Have you ever had a certain song lyric just really hit home for you?

I don’t know if this is peculiar, but I’ve had a particular affinity for any song that uses the phrase, “show me you care” in it. Some examples include “Will You Be There?” by Michael Jackson, “Battleships” by Daughtry, and though it’s a slight variation, “All You Wanted” by Michelle Branch. That particular lyric always cuts deep for me, every time it comes out of my speakers. I guess it strikes some kind of nerve. Sometimes it’s a lyric I want to hear, one that feels therapeutic. At other times, perhaps a little more often, it’s a lyric I can’t bear, and I skip the track on my iPod (yeah, I still use one, I’m old like that!).

As I mentioned a few days ago, I’m going through something right now that has thrown dark memories into sharp relief. Very old feelings have resurfaced, feelings of fear and sadness and loneliness. I’m trying to figure out how to rehome those feelings, because they don’t belong in present-day. Lately, I feel like I’m just trying not to drown in the very tangible memory of feeling utterly small and alone. I may be a grown woman, but there’s a part of my brain that’s frozen in time as a child who felt utterly unloved and unseen, and that part of my brain is on overdrive at the moment.

I think “show me you care” is a lyric that hits different for me because, G-d, that’s all I’ve ever wanted. I was valued only for what purpose and aid I could provide to others, not appreciated for me, just as I am. Elie Wiesel is credited as saying that the opposite of love is not hate, it is indifference. The absence of real love, of acceptance and support, has done far more damage to me over the years than any hatred ever could. At both personal and professional levels, validation has become the hill I choose to die on. It’s crucial for mental health, at least for me, and I seek to offer it to others whenever possible.

Even in the midst of wondering how I didn’t become some entirely wretched, twisted thing (or at least hoping I didn’t), I know that there are people who do care. All along the way, at least one or two people must have made me feel seen, enough so that I now live to tell the tale. (Well, I’m not exactly telling the tale to anyone but my therapist yet, but you get my drift.) Nowadays, I’m much more careful about who I allow around me, and anyone who makes a habit of invalidating me is shown the door.

What I’m doing a lot of heavy lifting with right now, at the recommendation of my therapist, is just trying to validate myself – my younger self. Adult Me has some wonderful people in my life who truly care, for which I’m so grateful. But Younger Me is out of reach of that love. I’m trying to show myself I care, at a time when a large part of my brain is having a hard time trusting anyone else to help much.

Who cares? Well, I do.