I can’t recall a time when I’ve ever been someone’s first choice. I’ve usually always been last on the list when it comes to being chosen. I was never chosen first for childhood teams, for picks as a love interest, or for picks on a team at school or work.
If someone had to choose me, there was usually no other option left for them. Or they might take a long pause between me and another person who was also considered to be at the bottom. I guess that would make me a loser by all intents and purposes or just a person unlucky in life.
In fact, after some reflection on being chosen (or not), I’d say if I had to be considered as a prime choice, I feel that I was most often chosen for reasons based on some dark agenda. Most often, I’ve been nothing more than an afterthought unless for use and abuse. Of course, that has always depended upon the chooser.
This experience of being chosen last, not chosen at all, or chosen for a dark agenda has most likely come from my being around narcissistic personalities and experiencing their cycle of narcissistic abuses against me. Despite my great qualities as a person, most narcissistic personalities don’t consider my qualities to be great at all.
Typically, a narcissist has never chosen me as a first choice unless I was deemed suitable for their destruction. Even if they chose me as a suitable object of their destruction, there was always someone else they’d give their true time and devotion to for the purpose of love bombing them and winning them over in the same way they’d done me.
I seem to only be “tolerable in doses”, and this has been said to me numerous times by varying narcissistic individuals. For most, I have too many quirks, idiosyncrasies, and obvious traits that make it susceptible to someone that something is “off” about me. Yet, I am quiet and pensive enough to go unnoticed until some great quality about me seems to be on display.
I would imagine that this is the case even for myself if a narcissist placed someone else on a backburner in an effort to charm me. Yet, the fact would still remain that I wouldn’t be an obvious first choice. In fact, I’ve almost always been simply triangulated into the equation with someone else for a purpose. A narcissist always has an agenda, and it’s never been for my good in the end.
Yet, I’ve not had problems with just narcissists not choosing me “first”. It’s been a problem pretty much all my life. I’ve often felt as if I’m overlooked and unheard – invisible even. I’ve been a voice chained for so long that I have sometimes dared not to speak. That’s when I surmise that selective mutism has been a blessing within my life because even with the desire to speak, I’m often rendered speechless. If no wants to hear me, then being mute was all good.
A few times I was told within the Christian arena that I had a spirit of rejection upon me. So I prayed for God to heal me and to help me to understand how get over being a reject. Then I figured I needed to get over myself because God’s son was viewed as a reject too. If Jesus lived to get through rejection, then so could I, but it’s truly easier said than done. I had to learn to fight through the hurt of rejection. Not everything is meant for me, and I’m not meant for everyone, and that’s reality.
Then I had to change my perspective on what it meant to be chosen first. Perhaps it’s a blessing in disguise not to be someone’s first choice. How do I know that they aren’t on their own learning curve of understanding this life? How do I know I’m not someone’s first choice because of the issues that person could see within me? In the same way I may not choose to be around someone may be the same reasons they don’t choose to be around me.
Sometimes I have to wonder how much of my autistic traits are evident to others. I think they are evident enough that I can be an annoyance based on my observations of a person’s microexpressions towards me when I do or say something that makes it evident I’m on the spectrum. I don’t really know for certain though, but I do find that most people who are around me find me to be strange. In fact, quite a few people have told me I’m some version of the word weird.
Perhaps these feelings are simply a part of the paradigm of life, and some of us experience them a bit more than others. I do not know, but I’ve often wondered what it would be like to see that I’m someone’s first choice simply because I am of value to them. This is not about romantic ties; this is about being chosen as a preference in general. No matter where I’ve been or what I’ve done, my experiences in this area have usually been the same. I’m least considered on anyone’s list, including the list of my own family.
Over time, I’ve come to terms with not being chosen … with being a lone ranger … with unacceptance … with being invisible. Despite always feeling as if I’m a lost puzzle piece which can’t find its fit within the grand scheme of things, I realize that things are the way they are, and I can simply enjoy the freedom or become oppressed under the weight of it. So, I choose to enjoy the freedom for as long as I have it because life is short. Life is too short to focus on anyone’s desire or undesirability to appreciate me as a first choice … or even a choice at all, especially if it has to be a narcissistic personality.
My Voice Unchained 