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Sometimes, it's not me.
Sometimes I can do everything right and still get kicked in the teeth. This, for once, is not about depression, although this holds true there as well; I'm thinking now of a relationship I've been — I want to say handling, or involved in, but they aren't right, actively engaged in, I guess, for the last several weeks. It was inadvertently repeating a pattern I grew up with and which twisted up my insides in not-very-good ways: being promised love and care and attention, and then the person in question vanishing. And coming back, but never reliably, never consistently.
But this time was different: I'm in therapy, and my therapist pointed out when I said, "I am overreacting to this, why does this bother me so fucking much?" that I was not overreacting, that I was being teased and maybe not with intent to hurt, but I was upset and not without reason, and I took a deep breath and went home and tried to reach out and said "I miss you and I want you in my life and what you're doing is upsetting me because I've been here before and the person who did it to me never stopped hurting me." There were apologies, there was what I thought was understanding and regret, and I thought I had resigned myself to the fact that it was out of my hands now; if it got better, it would be because someone wanted my words to be effective, and if it didn't, then it was zir informed choice and zir loss.
I keep repeating that to myself. Because: it hasn't gotten better. I'm still feeling ignored and abandoned and insufficient and angry.
Sometimes, it's not me. Sometimes, it's people being people, and repeating patterns that happen to be powerful for me, and no matter what I do, no matter how much I try or how courageous I am, it won't work; the pattern stays, and I get hurt, and that is okay. It doesn't make me a bad friend or someone doomed to be alone forever; it doesn't even necessarily mean that my judgment in choosing friends is flawed (it might; this person has fucked over other people I know as well, but that's not the point right now).
Sometimes, people just suck.
Sometimes I can do everything right and still get kicked in the teeth. This, for once, is not about depression, although this holds true there as well; I'm thinking now of a relationship I've been — I want to say handling, or involved in, but they aren't right, actively engaged in, I guess, for the last several weeks. It was inadvertently repeating a pattern I grew up with and which twisted up my insides in not-very-good ways: being promised love and care and attention, and then the person in question vanishing. And coming back, but never reliably, never consistently.
But this time was different: I'm in therapy, and my therapist pointed out when I said, "I am overreacting to this, why does this bother me so fucking much?" that I was not overreacting, that I was being teased and maybe not with intent to hurt, but I was upset and not without reason, and I took a deep breath and went home and tried to reach out and said "I miss you and I want you in my life and what you're doing is upsetting me because I've been here before and the person who did it to me never stopped hurting me." There were apologies, there was what I thought was understanding and regret, and I thought I had resigned myself to the fact that it was out of my hands now; if it got better, it would be because someone wanted my words to be effective, and if it didn't, then it was zir informed choice and zir loss.
I keep repeating that to myself. Because: it hasn't gotten better. I'm still feeling ignored and abandoned and insufficient and angry.
Sometimes, it's not me. Sometimes, it's people being people, and repeating patterns that happen to be powerful for me, and no matter what I do, no matter how much I try or how courageous I am, it won't work; the pattern stays, and I get hurt, and that is okay. It doesn't make me a bad friend or someone doomed to be alone forever; it doesn't even necessarily mean that my judgment in choosing friends is flawed (it might; this person has fucked over other people I know as well, but that's not the point right now).
Sometimes, people just suck.