I sometimes feel a little sick when I post something really raw.
Like still after all these years.
Not right away usually. It hits a couple hours later. That prickly chest, the why did I say that, refreshing to see who saw it or said something, finger rehearsing the delete option.
I grew up being so used to my every thought being ridiculed or questioned. Labeled as strange and weird as if they're bad things to shun from the village. I most certainly would have been lobotomized back when that was a thing. Too independent to be tied down to tradition. Too curious to just take everyone's word for it. Too loud, too mouthy, the try hard, too quiet, too slutty, not slutty enough, selfish bitch, all labels pasted to me by others who had absolutely zero interest in actually knowing who I am because that was easier.
When in reality, was I being dramatic or did I just tell you what happened?
It's called a 'vulnerability hangover' and once I understood what it actually was it stopped running me. All it is, is my body thinking I'm in danger. For most of human history getting judged by your people meant you didn't survive, so my nervous system and primitive brain still treat showing the real me as a threat. But nothing bad ever actually happens. Nobody exiles me, the feeling shows up, peak, and leaves.
I definitely recognize that I still have patterns of avoidance with people trying to get to know me that I am terrified will leave me. Basically, if I give a single iota of a fuck that I want to spend the rest of my life with you, regardless of what capacity, and I can see myself doing that, I immediately will fuck it up on purpose because it means leaving will hurt me and I have no interest in hurting anymore. Ever again.
No, really guys, the first thought in my head the second I start feeling that way is "Never again."
And I do anything and everything in my power to stop feeling that way. Even if it meant I go on a bender or I invited a completely random stranger into my bedroom. Now, it means that I contact every single one of my friends and make them all listen to me whine for hours about how much I really like this person and how I am convinced that they've done XYZ and I have to move on with my life, because fuck them. To be honest, it absolutely did not help that BOTH meds that were the perfect combination holding me together, two weeks ago decided to completely quit me. Like, I was taking them and had not missed a single dose, but because I went out and drank with a friend a couple of times in the same week, which is out of the normal for me, I'll correct that to say current me versus old me, but one of the times was for the same reason that it used to be. If you know you know, and if you don't, then you should probably be grateful that you don't.
Hell, I'll even be mean. And I don't mean a little mean, I mean I will take the center of you as a person and make you sorry for shit you did when you were five.
And unfortunately, that's how you know that I like you, I feel like I have to protect myself from you. But that's the other caveat to growing up as a people pleasing pain in the ass who was trained to believe that the only way to ever make anyone like her at all was to completely abandon myself. I was surrounded by people who made me feel completely invisible unless I was doing something for them. So will break myself before I ever allow another person to feel that way and I never get anything back in return.
But I read a thing on the Internet that said that the love that we give isn't about the other person and everything about who we are. After I stopped feeling absolutely attacked by that, I have adopted it as my entire personality now.
I love you whether you like it or not. Fuck you.
I don't know how I am ever going to find the love of my life with this kind of behavior but at the very least it has certainly culled the weaker of the herd. And this is why going back to my very first blog post on here, I still wholeheartedly believe that a Mr. Perfect Delivery is exactly what I need because otherwise I'm going to keep sabotaging. But at the same time how is anybody supposed to find a "spark" when they punish you for liking them? A sentiment from my recent attempt I kept having to go back to. Was what I said nice? No. Was it meant to be? Also no. Could I have handled things differently? Perhaps. Maybe I shouldn't have bluntly stated, "You know where to find me when you're done being stupid." But IYKYK. The plight of the first-born daughter, solving your problems the first time, and all that shit. It kind of did feel like I was having a temper tantrum, but I digress. Not really though, because the never-ending rock tumbler in my brain is still ruminating about it and probably will be until I die. If there's anything to learn about me, is that when you start behaving like I don't matter to you when I care about you at all, and you come to me with a problem you need to talk through without even bothering to ask if I can receive it, you're going to have a bad time. Straight into the "Why TF did I say that?" barrel. My dad has looked at me in the face, pointed to the new guy I was introducing him to, and told me that "I have to be nice to this one", more than I care to admit. But at the same time, I treat everyone the same, and I match energy, so put up or shut up. Mathilda really liked that one, though. She's off crying in a corner while I'm trying not to reach for other vices.
I shall remain in my papier mache tower surrounded with hot chocolate moat filled with piranhas until my dying days, and I will eat an ocean with a fork before I ever let another person's bullshit make me feel like I'm too much because they're inadequate.
And that's what I've learned recently, I have created a band, a tribe if you will, of people who love me for exactly who I am, because I love them for exactly who they are. It's not that I care whether or not they leave or whether or not they like me. It's that we've all bonded together over pretty much the same things and we are whole people, separately. There are no judgments for oversharing, bad days are listened to, demons are hugged, and generational trauma is high fived. My heart that has taken so many hits it is filled with more craters than the moon can rest for a minute when I'm with them. I have spent 44 of my 45 years on this planet not having any idea what it felt like to have somebody actually show up for you without question. Where the only question is where and when, rather than what was in it for them. I have finally found ME in other people. 14-year-old me that never thought I would live to see this day is so grateful to be alive.
That's the part I prioritize as the truth..... It always passes. And what's left after it clears is the truth, my truth, my voice authentically sharing in only the way I can share it. My experience, my sense of humor. My perspective. Which was never even the thing making me feel sick in the first place, the exposure was.
But here's the thing, exposure is temporary. Always.
So, I'm not going to stop, ever. In fact, I'm only going to get more expressive, open, grounded, and curious. I'm all done chasing after what isn't choosing me. So, I'll keep feeling the hangover and post anyway, every time. Because I know that it's survivable and I'd rather do that than go back to being quiet.
