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traumatized-motherfuckers · 3 years

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CPTSD and Core Beliefs (Your lens, built on traumatic fuckery)

Alright, so you know I have this Patreon thing that I try to make worth your while in return for your economical help. One of the benefits is the good ole’ monthly ask me anything. And I love it. Because the questions are great. And they push me to dig into topics that I was procrastinating. This month’s AMA is a particularly good one! A question that needs to be addressed, anyways. So it’s perfect. Let’s aim for two birds with one stone.

Our good friend Cassie - you know her by now - asks, how do you identify core beliefs and start to change them? Which is a very simple and very complicated question.

So, to take a step backwards, what she talkin’ bout?

Well, one of the internal issues that complex trauma sufferers have to rectify is their belief system. Between our core beliefs and our inner critic, we have a lot going on in between our ears to keep us downtrodden and destitute.

We’re talking about what I call Fucked Up Core Beliefs here… which are your trauma-born core beliefs. Again, called FUCBs because when you discover them, you’ll likely whisper to yourself, “wow, that’s actually really fucked up.” These sentiments are like the lenses that you surgically stitched onto your face several decades ago in response to your upbringing, as your little mammal brain tried to understand its place in the global hierarchy and how to be chill about it.

The framework you built from your early development and beyond, that all information still filters through today - both on the way in and on the way out of your head. The words that stream through your brain consciously or subconsciously to shape the ways you appraise… everything. Yourself, your life, your past, your future, other people, and everything that happens in between.

So, essentially, talking about the ways you interpret your existence and the collected pool of knowledge from where you make decisions, and therefore the ways you act. If this is starting to sound like a big deal - it is!

But it don’t come with a big flashing sign. The Challenge

These beliefs are challenging to figure out because:

One, they were adapted early on in your life in an effort to understand the circumstances around you or directly downloaded from the sentiments expressed in your environment. When you were first establishing your perspective of the universe and trying to figure out how to navigate it based on the clues presented.

Plus, the harder part is… because of the early adoption, you’ve already accepted the idea for so long that it doesn’t even seem like a “belief” to you - you’re not choosing it and it’s probably not apparent to you - it’s just the secret narrative running in your head that corrupts all later data. Not cognitive thoughts that you’re directing on purpose. You probably don’t have recollections of the time before you believed such and such to question what you believe - these ideas are solidified in your head with as much certainty as the alphabet.

So, you might believe you’re a worthless piece of shit as a function of the neglect and abuse you experienced, a way to explain the mistreatment to yourself from a young age… OR you might believe you’re a worthless piece of shit because mom, dad, sister, and society directly told you so. But either way, many years down the line, it’s difficult to pinpoint either of these originating factors as memories fade or to even question the validity of the thought… or to even notice the thought.

Two, if your family of origin was always repeating the same sort of thoughts and you later associate with people who make you comfortable to be around (i.e. probably have some similar views of the world), you have nothing to compare your beliefs to.

Your environment teaches you what’s normal. There’s no reference for what is and isn’t healthy, fair, or functional if everyone is drinking the same kool aid. And, unfortunately, in traumatic environments, folks seem to congregate around the fucked up beliefs to protect them with a mutual unspoken agreement. Accept the accepted narrative of the group or be outcast. The same story is replayed on repeat from all ends of your social circle, so why would you even begin to think there’s another way to look at things?

So, if mom, dad, cousin, uncle, grandma, neighbor, peer, teacher, and media are all telling you the same reality exists, how would you ever even begin to have the wherewithal to think otherwise? The thought probably never crosses your mind. The sky is blue, grass is green, and the world is a miserable place where everyone is trying to take advantage of you.

Three, again, I cannot over-express how insidious, subtle, and generalized these things can be. Fucked up core beliefs affect how you see and process everything. Again, like lenses or an instagram filter permanently applied to your corneas. So, there’s not necessarily one life-effect linked to one-FUCB for easy detection or one event that will cause a clear-as-day defined belief to come shooting to the top of the pile. More like, you very slowly realize you have an unhealthy view or twenty about yourself and the world that have sorrrrrtof impacted every single area of your life now that you spend years considering it.

Thinking you’re a worthless piece of shit, for instance, has led to you taking low-level jobs with chaotic schedules, living with an abusive partner, and settling for living in the same environment with the same behavioral patterns that you’ve known your entire life. It’s also allowed you to give up exercise, eating right, staying sober, and trying to make any life-improvements. Why bother spit polishing shit? And here you are, wondering why you feel awful about yourself and don’t enjoy anything you’ve created in your life.

