to these systems would in turn help you manifest what you want.
① Identify your why
② Define you how
③ Execute your what
④ Assess & adjust
to find what fits for you, because what things may work for other people may not work for you. It’s the journey that counts and not the destination.
3. Open to external help, aka. my therapist
Never would I think that I’d say I love my therapist, but I really do and I really look forward to our sessions every week. I have a fair share of therapists, and honestly I always thought they were a bit useless and hated going to them. But, after having such disconnection with the outside world and who I am, I found myself leaning towards to therapist at university for help. He taught me how to identify the trauma, pain, the root of all this suffering, and turning it into a positive aspect and leaving space for further growth. And I’ve learned how to turn my own demons as a positive thing, whatever happened to me was something I had to overcome for me to get where I am today, and for the future me.
As Steven Callahan mentioned in his book Adrift: Seventy-six Days Lost at Sea:
“My plight has given me a strange kind of wealth, the most important kind. I value each moment that is not spent in pain, desperation, hunger, thirst, or loneliness.”
So, my IDGAF mindset stems from many things, but not having to care about what others view me as helped me to look at only myself during a time period where I really needed to be selfish with myself.
