Hello everyone, advance apologies if this is one of those posts that occurs too frequently and gets annoying. I’ve read the about and FAQs but there’s so much, I may have missed some rules. I’m just so excited to have found a community that seeks to empower women and help us develop behaviors that will serve us, not men. So the point of this post is to ask to hear from former (or recovering) Pickmeshas who have truly leveled up and reclaimed themselves as HVW!

I’ve been a Pickmesha all my life, and I certainly believe much of it stems from standard daddy issues. My dad is deceased now and I loved him and know he loved me, but I grew up feeling a lot of conditional love and criticism/judgment from him my whole childhood. I think it set me up to not know my worth with men and to think I had to overplease men to earn their love. Especially since I wasn’t able to develop a relationship with him in my adulthood (he died when I was 22), I feel like it really sticks with me.

There are so many shameful things I’ve done as a pick-me type. I answered countless booty calls from my college boyfriend. The phone might ring at 3am and I’d get out of bed and into my car. I was patient about rarely receiving gifts for birthdays or Christmas. I put up with him working only part time (while NOT going to school) and playing video games and getting high all day while I worked on my degree and worked part time. I put up with him sometimes mocking me in the bedroom. I faked orgasms after he started complaining that I hadn’t had one with him. In five years with him I had one real one. He kept a stack of porn mags in the bathroom right where I could see them. He told me more than once that I’m not as smart as I think I am. Put me down in front of his best friend when that friend started talking offensively about women’s genitalia. I suffered days of him ignoring me and not speaking to me when I didn’t say the right thing. I finally got out of that relationship and was so disgusted with myself, I stayed single for 10 years.

Then guess what this Pickmesha did. I got into a “relationship” with an unavailable man (separated but not legally). For this I am extremely ashamed. It’s the same old sorry tale—dead bedroom, she didn’t care about him, for all he knew she was seeing someone else, etc etc. I believed his sob stories and even believed I was doing her a sort of favor. Unbelievable. Again, I’m very ashamed of myself for participating in hurting her. Long story short, he ghosted me when she confronted him. A man who claimed to love me and that I was the “perfect” woman ghosted me after a year and a half. I deserved that, though. Not because of him but because of my complicity in that situation.

I’m at the point now where I think I finally see my pattern. I’ve been desperate for love, acceptance, and attention and have done all the wrong things to get them. Now I’m terrified of trying again. I don’t feel like I can trust my own judgment. I’m almost grateful that Covid has created an obstacle to meeting someone right now.

All this to share my background as a pick-me type who wants to change. If anyone cares to share how she climbed out of habits like mine, I’d love to know how you did it. How have all my HVW achieved that status for themselves? How have you changed your lives for the better?