Emotional Inconsistency...

Can anyone really be emotionally consistent?  Isn’t it sad that I am even doubting this is possible?  I think so.

Anyway, what I know is that people who are emotionally consistent breed trust, faith, reciprocity and love.  People who are NOT emotionally consistent breed fear, dread, panic, trauma and heartbreak.

The argument can and will be made that hurt people, hurt people. And that, in my experience is very true.  But when does this knowledge that you are a hurt person and are hurting other people rise to the level of impetus for change?

For me, emotional inconsistency is the most triggering thing a person can do that will engender in me a wholesale vacancy where there used to be a willingness to connect and share.  If you are there for me on Monday then can’t be bothered to call me back or loop me in for two weeks, I am likely going to just walk away.

Emotional inconsistency makes me feel unsafe.  I am super sensitive to changes in your tone, your behavior and energetic shifts.  When I feel these, my mind goes into overdrive without my consent or permission.  I am just there trying to make sense of why, suddenly without warning or seeming cause,  you shift from a person who is engaged with me and creating an intimacy and now have become someone who doesn’t even bother to respond.

It has taken me a long time to realize that I am this way because of trauma.  At one time (or likely many times) emotional inconsistency meant a lack of safety.  This minute change in tone, tenor, interest or energy was something that resulted in me being hurt, scared or scarred.   Inconsistency once meant danger and so, for me, at least on an energetic level, it is always going to mean that.

I have done a lot of work to mitigate my own emotional response.  There are many reasons why someone’s emotional availability might shift, but in my experience, someone who cares about you and values your relationship, will not just torture you with emotional distance and confusion. Someone who cares for you, will explain why they need space or some time away.

Emotional inconsistency is something that causes people to feel jumpy and ill at ease.  It is very hard to sink into a deeper emotional connection when you feel the one that currently exists is sporadic, tenuous and fleeting.

Intimacy requires presence.  All the time kind of presence.  This doesn’t mean you have to be ON all the time, but it does mean that you are willing to tend to this intimacy daily and with a certain level of give a shit.

To most of us attempting to live and love in this world today, emotional inconsistency is the harbinger of danger, abandonment, loss, confusion, betrayal and punishment without warning.  So when we spot it, it is triggering because it once meant something awful was coming. 

I know, for me, I replicated this problem in my life.  An early start in life with emotionally distant and inconsistent people definitely affected me in ways that have been difficult to unpack and address.  And then I made matters a million times worse by selecting those same types of people to befriend, date and love.  Fucked, I know but I also know I am NOT the only one.

I am doing my best today to recognize the world is filled with people who are traumatized and attempting to heal.  And then there are some people who have just given up and are practicing their dysfunctions like they are headed for the emotionally dysfunctional and dysregulated olympics.  I can change none of this.  But I can open my heart and mind to see the red flags and do my best to have compassion while staying out of the emotional splash zone.

As much as emotional inconsistency hurt me in my life, I became a chief offender.  Offering up love and support until you did something I didn’t like or hurt me, then I would pull back and do my own version of the same thing that just wounded me.  I know, I know totally fucked!

I just didn’t see it.  I didn’t see how I was doing the same fucking thing.  I know that seems implausible but it is true.  It has only been fairly recently that I saw my own behavior for what it was and found a little bit of willingness to work on this aspect of my personality.  And I will tell you, while I hated your avoidance nature, I honed mine to a fine point and then placed it on a pedestal.

And it took me a long time to topple that idolic worship of my own lesser actions.  I am still a work in progress but I think I have rounded a corner into change for myself.  I am not perfect but at least I am still working on it.  And I suppose it will be my task for the rest of my days.  Intimacy is hard and the world appears to be teeming with emotionally inconsistent people and that is hard and painful and triggering.

It has taken me a long time to see that how I show up is what I will most likely get back.  If I am avoidant, then I will attract that to my life.  If I am open and welcoming, I am far more likely to be attractive to that kind of person.  The best thing I can do to ward off emotionally inconsistent people is to not join their ranks.

So simple, but not easy.

For me the shift came when I was ready to really look at my own behavior.  Not what I thought I was like, but what I was actually like.  It is not pretty or easy to look at, but it has been well worth the effort and pain expended.

Today, I know I will attract people who are capable of talking it through, showing up and providing emotional safety and support by their ability to be consistent.  And I have now joined the ranks of someone who is willing to do the same...

Finally.