Fuck if I don’t fall for this fucker every damn time...
I hate being disappointed. So I have structured my life in a manner that I pretty much rely on four people: God, myself, my mom and my sponsor. Of course there are others that I will call on from time to time and I have some really good friends. But I will own that I do not really rely upon them. It isn’t them, it is me. I have just learned to handle my shit over the years, so I do not need a great deal from them. I need friendship and fun and communication and contact, but I am not looking to my friends for day to day support. And perhaps that is part of my problem.
I have learned in my life that people are generally disappointing. Now whether that is because I expect way too fucking much from people or people are just generally lazy, and not to be counted upon, it seems I will never fucking know. Likely a combination of both, but that magical percentage of what it mine and what is theirs is an illusive fucker that no matter how hard I try, I just can’t seem to get the formula down.
So when I am in need, I call on myself, God, my mother and my sponsor. In that order. I know perhaps that list should be adjusted, but I am just telling you the truth here. And while I know self reliance fails me, it is just the way I operate habitually. I have tried to do it differently but I am just the kind of person who would rather just handle shit solo, relying on God and our relationship and involve as few other people as possible. This is an improvement because it used to be just me, thinking I was God and could manage all this shit all by myself. Almost killing myself in that particular dumpster fire, learned me good.
I would be remiss if I didn’t own that I have come to this place of self reliance because I have found others to be habitually and consistently disappointing. I will not list all the ways here, just trust me when I tell you that people who should have been willing to show up or had made a commitment to do so, have failed me repeatedly. And I have felt horrible about this...feeling like there is something innately wrong with me that engenders this kind of response from people. Like there is something fundamentally wrong with me which causes people to fail me, let me down or fail to show up repeatedly.
I will fully own here that my expectation that you and him and her and them will behave like this has often been somewhat of a self fulling prophesy. But it is larger than that and once again, it is my fault.
Here is what I have learned about myself. I want to be wrong. Like pretty much desperately. I want to be wrong that on some very fundamental ways you will fail me, but whether it is that I pick people who are just wrong or bad or have disappointment as a middle name, or whether I just have ridiculously high standards and expectations. The result is the same, I am the one doing the picking and I am the one being consistently let down repeatedly. (I also fail to truly appreciate those who do show up for me and want to...but that is a subject for another blog, on another day...today I rant this).
I have had another go round with this recently. And it is painful. Like it hurts my heart and soul. To be close to someone or at least moving in the direction of closeness, and to have them offer up interest but then for that person to suddenly change, demonstrating once again that real effort on their part was something they were not willing to give. Well that fucking hurts. A lot.
And it is this pain right here, this attempt to avoid this particular pain that has set me up to feel it more, not less. I whitewash other’s behavior because I do not want to have to look at this dynamic. I am a positive person so I have this toxic tendency to just rush right past the glaring deficiencies in your conduct towards me, and give you a pass when I should really be taking note. And I fail to take note because I do not want to feel the disappointment that looms large just beyond my willingness to own it.
So I have avoided, refused and resisted owning it. And that has allowed me to stay in things that were bad for me, hurtful and only set me up to feel more disappointed later on. I mean if you are feeling letdown at the very beginning, why the fuck would you go further? I mean really.
I can’t answer for you, but for me, it was because I was hoping that if I just kept showing up for you that you would one day do it for me. That if I just loved you enough or supported you enough that sooner or later there would be a reciprocation of some sort. And I am right enough just to be wrong, if you know what I mean.
It was a bubble I created for myself. This little fantasy world that I thought kept me safe but really only caused me to be in harm’s way repeatedly. Funny how something that can appear so safe can actually be the thing that devastates you in short order. Repeatedly. Stubborn delusionality I like to call it. Appears like a character asset but it is all defect, all the time! And I am somehow the last person to know.
I am not sure what exactly burst my little delusional bubble but that popping showed me that I cannot continue to live the way that I have and that feeling disappointed is something that one should welcome in and ask it what is has to teach you, early on in the acquaintance because when it is present that early on, it really is a harbinger for what is to come later.
As I write this, I feel fucking stupid. How do I not see this shit for decades and then just like that, see it so completely that the fallacy of my previous thoughts, behaviors and actions serves as its own weapon against me, cutting me to shreds far more than anything anyone else could ever do to me?
I gloss over the deficiencies of others to stave off this horrible feeling of disappointment. I smooth over your slights and omissions. I sell myself on stories that make everything ok, not an issue and lie to myself that whatever you just did, or likely didn’t do, doesn’t hurt me...when nothing could be further from the truth in reality.
Well I have stopped doing it. I am done glossing, pretending, lying, creating narratives and the like because what I thought was bringing me freedom, was really only barring me into a prison completely of my own making.
Fuck. It has been me the whole fucking time.
Again.
Still.
I am not sure I will ever learn that it is me that allows this shit into my life, and it is me that then writes the other person an amazing cover story. And thereby entrapping myself in some pretty gnarly relationships that have left me pretty badly mangled. I am an alibi writer for my own murder. How fucked up is that??
The last couple of years have been about healing the mangling...and seeing how my own conduct and feelings and thoughts are what put me in harm’s way, repeatedly. It is far more often me, than you because I am always twisting myself into a fucking contortionist to ensure that I remain ignorant about what your lack of action really demonstrates. And because I do not want to feel the pain of it, I have created elaborate stories to ensure that I remain contained quite unsafely in this bubble that has done nothing for me except shielded me from the truth.
Again.
Still.
But to end on a positive note, and you know how I like to do that, all my delusional thinking has been stripped away and now I can only see how my own behavior has set me up all along. Hoping that if I just give you the chance, you will show me something different than what I have repeatedly experienced. But in reality my willingness has been the exact thing, and perhaps the only thing that has kept me forever enslaved to the idea that if I just give you enough chances, one day you will pull through. And sometimes, you actually do which just prolongs the cycle.
Um, nope. I am all out of fucks and chances to give at this point. I am willing to feel the disappointment the first time it appears...instead of pretending it isn’t there and setting myself up to experience more of the same for longer.
And it is a bright day indeed when you can see that you have been the architect of your own demise...in new ways. I am calling it growth, because it feels awful and amazing at the very same time. And that my friends is just what growth feels like. Terrifically horrible but with a certain comfort of revealing truth that has eluded you for years.
Again.
Still.
