I am two very different things. I'm an isolationist and I am a social butterfly/people pleaser. This is a very awkward combination to be stuck with. I think it comes down to nature versus nurture. The natural me is very social and outgoing, very self confident. The side of me that reacts to the nurturing I received tends to isolate and stay distant from people.It's probably a driving force behind my feeling insane most of the time. The part of me that is the 'real me' wants to hug people, wants to be loved. The part of me that adapted to life wants to stay a careful distance away from people, steps back physically when people step towards me.
I'm trying to find a way to balance these two sides of me. It's hard, though, when the life I want to believe in is a purists ideal; when people love you it's concrete and forever. But what I grew up with was the realization that nothing is forever, nothing is real. One misstep and everything is gone. While that is true in some extreme cases I know the reality is that it isn't how things really are. Shades of gray are hard to interpret when everything was so black and white growing up.
It's funny how writing this all down, exposing myself to a general audience is forcing me to deal with things I have thought I dealt with so long ago. But really I've been hoarding all of my issues and memories, keeping them private as a way to justify not accepting the world as it is. The one long term relationship I ever had was a big part of my hurt. We were both twenty somethings that kind of got forced to stay together because of my pregnancy. All the years of therapy I had really only taught me how to verbalize what had happened to me without feeling it, it tricked me into thinking I was cured. But I wasn't cured. I was just calloused. When me and my ex fought it was dirty, no holds barred. He has a past of hurt and disappointment as well, he has his reasons to run from life, which I realize now but at the time I didn't see that. I confided in him my past, one of the few times I had gone into detail or really trusted anyone with it. Because I loved him, I thought he would understand.
Instead he used it as ammo when we struggled through our dysfunctional relationship. The worst thing that anyone ever said to me came from his mouth during one of our many fights. It was so bad that it was as damaging as what my father did to me. He said that I must have liked getting 'fucked' by my father because I became a slut. That taught me a few things. One was that I had been right to never trust anyone with the details of my past. The other was that people would think what happened to me was parallel to being my fault.
I may never have been successful at committing to relationships prior to being with him but I think that and that alone was a nail in the coffin of really trying again. I know now that I shouldn't be ashamed of these things, that I lived a life reactive to the lessons that I had learned but he convinced me that the only way I could be with anyone was to not relate the story of my past. And the part of me that believes in a black and white reality learned that I could never be with anyone. Because no one would love someone like me if they knew everything.
What I am learning now is that if people love you then they love you even more when you tell them your history. Because when people love you they understand when you reveal the facts. I'm lucky. I have a lot of people that love me, not out of obligation but rather because they accept me in spite of my flaws. Because they know my intentions and see them beyond my reactions. I feel like the best thing I have done for myself in this life so far (besides having my kids) has been to expose my secrets in this blog. I've removed the barriers that keep me from everyone. I WANT to be an open book, secrets aren't my strong suite. Secrets have been the worst part of most terrible things I have experienced. I hate secrets. Whenever I have a secret I know I'm not living my life right.
Sometimes the past creeps up on me and I can't do anything to protect myself but push everyone away. I get angry and suspicious. I close myself off and stay at home. I let a few people become my lifelines, my connection to the world. It isn't fair to these people, they take on roles beyond simply a friend. They become therapists and parental figures. And that isn't fair to them. I'm trying to find a way to avoid this sick pattern, but it's hard. I'm finding this blog therapeutic because it gives me chance to talk about all of this, face it, without having it feel overly confrontational. And it helps. Because after people read this they either love me or they don't. I don't want to hide my secrets, never have wanted to. I just want to be me and eventually a better me. So thank you for being a part of this.
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