But. It’s not that simple to sort out, or else we would have done it already. You probably haven’t ever purposely considered how commonly this impression is operating below the surface of your actions. Realizing that the belief “I’m a worthless piece of shit who deserves nothing” and trying to change it would be like pulling out the wrong Janga block - everything it has been supporting suddenly comes tumbling down and you’re left with a real fucking mess to rebuild from the bottom up. And, to top it all off, no one ever even taught you how to create a sturdier structure in the first place.

Fourthly, from some of my own learnings, I’ve come to the conclusion that the core belief, itself, doesn’t even have to present itself at any point to be making a difference in your life. They are so deeply ingrained in my brain that my thought center just naturally uses them as a jumping off point, without even directly touching on the words that might ping my brain as unusual. Just like we can subtly detect risks in our environment that set off our warning bells without ever creating a conscious thought to go with the arousal, I feel like I can apply a core belief to my world without ever noticing the accompanying stream of consciousness.

Sometimes I feel like fucked up core beliefs have become so accepted over time that they’re feelings more than cognitions. As if they’ve become so reflexive through repetition that you have muscle memory - an intuitive response that bypasses your logical brain recognition threshold and jumpstarts shittily-related thoughts… and those will actually register on your thinking scale. But at that point, you accept the novel-feeling thought and never note that it was actually spawned by a very old recording.

Which is to say, you might have to work on identifying your fucked up core feelings before you can get to the thought deeply buried underneath. Taking a meta break from the episode to tell you, I’ve never thought about that so thoroughly before. But Fucked Up Core Feelings definitely sounds like a solid description of my world. I guess we also have FUCFs to go with our FUCBs from now on. Anyways.

With all of this in mind, I’m sure you can start to see why these fucked up core beliefs are a big problem. Hell, if you’ve listened to this podcast for more than a few episodes, you’ve definitely heard that I’m still challenged by my own. Like, when I say that I’m freaking out because no one should listen to me and I feel like an imposter - I believe that I’m not good enough to share information with people. That I’m too flawed to even express myself. This is a problem for, say, podcasting. Or, living. And I have to fight it all the time.

Long story short.

Your core beliefs are sneaky, they can be comprehensive, and they are hardwired into your brain as your default system for analyzing everything on the planet. Again, kind of like looking for goggles strapped to your face, but in reality you had lasik surgery about 30 years ago.

So, if you aren’t constantly on the lookout for core beliefs and actively working against your pre-programmed ways of assessing yourself and the world around you… they will get out of control, cause a fair amount of avoidance and defeat, and set you back several steps in your mental health management… plus, potentially your entire life, if you make any big decisions out of this unhealthy mindset. Which you will, because that’s how the brain works. I’m almost certain that you have some experience with this already.

If you ever think things like: The world is a dangerous placePeople are cruelI’m not good enough I’m not smart enoughI’m not enoughI’m brokenOther people don’t like meThere’s something wrong with my personalityI’m not allowed to… (live like others, have nice things, be happy)I’m not one of those people who… (has money, has good luck, gets what they want)Shit is just harder for meNothing ever works outLife is always hardI can’t.

Then you’ve had some fucked up core beliefs floating around in your head.

These are some super broad ones for the sake of demonstration, so don’t disregard highly specific beliefs that might relate to your particular circumstances or upbringing.

If you haven’t ever noticed yourself thinking these big shitty picture things… check again in all your deepest nooks and crannies. I think a lot of us TMFRs operate from some version of the narratives above - plus, much worse. Like I keep saying, these beliefs might not be in your conscious thoughts, so much as they’re directing the show from behind the curtain.

How do we pull it back? Discover the beliefs ........

Keep reading or listen up at t-mfrs.com

https://www.t-mfrs.com/podcast/episode/532f2b1c/core-beliefs

#cptsd #complex ptsd #complex trauma #complextraumarecovery #healingcomplextrauma #complextrauma #complexptsd #cptsd problems #cpstd #just cptsd things #actually CPTSD #cptsdsurvivor

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complexptsdrecovery · 4 years

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Keep this one and use it for journalling We need to know and understand what is happening internally for us in order that wwe can identify our one next step. 🥰#complexptsd #cptsd #healingcomplextrauma https://www.instagram.com/p/B_TDdm9HadZ/?igshid=mrm4v7l6v67y

#complexptsd #cptsd #healingcomplextrauma

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traumatized-motherfuckers · 3 years

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Friendship Dissolutions; A Lesson in Asshole Trauma Reactions

So this is normally my school day, but I’m feeling the need to dig into something else this morning. The past events of this weekend, annnnd the past nearly two years. Because, if you hadn’t heard, relationships are hard and I like to embarrass myself by telling you about all my fuck ups.

