Rejection

Over the past few days, I have been experiencing a lot of emotions.  That has led to me questioning myself.  There is no one that could ever be as hard on me as I am.  I am not very nice about it.  Probably, not very fair about it either.  I judge myself harshly.  I know this about myself, know it isn't very good, yet I still do it.  Old habits are hard to break.
In my questioning over the past couple of days, I have realized that there is an underlying fear.  The fear is rejection.  Oddly, I fear rejection and expect it at the same time.  I am not sure how to separate those two.  I know I don't want to draw rejection toward me.  I certainly don't set out to be rejected.  I think for me, fear and rejection go hand in hand when I let someone close to me.
Even though I am use to being hurt by others, the few times I have opened up, I have still hoped that I wouldn't be.  I had hoped that my trust wasn't being misplaced and that it wouldn't be abused.  Don't get me wrong, no one in my life right now has rejected me or hurt me.  Quite the opposite actually.
It is this lingering fear that haunts me.
How do I live in today, free from the past?  How do I completely embrace all the good in my life right now and silence the past?
I have always blamed myself for destroying my relationship with my mother.  I hit her and my whole world changed.  I caused her to completely reject me.  No amount of trying to tell me that I didn't, has helped change this deep rooted belief.  It doesn't matter how stupid it sounds to someone else.  The blame for all the hell in that relationship is on me.  Even when I grew to the place where I wanted nothing to do with her, I still took all the blame.  Sure, I was angry with her.  I hated her for a long time.  She didn't care about me.  I was never good enough. Never!  I believed that she hated me as well and wanted nothing to do with me.  Her world was better with me not in it.
That rejection was really on both of us.  I hit her and she walked away.  I guess one of the things that it taught me is that you can make a mistake that ends in total rejection.  A mistake can lead to a non repairable relationship.  Tough lesson for a 5 year old.  But, one that makes a lasting imprint.  This has followed me in a lot of ways into today.
Me, making a mistake doesn't sit well with me.  I do beat myself up if I think I have made a mistake.  If I know I have disappointed someone, the boxing gloves come out and I am in for an internal beating.  There wasn't much opportunity for me to learn that mistakes aren't the end of the world.  Very little chance to learn that someone can be disappointed and still continue caring about me. There was no parent there that addressed the matter and helped me move on.  What I did learn is that I could expect rejection or I could reject first and just protect myself from rejection.  There is no way I could have put that into words as a kid, but my actions showed it.
Those old voices run through my head, telling me I am not good enough.  They tell me I am not worthy and on and on.  Silencing them isn't easy at all.  There is a lot of fight in me.  A lot of repeating truth to myself.  I might not actually believe it at the moment yet I do keep speaking it.  At those lowest points where I think I am even rejecting myself, I try to treat myself like I would want someone else to if they were with me.  Holding onto myself, speaking encouraging words...
Coming from a place of expecting rejection, I can tell you that it takes a lot to come to a place of trust.  It takes a lot to believe someones words are really true.  I don't mean to meet the words with mistrust.  Every part of me wants to believe they are true and every part of me is afraid.