You know when you are young, especially in elementary school, it is the biggest deal in the world to have a crush on someone. People will do or say just about anything to prevent their crush from knowing the truth. It is like you would rather tell your crush that the reason why your palms are all sweaty when you are around them is because they remind you of a swimming pool in the middle of a river, rather than it being because you are so nervous.

So, surprise surprise, I had a crush one time in about third grade. We shall call him Steve. One day at recess this girl ran over to him and told Steve that I "liked" him. He said "reeeeeeealllly???" as if he were surprised. I hesitantly answered truthfully, and he then pretended to pass out and throw up because apparently he was just so disgusted that someone like me could like him.

Needless to say, I was a bit embarrassed and my little eight year old feelings were just a bit hurt. I have to say though, that pain is very small in comparison to other things that I, and other people I know, have been experienced. I am still just a young girl, and the most severe heart break I have experienced has been in my more recent years.

I have had what I call my "three great loves" in my life. All three different situations and different levels of love, but love nonetheless. All three ended dramatically, and hurt severely. Although the funny thing is despite all three of those individual and uniquely painful situations (all of which I could write a novel about), those are not the reasons why my bubble got popped and I left my own fantasy.

Let me explain what I mean by that. I have always been, but especially in high school, very innocent minded. It got to the point where I felt like that was all I was known for. I just was the stereotypical church girl, which is not a bad thing at all. I didn't really know anything about the real world outside of my bubble. I just did what I did and never tried anything new. I don't even mean scandalous things that some people experiment with in college. Oh no, I mean even with things as simple as not writing in my planner for once. That would have just been the end of the world, it was out of my routine and therefore wasn't optional.

But one day, the summer after high school, my bubble was popped and I finally could open my eyes to worlds outside of my own. However, my bubble, per say, did not exactly pop in the most conventional way. When it did end so did my fantasy of one day finding my prince charming, having true love, and growing a family. That is what I refer to as the "Prince Charming" affect, which I will get to later.

In a nutshell, without going into extreme detail, after my "bubble" was popped I also lost a lot of self esteem. I started doubting myself and every single decision I made. Guilt started building an Everest inside of me. The self shame was no laughing matter either. It got to the point where I was so consumed with unhappiness deep inside that I straight up just did not think that I deserved happiness in general.

Coming out of that situation instead of trying to learn from it, grow, and move forward I just let it sit and fester inside me. I did what I do best and just put the problem in a box, pushed it in the way back corner of my mind and never dealt with it. The funny thing is about life is that it is a very hard thing to try to move forward if something is holding you back. Typically when one has some extreme unresolved emotional trauma that they have not dealt with then those terrible memories become like giant weights attached to every limb of your body that just continue to get bigger as time goes on.

Despite me already having that knowledge I still remained true to my stubborn quality and decided that I could deal with things myself. I do have to say though, this specific situation was the first time I was dealing with something that I too had some blame in. Where as in the past when I was dealing with emotional trauma it was always something that just unfortunately happened to me; for example, my parents divorce. That is an example of something that I didn't ask for and could not control.

Once I started college the regret I had just consumed me on the inside and I ended up putting myself in a situation to make another series of mistakes. The self shame just continued and it got to the point where my self worth in general was so low that I lost my way and started to neglect my goals.

For a year I embraced this terrible habit I learned of sabotaging any and every situation that could potentially make me happy long term. This not only happened with social related things and academics, but also extended out to dating; more like especially dating....That brings me back to my previous article, part I, "What is the Jenny syndrome?" , which I encourage you to read considering this is the sequel to that specific article.

Just to make things as clear as the white ocean, here is a flow chart to break it down for you, and also myself to be honest....

{ Lived Life ---> made a mistake ---> grew guilt, anger, and a whole other pile of emotions ---> made more mistakes ---> self shame continued to grow ---> lost hope and gained the feeling that I did not deserve happiness ---> began to push people and also other opportunities, to be happy, away ---> regret continued to grow ---> began growing even more anxiety and getting better at pushing people away ---> This, the Jenny Syndrome, is born. }

This is unfortunately a cycle that will quickly swallow you whole and drag you down hill that I think a lot of people can relate to and probably have experienced themselves at some point or another. I tell you friends, if you have struggled with this then I am glad you are here reading this series; because I too have in the past and still do currently struggle with the self shame. The self shame that, if I am being honest, I don't even deserve, and ya know what? You don't deserve it either. You deserve to be happy every single day of your life. I wish life was easy enough for you to have that luxury, but unfortunately we live in a very imperfect world.

Nonetheless, despite all of the down and doom in that sentence you still deserve to love yourself. So, that brings me to not only the conclusion of this article but also a continuation of an invitation to occupancy me on this journey. In my next article, (yes, there will be a part 3) I will talk about how I caught myself in this cycle and why I wanted to break it.

Until we meet again just a couple of reminders: You are worthy You are loved. You are accepted. You are wanted. By who? Jesus Christ. I encourage you to pray to Him about things like these, and if you don't know who He is then please please reach out to me or someone else. He is a very interesting guy to learn more about. I encourage you to read the article before this, and continue to read the one after. I'll be back next week.