You know, romantic relationships are a disaster for yours truly, but I always thought I was pretty good at the friendship thing. Since high school I’ve almost always had robust friendly relationships - both in depth and breadth. With the exception of a few difficult points in my life since 16, my phone has never been quiet, my weekends have only been isolating when I’ve been isolating myself, and I’ve always felt like I had humans on my side who were closer to kin than my actual family.

The thing is, there have been periods when this hasn’t been the case. I want to say that it’s generally when I’m in my worst mental health downfalls, but I don’t think that’s universally true. There have been variable reasons for separating myself from other people, or vice versa. Sometimes getting too busy, sometimes naturally growing apart, sometimes getting too obsessed with a romantic partner.

But, taking a more analytical view, underlying my lost friendship events, trauma has often been one of the influences that corrupted my friendships and left me lonely, even if it doesn’t seem like it at face value. The thing is, the trail of breadcrumbs might go back 20 years or so. I might not have been in a full-blown trauma state at the time, but those early life non-learnings about relationships have left their mark. So, yes, I do believe that CPTSD is the prerequisite for interpersonal disruptions and we’re not alone in that.

Anyways, in this Fucker’s life, for the past almost 2 years I’ve been in one of those friendship lulls. I’ve had casual friends, roommates, work-associates, distant relationships, some of those hey-how’s-it-going-every-two-months relations. But I haven’t had those deep, rich, all-encompassing friendships that used to define my existence. The ones that used to make me feel safe enough to have an existence, at all.

It’s all because I lost my core group of friends, I didn’t understand and couldn’t fix the problem, and I had no idea how to move forward.

And this last time when I lost everyone I loved, it was definitely due to trauma. Acute, historical, and recovering trauma, to be specific. It was a horrible period of my life, I was a human wrecking ball, and I had no emotional control… because, partially thanks to said friends, I never had to develop those skills.

Basically, I’ve been on my own since a whole series of mental health related isolation events and relationships dissolutions that have persisted since - I want to say 2019 - but to be more holistic, the ship started sailing earlier than that. Like, when I was born.

This has all come to mind more than usual because, this weekend? I had a strange rush of humans back into my life. For the first time in a long time, I saw my best, closest, most important old friends, who were closer to siblings…. In our natural habitat, with our normal friendship routines, with hundreds of memories from the past decade flying around the room.

And today… or, realistically, since I tried to go to sleep after seeing them each day this weekend… I have the relationship reckoning to deal with. The emotional and cognitive processing of everything that’s happened. The lost years. The sense of abandonment. The feeling of being cast out of a family. The inkling that everyone was talking about me. The realization that I was acting a fool, and maybe they should be talking about me. The sense that all parties were partially responsible, but I was the one to blame. The voice in my head that has called me a crazy, miserable, unlovable mess the entire time I debated this at 6am and 6pm and 3am for the past several years.

And now, in the aftermath, I have to work through the dynamic cocktail of feelings, the sense of waiting for the other shoe, and the big decision - are these relationships that I feel secure pursuing again?

And I don’t think I’m alone in this one.

So, today I thought it would be good to talk about this. The history of losing my favorite people on the planet, how I perceived it at the time, how I see my own trauma-actions fucking shit up in hindsight, how I’ve forgiven myself for being such a wild one, and… well… my hesitancy to have close friendships with humans who hurt me in the past. The ways I realized that being separate was beneficial to my mental health and life progress. The self-sabotaging enablement patterns that I now recognize, ran deep, in our old group of friends. The fear that being around them again will let my trauma brain run away with me.

Woo - it’s a whole personal relationship reckoning over here. Let’s just do this, so I can get to my school work at some point soon.

History

So let me set up this situation. You need the background details, of which, there are many dramatic twists and turns.

Be me, Spring of 2019. My romantic relationship with my ex in Atlanta - the musical narcissist that I followed to the city - is going terribly. Since we moved things have been rocky, but now our relationship has been pumped full of disappointment, unfair expectations, emotional codependency, resentment, horrific fighting, and abuse of all colors. Every day is a battle. We’re rarely ever “happy” together. We’re closer to enemies than friends. And we live under the same roof - the one his parents bought for him, outright in cash - to make matters even more fun.

Other than him, I’m alone in this city. I work at the brewery, where no one really likes me. I have one friend from work, but little time to interact thanks to the demanding schedule of my ex with his gigs and out-of-state child visitation.

Financially, my savings have been depleted by floating my significant other’s horrible decisions for the past 2 years. We can never get ahead. He never pays me back for anything. I’m basically in his pocket, as far as needing resources to survive.

