I am new here and this is gonna be a long message.
I am a 18yo girl and I’ve been living on my own in a foreign country for two years now. I have an history of depression and my parents’ divorce, that took place when I was a child, hurt me in a special way: my mother started seeing another man really quickly and this gave me several problems. I started having nightmares about her leaving me alone because he would steal her love and attention from me, as if I wasn’t worth of it anymore. I guess this started all of the problems that I had with her later in life: during all of my adolescence years I’ve been fighting with her and trying to show her that I didn’t need her love/affection in any way. Of course now I’ve been living on my own for some time our relationship cooled out a little bit.
I had a couple of important friendships: my childhood bestie and my teenager years best friend. Now I’ve been seeing this girl for some time and we bounded in a special way, so I guess we are bff’s. What I noticed in those friendships is the same thing that I was chasing in all of my short and past relationships with boys too: a need for love and attention (which is, I suppose, natural) but in a particular way. Let me explain myself. When I had those relationships it was often with boys who wouldn’t really care about me. I would look for their attention, beg for it and they’d eventually get tired of me and leave me alone. I had different psychologists (now I can’t afford one anymore) and one of them told me something that gave me a lot to think about: that I had a really low self esteem and that I’d consequently only go with people who’d treat me bad to prove myself that I was worth nothing but such behavior, as I was “nothing but a piece of shit”.
With those best friends I had I noticed the exact same thing happening: I was seeking for their attention and love and they’d seem to be less needy and more cool and distant about it, except for the moments where they were really emotional and needed my support in a special way. But something else happened with every bff, and this is what I really want to talk about. They seemed to be way more worth than me, so I’d basically be a zero next to them. Being with them made me feel like I was worth nothing compared to them. Everyone around us would choose them above me without even thinking about it. People would treat them better. Whatever they’d do, people wouldn’t freak out or think they were weird but just “understand” or excuse them. A few examples: we’d go to the club and all of the boys would be on my friend, or even be talking to me just to get to know her or to get her number. We get a one night stand: her ons wants to keep talking to her, pays her a taxi to go home, mine wouldn’t even leave me a telephone number. We go for a drink, people compliment her on her beauty/style/fashion/ spontaneity. Now if this happened every once in a while, I wouldn’t even notice. I thought in those past years I’d grown out of my depression, improved my self esteem and self respect and learnt to be independent from others’ judgement or appreciation but I am having serious doubts about it right now. Why is this happening every single time I have a best friend? It is like next to them I am worth nothing/ can catch no one’s attention anymore. Even the people I sleep with turn out to be more interested in her when they spot her on my social media pages and such. What is happening? Does it have something to do with my mum? With what my psychologist told me? I have no idea, but the matter is making me suffer again and I hope I’ll find some answers.