I’m an addict. While my addiction is unique, it still has the same effects as any other – the constant need to get the next fix, needing higher doses to get the same high. My addiction is your approval. I need people to like me, more specifically, I need strangers to like me.

I’m a classic high-risk case for this type of addiction. Growing up, I was the weird kid who grew up in a house with too many cats, had shitty teeth, and wasn’t the most well-off financially. This, compounded with the fact that I got sent to private school, ensured that I was going to be ridiculed and made fun of on a daily basis. It sucked and I spent most of teen years wondering if living was even worth it.

Finally, in high school, I turned a corner and met some friends who had similar interests as me. By this point I was being homeschooled and fully entrenched in Mormonism (which has its own problems), but somehow, it wasn’t as bad as being called to the principal’s office for hygienic reasons. Through these friends, I discovered that hey, I’m actually pretty funny and have a knack for making people laugh. I first expressed this by making short-films that had no budgets and less acting skills. We were having fun, though, which was all we cared about.

Whenever it came time to show these films to friends or family, I would get excited anytime a joke I wrote or a scene I was in made someone laugh. Still, I had doubts about whether or not they were laughing because it was funny or if they were just being nice. It wasn’t until I started uploading some of our work to YouTube that I felt any sort of accomplishment. These strangers enjoyed the stupid things that I was making. It felt amazing to be liked.

Unfortunately, the YouTube blade cuts both ways. If I would get even one negative comment, it would shake my confidence. What didn’t they like? Did they not like the material or did they not like me? I could get 100 compliments but just 1 negative comment would break me. I’d spend hours trying to figure out what I did wrong. The next time I’d write something, I’d drive myself crazy thinking whether or not DeadpoolFan420 would enjoy what I made. It became maddening trying to please someone I’d never meet.

This was only the beginning of my addiction. In 2008, I decided to start doing stand-up. Here was my chance to get the admiration of strangers in real-time. I’d be able to get immediate gratification of the art I was putting forth. I could get face-to-face “You did great!” compliments after the show. And after many shows, this is what would happen. It was a great feeling. Then I bombed a few times and felt the lowest of lows, even lower than faceless YouTube comments. Here were people who didn’t like me to my face. The process of trying to figure out what I did wrong started all over again. It’s an exhausting practice that I still deal with, albeit, less than before.

Needing the admiration of strangers began seeping into my personal life around 2012. I was in a long-term relationship and my mind started to wander. I never cheated in the physical sense, but I needed attention from other girls just to fulfill some sense of alpha-male bullshit. I needed to know that I was desirable to other girls to get back at all the ones that didn’t want me in high school. This ignorant need for acceptance (which ultimately lead to me being emotionally used by someone), lead to the deterioration and end of that relationship. I have nobody to blame but myself over that. I’ve made peace with the decisions I made and have tried to learn from my mistakes.

Only I didn’t.

I’ve hurt so many girls because of my selfish desire to impress people who don’t matter. They were casualties in my own desire to, once again, get back at girls who wouldn’t date me when I had shitty teeth and came from a cat-smelling house. I pretended to be a good guy but deep-down, I’m no different from the guy that hits you up at 3am for sex. But still, I have all of these “cool” stories to tell at parties about the time I hooked up with so-and-so. At 23, those stories are cool, at 31, they are shallow and lonely.

The catalyst for coming to terms with all of this, once again, deals with my job loss. I hate talking about it. It fucking sucks and I’m pissed all the time about it. I learn new things about what happens or I see a former co-worker post something and I get filled with anger all over again. And it reminds me that I no longer have the admiration of a listening audience. I’m lost and angry and desperate to get back to where I was. Everyone would joke about me being “Local  Celebrity Gavin Eddings.” It was a joke, but after a while, it started to stick. I hate that I can’t do the same good that I was doing. I hate that I can’t help out local theatre groups by giving them airtime to promote the phenomenal work that they are doing. But deep down, I hate feeling like I’m fucking nothing now. While my last blog on this page was filled with self-reflection and hope, this is “I’ve got to write this down because I’m breaking.”

I have had so much support from friends and family during this transitional time in my life, but there support means less than the hypothetical of thinking about how many people are happy about my “fall from grace.” I focus so much time and energy on people who don’t care. The people I’m seeking approval from probably didn’t even notice I was gone past the first week or so. They’ve already settled in to a Gavin-less airwaves. And that sucks to realize. It makes me want to cultivate and build the relationships I have with actual friends, but I’m addicted to the approval of strangers. I don’t know how to detox.

I know I’m in a rough place right now and this is just a side-effect of the overwhelming feelings I’m experiencing. Even though I hold strangers opinion of me in high-regard, I love everyone who has supported me throughout this. If you’ve reached out with a text to check on me or supported the podcast I started, it means a lot to me. You mean a lot to me.

And I hope you like this.