As you can imagine, and as I’ve described previously, my mental health is in THE SHITTER. Maybe worse than it’s ever been, although this is hard to judge against some of my earlier years in my 20’s. I’m definitely ramped up in an aggressive and defensive trauma state more than ever before, thanks to living with my aggressor every day. I feel like I’m surviving against the will of my partner, who seems to legitimately be doing his best to drive me into an early grave every single time the sun rises. He’s moved into the territory of intentionally triggering me for hours on end, upsetting me to the point of mental breakdowns, and then gaslighting me for “acting so crazy.” Things have become dangerous, I have no one to turn to, and no cash to get myself into a better situation… not that I know what a better situation even looks like.

But one day, I left. Packed my two bags, went to work, wound up at that single sort-of-friend’s house, never went back home.

And that’s when the real nightmare started. I mean, my ex was a terror over time as we lived together, but a narcissist scorned is a narcissist determined to ruin your fucking life. He harassed me daily via text, phone call, FB messenger, email, stalkings… whatever you can think of. When I blocked him on everything, he started trying to leverage our therapists against me until they refused to interact anymore. He wouldn’t let me into his house to get my stuff. He tried to have me arrested for attempting to do so, after he made arrangements with me to move that weekend. He suddenly refused to even acknowledge that he owed me a dime, and found a way to tally up venmo transactions to show that I actually owed him. He took my only support - our dog, who was really my dog - away and wouldn’t let me see him. Later, he reported my car stolen, so I had to purchase a new one without warning.

The list goes on and on. Just, assume every pathetic, cruel, desperate attempt at getting under someone’s skin and reminding them that they had the audacity to leave you. That’s what was going on in my world.

Meanwhile, with those financial and social pressures I mentioned earlier. No close friends in the area, no spare cash, an unstable job where I was on the chopping block for the reason of “the CEO didn’t like my personality,” nowhere to live, no idea where to go next or how to start a whole new life.

Annnnnd this is right about when my closely knit friend group back in Illinois sort of, well, dipped.

My bestest, best, most treasured friend in my lifetime had always been there for me. But now, she wasn’t. We had exchanged a handful of phone calls over the past month in the aftermath of this relationship ending, but she had been pretty detached from it. I wasn’t offended, because she had certainly heard enough of the drama in real time… of course she was tired of hearing about it... but I was feeling especially alone and incapable of handling everything on my own, so the distance was difficult, nevertheless. Then, one day she told me that I was being too much for her. I had too high of expectations. It had been bothering her for a while. She needed me to understand and give her some space.

And this was the completely avoidable beginning of the end of my friendships. Let’s talk about why.

How I perceived it

So, I’m pretty sure you can guess how I took this challenging message from my best friend. Uh, poorly. I was so shocked that in my darkest hour, my comrade would feel like my problems were out of her paygrade. It felt like a stab to the heart and straight down through the gut. Here I was, completely alone and isolated, reaching back to my most trusted companions for a lifeline to keep my head above water, and… nothing. She didn’t want to reel me back into the boat.

I responded with some shitty messages about how I really wasn’t asking that much from her and I didn’t appreciate being blindsided by her sudden decision to get rid of me. I had only taken up a few phone calls to talk things through based on her schedule. I had visited her one weekend as I went to a job interview nearby. I had asked her to come visit me soon, so I could feel less alone for a few days. I didn’t think it was fair that she was responding this way. I couldn’t believe she would turn her back on me at this particular moment.

And so, the rift developed. We stopped speaking. I started sobbing. I was absolutely beside myself, as if I hadn’t already been. This wasn’t what I wanted, at all, but I also felt like I had no control in it.

.......

Like it? Well I’m too lazy to post the whole thing here. Check t-mfrs.com for the full blog AND the podcast recorded version. Yawelcome.

www.t-mfrs.com

(Traumatized Motherfuckers)

#cptsd #cptsd problems #actually CPTSD #cptsdsurvivor #just cptsd things #Complex Trauma #complexptsd #complextrauma #complextraumarecovery #healingcomplextrauma

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traumatized-motherfuckers · 3 years

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CPTSD relationship patterns on repeat

Listen wherever you stream, search “complex trauma” and subscribe. Or, find episodes, blog posts, and a private support community at t-mfrs.com

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Things I’ve gotten good at throughout this Trauma journey:

Seeing connections between where I’m from and where I am

Thinking for the first time about where I’m going

Letting myself have emotions

Letting those emotions go

Redirecting my energy and attention away from ruminating

Being accountable for my own feelings

Being accountable for times of being a shithead

Listening and validating other humans

Listening and validating myself

Recognizing what circumstances do/don’t work for me

Realizing how my codependency plays with relationships

Letting go of self-hate inner critic talk

Reframing events with reasonable views

Accepting myself, even when I first want to thrash myself

Semi-consistently caring for myself

Setting realistic boundaries and goals

Sleeping

Things I’m still shitty at:

Letting my overwhelm skew reality

Anxious self-slave-driving

Being a snarky turd when my head is overloaded

Taking on other people’s energies and emotions

Trusting myself in all areas of life

Forming healthy relationships.

