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light-of-being · 4 years

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a very fkin long and incomplete exposition of my flaws as a human being

I've not really spoken about the probably most consequential event in my recent life (the ending of a long term relationship), and that's because I haven't really thought about it very much. At least, not in a clear-headed space not entirely filled with rage, fear, or initially, longing. So, I've mostly just been waiting for the intensity of those responses to wear out before I can go back and make sense of things in a sorta 'safe' way.

(These days it's mostly anger and/or hurt. Sometimes twinges of hatred, but those fizzle quickly. I know that attitude isn't 'true'. I tried to hate him, I really did. Things would be so much simpler that way — an obvious villain of pure evil, a mistake worthy of contempt. Put him behind me as someone I regret meeting and consider everything only as a flashing warning sign of what to avoid next time. But real life never is that easy, is it.)

Regardless, reading about miscellaneous psychological ~stuff, I realised that I know for sure now that there are sides of me that only come out in a close relationship, as they postulate. It's unfortunate that my exposure to this was only in such a toxic environment, and I'm not sure if or when closeness has any chance of happening again.

I suspect, based on what I have/haven't felt with him vs others, that I can (at least at this stage of my development) only really feel 'seen' by an antisocial/narcissist/schizoid (or something in that general direction), just hope to god it's a mature one next time. I might want to interrogate and possibly change that fact, I'm not sure it's at all a healthily arrived preference. But...

there is a degree of normalcy and social belonging in others that becomes a wall

I can relate superficially, cognitively and even 'deeply personally' (tho is all y'all's deeply personal shit necessarily relational?), have a good time and even feel 'connection' but there are parts that seem simply insurmountable.

The lack of relating to many things is the unifying factor between me and the specified groups: the shared experience of not having shared experiences

But yet, a more acute awareness of superficiality, and the drives and mechanics of human interactions, attitudes, identity and constructs, not taken for granted as default but built from the ground up (Most often out of either necessity or a desire to manipulate them, but still).

Actually, most straightforwardly, the shared experience of experiencing oneself as an outsider to society — whether people personally, accepted norms or expected attitudes towards self and other.*

Anyway, that was a whole semi-tangent I went off on (useful and relevant to the initial thought but not the point I was planning on).

Important point was...ah yes, insights!

...into how I behave under genuine relational circumstances. Due to aforementioned toxicity, I'm not sure how generalisable they are to relationships overall, but they should generalise to feeling-states.

(a) Fear. Defensiveness.

Switches off my brain. Obvious? No. I have been actively strategic while having a gun pointed at me. I thought I had that down. Turns out, I cannot dissociate myself out of an argument most of the time.

Turns out, just the fact or even prospect of arguing activates panic and brain goes out the window. Which is really fucking stupid as an occurrence because how many of these could be prevented with a bit of mindfulness and thoughtful responding. But getting emotions to chill out for long enough to do that is tough.

(b) I am a stubborn dumbass. Kid me argued until they were attacked so harshly that they absolutely could not continue. The alternative presented was to just keep silent, one I did not then and do not now accept. Discussion where both parties partake in good faith have generally been fruitful, only neither of these situations were that. Both involved one person trying to dominate at all costs. To which I suppose keeping silent for the moment and then running tf away is an appropriate response. Idk. I'm not sure if this is a 'normal situation' to which I respond unhealthily, or an 'abnormal situation' in which you just do your best to survive. Arguments are normal. Idk if other people have a less aggressive approach that is less outright terrifying, in which I can modulate, but it does seem like people want to prove you wrong and get angry, which I perceive as aggression.

Which brings me to boundaries. Can I shut things down when I'm overwhelmed. In the present case, the answer was no. They both didn't stop and the fact that I asked for this was interpreted as admission of defeat.Oftentimes, getting out of the situation was more of an ordeal than dealing with it. [We stayed at a hotel the one time and he did things that made me very uncomfortable (in like a “things that I shudder at thinking about even now” kind of way; not sexual btw which this has made it sound). I thought I was as clear as I could’ve been by saying, “I’m going to legit have a breakdown if you keep doing that” but apparently it came across as a joke (gotta improve on communication as well). He stopped and apologised when he realised I was crying, but later blamed me for not being more assertive and laughed at my ‘exaggerated’ response and “meltdown”. At this point I wanted to leave and go home, but he withheld [my copy of] the key. He insisted and manipulated and coerced for discussion, said I could have the key if I “really wanted it, but do I actually want that”, until it was just easier to give in. The helplessness and feeling trapped of that evening haunts me to this day, and I want to be very sure to never be in any situation where that is even a possibility again no matter what.]

