Shedding My Invisibility Cloak

From childhood on I think the "me last" mentality was ingrained in me. In general, my mindset was that everyone else's needs are more important than mine. It's easy to see how I could grow up believing that, right? That mindset followed me into my teen years when I never could establish any sort of presence among my peers. I tried to stand out by being smart and hard-working...that strategy only helped me take home good report cards. It did not help me "win friends and influence people." Here's what being known as "the smart girl" got me... Once I was asked by a boy to help him with a trigonometry problem. "No, sorry, I can't." I replied. - I wasn't even in the damn class! It's scary how invisible I was - no one even expected to notice me!

My invisibility also predisposed me to getting involved in a violent and emotionally damaging relationship. Because I was so accustomed to my needs being subjugated and needing desperately to feel important, I let a man walk all over me. In the typical dynamic of an abusive relationship, his dominant personality dictated every mood and emotion. Not only did his needs come first...they were the only valid ones. If I wasn't immediately as invested in his drama as he would like, he soon saw to it that I was. I was all too familiar with not being allowed my own feelings anyway, so I adapted to this dysfunctional life, somehow believing that I could help this miserable son-of-a-bitch to be happy. My need to feel important to someone - anyone - led me down a dark and dangerous path for too many years. Thankfully that hellish existence is long ago and far away from my present reality.

Maybe it's the interaction of nature and nurture but I am by nature an introvert. As a result of my temperament having been used against me all those years, it is hard for me to reach out, even today. I tend to isolate myself, lest I be hurt again. Can you say "defense mechanism?"

I'm trying, however, to grow past that tendency as a matter of personal growth. I'm on a journey to find my own "sense of importance" and my own voice every single day. I've been consciously trying to make the effort to take risks, try new things and purposely leave my comfort zone.

But it's emotionally tenuous. For the better - I think - I've grown past that mindset where I am comfortable being disregarded. I've vowed to myself that I will never again tolerate being under-valued or taken for granted. The process has left me a bit sensitive in the respect department, however. Where more secure people would see a simple oversight, I tend to see a personal slight. All at once I re-experience all that youngest child crap and now I have a zero tolerance for it! The challenge for me is, as in all things, to find the balance between feeling valued and disrespected.

I've recently had the equivalent of a layoff - my child care business has dried up...no clients at all. I'm trying to turn abject panic at having no income into the impetus for bringing out the latent writer in me. I love to write, I have always wanted to write but I have never made the leap - until now. It is difficult for me, however, to do what I need to do to market my writing skills. In order to get the word out, I'm going to have to overcome my fear of reaching out and possibly being ignored. Otherwise, it will be like writing in a vacuum...not so profitable. At this critical juncture in my life, I can't help but wonder if my fear of "invisibility" is coming back to haunt me...

So if I'm not the type to shout, "Look at me, world!" from the rooftops, how do I get people to know I'm a damned insightful, creative and compelling writer? Must my success as a writer depend upon how much I'm willing to hawk my wares? In order to be authentically myself, I've got to find an authentic-to-me way of getting the attention I and my work deserve.

Any ideas?