Okay, it’s that last one that has me most perpetually fighting feelings of panic and doom.

This seems like an apt way to kick off the new year. I think a lot of us have questions about relationships and would like to improve our operations in 2021. I can also tell you, this one is extremely appropriate looking back at the last year of my life.

One of the biggest lessons I've learned in the past few spins around the sun has been how romance does - and definitely doesn't - fit into my life. I think 2020 was particularly packed full of important lectures and pop quizzes, many of which I failed. It felt like knowing that the correct answer was C, but finding my hand filling in the circle for A every time, anyways.

This is a terrible ideaaaa... and I'm doing it. Pause for about 2 months. Now I'm upset that it was a terrible idea.

Yeah, it's been great. But I have no one to blame but myself. Because as much as I've worked on this trauma management life of mine, I haven't done a good job of working on the relationship aspect of it. I've let my usual patterns dominate. And that's what needs to be examined today.

I mean. Can someone tell me about healthy relationships in functional terms? What IS that even?

Look, I’m not hoping that someone will pop up and share some, “mutual respect, good communication, trust, support, care, similar goals, similar beliefs…” sort of shit. I fucking KNOW about the idealistic, flowery terms that all the light-hearted couples counselors recommend establishing for a happy relationship. I get it.

I’m not ignorant when it comes to the ways humans should interact. I’ve had enough experience with friendships and relationships, alike, to understand the basics of person-to-person interactions. I know I talk about myself like I’ve been a feral child locked in a cage for 20 years, but the truth is that if you met me on the streets I’d probably seem like a normal, well-adapted, personable human being. That Leo Ascendant component of my personality tricks people into actually thinking I’m an extrovert who wants attention. (Hilarious, explains a lot of comments I’ve gotten in my past)

Nah, I’m not asking for the trite descriptions of a healthy partnership that everyone who’s ever been friends on a basic girl’s Facebook has seen before in cursive writing on top of a washed-out pink-tinted field. Those are empty sounding words that I don’t believe most couples manage to put into action, no matter how many selfies they take together or labradoodles they adopt.

For me, Fuckers, the mystery isn’t, “in a fairytale world, how do two humans interact to have a lifelong bliss factory?” Respect, trust, appreciation, mutual understanding… blah blah blah. What the fuck ever.

The real question is how.

And, shit, let me just be honest with all of you - not just the Patrons who’ve already heard my personal bitching - it’s on my mind because I did a thing I definitely should not have… recently, I got into a new romantic relationship that I definitely was not looking for. I’ll spare you all the details today, but know that I’ve entered it kicking and screaming, and it’s caused me a lot of grief already.

Let the life shittery begin! Can’t wait to be destroyed.

Today, I want to bring this personal fire burning in my gut into the podcast. Motherfuck me, if it hasn’t become difficult to ignore… plus, I know that a lot of us Traumatized folks are in a similar boat when it comes to relationship confusion, unhealth, and destruction. So let’s just count the ways that I have no idea how to do this right and I’m destined to be let down by my poor choices.

This time around, I'm bringing you a list of all the ways I tend to fuck things up with other humans. In part, due to Complex Trauma. In other part, probably due to my own personal shortcomings. Listed in no particular order. On a later date, I'm going to be revisiting a lot of these patterns as I examine how early life set a lot of us up for a lot of abuse acceptance in greater detail. Stick around for those continuations on romantic disaster, if this sounds like you, too.

I'm talking about:

Partner choice: Musicians, narcissists, and addicts

Emotional codependency

Mistrust

… That turns into willful blind belief of their words

Inadequacy

Parenting analogues

Authority figures & disappointment

Misdirected commitment

Learned helplessness

Partner choice: Musicians, narcissists and addicts

Who has bad taste in partners? Over and over and over again? It’s me! And probably a lot of you.

Maybe that’s not fair. Maybe they’ve been wonderful guys who just didn’t mesh well with my inner or outer world… but I can tell you, there have been some similarities, and they don’t bode well for a happy future together.

You know me by now. Difficulty connecting with “normal” humans, no interest in small talk, a huge fan of deep emotional honesty, a bit gritty and assholeish, tends to be repelled by anything too widely embraced by the general public, definitely comes with a difficult past, fears of the future, and ongoing challenges in the present.