I need to get better at knowing what is and isn't okay and being strong enough to enforce that.

(a) Attachment is a bitch. Utterly unfamiliar sensation, one I don't know my way around at all. The rarity of relation makes it seem so fucking precious, so fucking necessary to protect even to my detriment and his. Dare I tip the boat or will it sink. Should I be the dancing monkey to keep it from sinking. Should he.

(b) The feeling of giving a damn what someone thinks of me is also foreign and difficult. It also seems hella intensified by virtue of not existing elsewhere. Disapproval feels devastating. Criticism becomes attack. Everything feels like a continuous effort to establish worth. I'd imagined acceptance could be taken for granted, but I questioned it the whole way (obviously doesn't help when he demands changes).

(c) I have trouble distinguishing between personal issues and insecurities and legitimate reason to be upset. I think this is typical. But with trial and error, one can probably pick up on what you carry with you across differing people and circumstances. I don't have that data. I have nothing to compare against. I also suspect some parts of this is him treating legitimate reasons as being my distorted perceptions, which I'm pretty sure did happen for a few things that I believe are 'objectively' shitty.

I trust. Too. Fucking. Much. I take shit at face value. This is very often dumb and...bad in literally every sense, but I don’t yet know how to identify preemptively when that's the case. I also fail to be adequately 'suspicious' I guess to be alert to minor inconsistencies later on. Lies are especially devastating. I built my reality around you using that fundamental premise. Now you tell me it was false all along. Where does that leave me? I go back to substitute and nothing makes sense. I don't know if the initial statement was a lie or the claim that it's false was. I don't know if everything I remember is just distorted somehow. I don't know what to do. (aside: gaslighting? I’m inclined to say “effectively, yes”. The best explanation I have is that for many things he rewrote the narrative in his own mind and does not remember the things that blatantly contradict it. For other things, I cannot see that being possible and am forced to think it’s just pure lies). All of this could have been prevented if I accounted for people being dishonest.

(a) I lose sympathy. Genuinely did not ever expect this to happen. Enough hurt, enough deception and I stop trying to understand why. I assume malice. I expect malice in future interactions and misread situations as a result. In the beginning I made fucktons of effort to be understanding of things far from my typical range (hello, admissions of past violence and present homicidal ideation. Hello, talking someone out of real intention of ruining a person's life over a minor slight). Honestly, I think I overreached. Some of these things were not things I should have tolerated, accepted even. When I started walking on eggshells to not have him ruin my life, too, that was probably when I should've gotten out. He claimed that the people he cares about are exceptions. That's probably true, otherwise I would currently be in a ton of shit. But at some point I did stop believing it.

(b) I don't really think that most of the things that happened were malicious. Some, he admits, were. But mostly he wasn't out with the intention to hurt me, but he also didn't make the effort...not to. Even with me repeatedly complaining about things, he was defensive or dismissive, considering me talking about an issue to be me creating issues in his life. This is super shitty, his damage is caused by a stubborn ego fixation and sheer passivity, thoughtlessness (he has agreed to all of this in our final conversation), but it isn't exactly intentionally malicious. If he genuinely didn't believe there was a problem, that is an issue, and the fact that he utterly failed until the end to even consider the possibility of a valid complaint, is a very real flaw. He is bad insofar as "he is lazy and incompetent at being good". Which I can understand but nevertheless protect myself from. Ideally, sooner. At the point where I start feeling like someone is being shitty more often than not, something needs to happen. A discussion, a reconsideration, a run-as-fast-as-you-can... Something.

Idk. This isn't everything. But yeah.

* These 3 PDs are often used in illustrating the idea of pathologising difference: few of the criteria are about subjective distress and many about extrinsic value judgements of what a person should be like (lol, my clinical psych final had an essay question on this). I don't necessarily agree but it does speak to a shared thread of...something. That said, this characterisation is tbh still too broad for my liking. Importantly, it is definitively applicable to autistic people but I do not in general relate to that in the same way. Some specific manifestations of it, yes, but I have seen far too many excessively... 'human' autistic people to include the whole category. There are probably folks in the PD categories who are also like that but I think much less common.

#personal #emotions #reflections #relationships #personality disorder #possible tw abuse idk #if you're actually interested in reading probably best to do so tomorrow #not sure why I'm posting now in the first place #will reblog when I update #also needs links those are important

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