So, who do you think I get along with? Ivy leaguers with stable, supportive families, an optimistic outlook, and a 20-year plan? Or equally messy and complex humans with a set of neuroses handed down from their unexamined early traumas that make them similarly bitter and disillusioned with life? Just… probably hidden from immediate sight.

Grown men who’ve responsibly built a life for themselves with ambition, personal insight, and balance? Or man-children who’re still figuring out that they can’t drink every night of the week if they want to be functional in life and financially sound? But... with their addictions hidden behind “an appreciation for fine whiskies” or a necessity to sample the craft beer they brew.

Independent, confident humans who have no problem running their own world like a boss and trust that I’m capable of doing the same, with integrity and respect? Or distrustful turds who need me to be in their sight, half-directing their lives at all times unless I’m aiming to be accused of cheating, lying, and being unable to care for myself? Only… they hide their controlling and aggressive tendencies behind go-with-the-flow facades in the beginning.

If you guessed “B” in all three examples, you are correct!

Plus... so, so many musicians. Like, the last 6 of them have either subscribed to guitar or drum camp. And that hasn't been a purposeful decision - those are just the men I get along with until we hate each other.

It's always a rapid connection, a mutual respect for our interests in the arts, and a shared shitty attitude that starts out directed at the world and ends directed at each other. So many emotions. So many ups and downs. So many proclamations of "I can't live without you!" until the day we run in opposite directions and never look back.

Is that a coincidence? Or are all musical folk a bit wild? I hate to generalize, but I can tell you with great amusement that if you start typing "Are all musicians..." into Google, it will autocomplete with "cheaters, narcissists, and crazy." It also suggests "rich," but I can tell you for a fact that isn't true. The narcissist thing... uh.... very well might be correct. But I'll leave that for someone else to study.

So, I don't know what to make of this trend. There do seem to be some commonalities between the musicians in my past life - and they do seem to be categorized by the instrument of choice. For instance, drummers are never concerned with my time, and guitarists are emotional catastrophes. But what do I know? Can't make sweeping conclusions... I, at least, need a larger sample size. With my track record, I'm sure I'll have the numbers soon enough.

Congratulations if you predicted nothing but unstable disasters in my past. It's true, I’m an idiot. Okay, that’s not fair. No inner critic talk. Get out of here, Pam and Karen.

The fact of the matter is, I am a terrible judge of character when I start sensing a connection. I tend to connect with people who have complicated lives and inner worlds, just like I do. And from what I can tell, that is always my downfall.

Challenging connections

Let’s go ahead and chalk this one up to never having close connections or support growing up.

You know what I always wanted, hoped for, and idealized as a kid? Someone loving me. Another human actually understanding my weirdness and signing on for more. The idea of a human who wanted to know what I thought and felt. The option of spending time with someone and feeling cared for. Also, somebody finding me attractive, instead of being repulsed by my ass-length ginger hair, flat chest, dorky hand-me-downs, bleach-stained horse sweaters, and buck teeth... also would have been a dream come true.

I’m pretty sure that growing up lonely didn’t help me in any regard when it came to my later-in-life relationship problems. Starving for connection apparently puts you in a state of deprivation, where you’re likely to think anything is better than the empty feeling inside. You know, just for the rest of your life or so.

To this day, if I meet someone and we’re able to converse without abundant clarifications or apologies for the prickly things that come out of my mouth as dry humor or unbendable opinions… we’re on a roll. If we can connect over shared perspectives on humans, life, and psychology… things are getting more serious. If we can honestly talk about the ways we’re horrible to ourselves and joke about our shared challenges in figuring out what the point of this shitty slip-and-slide of life is about… uh oh, this might be a real connection.

And so, it makes sense that I connect with all the most complicated people you’d ever meet. And we connect INTENSELY. I’m complicated, myself, and I look for folks who can accept it without their heads exploding. I’m never going to be happy holding conversations with Sports Bar Joe or Pretty Boy Blaine. They’re never going to understand the internal strife that dominates my world. I’m never going to understand how they can be all *happy,* *close with their families,* and *laid back about life.*

Gross. I can’t even say the words.

But give me the angstiest, most anxious, most misunderstood dude on the block, and we’re likely to get along swimmingly. We’ll talk over beers until the birds start to chirp. We’ll joke in our native tongues, playing with words, obscure references, and dry humor as if we’ve known each other for 25 years. We’ll share secrets about our tumultuous inner worlds and the ways that we can’t seem to get our heads on straight enough to keep our ships on course.

And the next thing you know, we’ll be incestuously connected with a somewhat false sense of intimacy that erupts out of the gates. “No one has ever understood me the way you do. I can really be myself around you. I’ve never had such easy conversations about this shit before.”

… That’s about the point when I lose all perspective. There’s a tunnel running from my face to this dude’s heart. I stop seeing things for what they are. I project a kinder, gentler, more well-intended personality on the subject of my feels. I quickly turn a blind eye to all the shit they’re doing that I wholeheartedly hate or otherwise cause my red flags to be unpacked.

I feel like I know them, inside and out. I feel like I can help them - like we can help each other - to sort through this dumb world we’ve been born into and all the circumstances holding us back. A real Sid and Nancy storyline emerges. No one gets him like I do. If only they could see the things I see. We’re just two broken souls who found each other, a little rough around the edges, but we see the diamonds underneath. And we’re in this battle together from now on.

Yeah, right.

Sooooo… This is how I wind up with the unpredictable narcissists who seem like nice guys, the secret addicts who keep their substance abuse hidden from everyone, and the emotional abusers who are ready to leverage my mental health admissions against me the first time they get the chance. Dudes who have highly emotional worlds and no idea how to deal with them. Men who don’t want to explore their own shortcomings and instead choose avoidant courses in life.

And, again, the musicians. So, so many musicians. I really am coming to think that they’re the most fucked up people of all - and that's saying a lot coming from me. Generally speaking, I've seen that there’s no sense of personal responsibility, an obsession with themselves, and a hidden inferiority complex that turns them into bitchy little dogs when they feel threatened. What’s with that, anyways? Can you guys try to be more original in your plight to be the most original?

Okay, anyways. Sorry to keep dragging on musicians.

The point is, my attempts at relationships start out on the wrong foot. Choosing the wrong partner is a pretty surefire way to dash all hopes for those fluffy ideals I mentioned earlier. No one is going to respect me, listen to me, or support me when they’re too busy dealing with their own alcoholism, abandonment issues, and narcissistic flailings… or, not dealing with them, to be more specific.

We aren’t going to be able to work through things when they’re consumed with being the king of the world, hiding from all negative emotions, and trying to keep their head away from analysing their own actions. Hell, it’ll be difficult to even find the time for serious talks, since they’re so busy traveling to band practices, hustling away for barely-paying gigs, and staring at their social media while they count the ways they’re victims of the universe.

Choose imbalanced, mentally ill, self-serving partners… get unhealthy, controlling, unpredictable relationships. Pretty goddamn obvious. And yet, I still can never seem to see the full picture of the human who’s caught my attention through the fog that’s created by the connection of our shared dysfunctions.

I guess this is where that, “love yourself and get yourself healthy first,” sentiment comes into play, so the connections don’t continue to be as disasterious as your personal experience is. Hopefully I’m on the right path in my own journey, at least. Also, a lot less starved for connection. I got y’all Motherfuckers in the Discord community, for starters. And I’ve become determined to live a life where I support myself and rely on no one outside of Archie’s snuggles, for finishers.

Step one: Be careful about who you deem a good person, just because you can share self-deprecating jokes about being nutjobs and similar musical interests. Learn to choose someone who isn’t an even trashier trash human than you are. It’s a start.

Emotional codependency

Hand in hand with forming connections that include deep emotional outpourings and admissions of all the dark things we hide from the light at our office jobs… comes codependency.

I’ve said it before and let me say it again… I didn’t understand codependency until very recently.

In my mind, it was akin to those creepy couples who won’t leave the house without each other, have the same friends, interests, and opinions on everything... and possibly wear matching cat shirts. Those people who never spend time with other humans because they're too busy being shoved up their partner’s ass. The folks who call to check in on each other throughout the day when they’re at work. Gag. Particularly, I imagined those pathetic girls who cry when their boyfriend is out of sight and post 12 pictures a day of them together.

Rightfully, I scoffed and insisted that I didn't have problems with codependency. That’s not me. But it turns out, this view isn’t quite right, so much as I was being an uninformed asshole.

Codependency doesn’t mean you’re a needy, incapable human being who sucks the life power out of someone else, like I used to think. Codependency is a two-way relationship defined by poor boundaries and non-existent emotional regulation. Two humans who see their experiences as one, all the way down to how they feel and how they deal with how they feel. (i.e. turning to their significant other for comfort and emotional control in a time of need instead of working through it by themselves). Relationships where the emotions are transferred from party to party until it's unclear who’s bringing what dish to the gathering. Waking up not knowing how your day is going to be, because it depends on how someone else feels about theirs. Emotional enablement city.

Oh, yeah, when you put it like that, I definitely have issues with codependency.

For me, the codependency is largely going to be emotional. In the past, I didn’t know how to have a relationship of any sort without having a third influence in the mix. There was the person, myself, and our shared emotions... that often called more shots than either of us did.

Because I tend to be on the empath scale (although I do everything I can to fight it out of defense), I think I’m naturally tuned into other people’s emotional and energetic states, for better or for worse. When someone walks into the room with a bad vibe, I feel it to my core. I become so uncomfortable that I take it on myself to try to “fix” the problem for them, and in doing so, I avoid the negative sensation, myself. This is negative reinforcement, if anyone wanted to ABA with me.

That being said, clearly if my boo is having a hard time… it’s not okay. They’re in a shit place and therefore so am I. I must do whatever I can to make it better. To sit down and talk in circles with them, if that’s what relieves some of their tension. To commiserate about how unfair the circumstances are. To validate the negativity that they’re projecting and wallowing in.

Don’t worry though, this goes the other way, too. In the past, I have fully expected my romantic partners to alleviate any inner discomfort that I’ve felt. If I was having a low-down day, I wanted them to cheer me up. If I was full of anxiety, I wanted them to find a way to release it. If I was frustrated with a work situation or coworker, I wanted them to be as angry and indignant as I felt.

So… I guess that doesn’t even sound too off-base to me, at least not when I’m leaning on my teenage expectations of what relationships are supposed to be. In my head, it was always completely ideal that I would wind up with someone who could essentially read my thoughts and comfort me like my family never did. I just wanted someone who would be by my side, thinking about me all the time, and working double time to make sure I was keeping my depression and anxiety on the up-and-up. Is that too much to ask? Uh… yeah, it is.

Maybe in a fairytale love story like the ones I saw in teenage romance movies growing up, this is the perfect way for two broken misfits to interact. “We’re both so damaged and hurt that no one has ever really seen us - but now we have each other to lick our shared wounds.” Yeah, romantic. Also really fucked up and dangerous in the real world.

The problem is, after a few months of this, it gets pretty hard to determine what’s my experience and what’s yours. The emotions become so transitive that it can be invigorating, immersive, overwhelming, and exhausting to be in each other’s company, depending on the day and the event. Living together or essentially sharing a residence makes it much worse - there’s no physical barrier between us, so that emotional barrier is even less existent. We don't have to try to text about our woes, we can just unleash them the moment we step foot in the door. Ready or not, your night is about to be ruined by my day, and vice-versa.

How does this go wrong? Uh, let’s count the ways.

1. My emotional management was never up to par, in the first place. Having your feelings catapulted my way effectively pushes me off the balance beam that I was already wobbling on. If I was having a difficult day but holding it together on my own through coping techniques and reasonable thinking - fucking forget it, that’s over now. We’re both in a shitty state now. Great. In the context of trying to recover from mental health issues… yeah, it’s a fucking disaster. Being retriggered by your partner or sucked into a depressive undertow when you’re trying to make positive change is a losing battle.

2. I never learned how to cope with my own emotions. There was generally someone else for me to hurtle them at, and our subsequent hours of bitching would give me the comfort I was looking for. I didn’t need to learn to manage my feelings - I always had a glorified babysitter to keep me alive. I never had to be accountable for my inner world. I never had to look at things with logic or reason. I could let myself spiral and trust that my best friend or boyfriend would catch me before I slipped down the drain.

3. It becomes impossible to talk about issues - personal or shared. When you’re already sharing emotions there’s an explosive effect when conflict is brought up. Neither one of us knows how to handle our shit, we expect the other person to hold us up with kid gloves, annnd now that person is the source of my distress? We’re both completely beside ourselves, upset, hurt, and angry… and it’s towards each other? Now who the fuck do we call? There's a huge sense of confusion and betrayal. No one has the skills to de-escalate the argument or return to a normal emotional state.

4. How do you break up when half of your existence is in the body of another human? You can’t mentally or emotionally separate yourself from them. Physically separating yourself feels like ripping out a few of your organs and leaving them on the streets. And, who’s going to keep you afloat when you’re going through the pain of the break up? That’s the job of your partner, afterall… can’t have a vacant desk sitting here. It’s best to just suck it up and stick with it. No one would understand what you’ve both been through together, anyways.

In a word, that’s codependency.

Not what people think it is. Not what our culture describes it as. Not so easy to spot until you’re educated and honest with yourself… plus, probably viewing things through the lenses of hindsight.

Definitely a sneaky recipe for disaster when you let it take over a well-intended, emotionally transparent, highly connective relationship. And, Motherfuckers, I’ve always tended to.

Head to t-mfrs.com for more!

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