you ever have people in your life who constantly do hurtful or harmful things and never quite seem to ‘get’ they they are doing so? you know the ones, they always look surprised when you tell them that they’ve hurt your feelings. they always want to argue with you…. as if you must justify to them how and why they hurt or harmed you…. as if your feelings alone are never good enough to be factored in or considered.
as if your feelings don’t really count. as if the notion they should count is…. unexpected and repugnant, ‘oh, you mean i have to actually think about you?’
the people who constantly interrupt you and then, have the nerve to be annoyed at you or even chide you for interrupting them. the people who assume the very worst of you and then look puzzled when you ask them how they could ever manage doing so. worse yet, the people who assume the very worst of you and insist they are correct when you ask them how they could ever manage doing so.
i’m still a bit sore from that last one. actually, i think i’ve been sore most of my life. hm.
a good friend of mine has, on more than one occasion, pointed out to me that i have encountered an inordinately high number of such people in my life. it’s a truly disproportional thing. i did not agree at first, but upon further conversation, the passing of time, and their patient pointing, have come to do so.
either i am drawn to such people or they are drawn to me. likely a combination. and i’ve a pretty good idea why this is the case. not much more, mind you. every time i try to break the pattern, all i seem to do is outline it all the more darkly with my crayon. (wry grin)
there is a reason they call them ‘blind spots’. i am not happy with the notion that this is one i cannot overcome. i do not want to spend the rest of my life bleeding from the casual, thoughtless cuts of others. and i do not want to live the rest of my life casually or thoughtlessly cutting others.
it should not have to be like this. i wrestle with it. struggle with it, really. trying to get my mind around the ‘why’ of it all. trying to ‘figure it out’ so i can shift it.
i know i am not a bad person. but there are parts of me that are consistently unhelpful when it comes to certain aspects of long term relationships…. be they friendships or otherwise. they are small words, but the ground they cover is huge — i am distrustful, i am suspicious of ulterior motives, i am wary to the point of obsession of being duped, lied to, used, or otherwise taken advantage of, and i am all but psychotic over being abandoned.
i look at that and i know exactly how and why i am like this. i could explain it to you very easily. (though not here and now because it’s a huge tangent). but i have not yet found the way to not be this way. which is a source of much consternation, frustration, and yes, sometimes, despair.
there seem to be very few people in the world who can or will choose to understand. fewer still who seem to have the patience or interest to put up with me when any of those things have been touched and i fall over into the (to me) utterly predictable spasms over it…. or lose my grip on reality and start swinging at the ghosts i think i see and only stop when i remember…. ghosts do not bleed.
suddenly, the perspective shifts and i can see further. i realize that the things that hurt me most are the things i so often hurt others over… the things they do to me are the things i have so often done to others…. and that, very likely, the reasons are much the same.
i see it. i feel a sense of realization of it… of how i’m not really any different and of how humans are constantly doing this to one another. it is a heavy thing. it bruises the psyche.
of course, it is all mental feedback. the silly, foolish wanderings of a mind without anything else to occupy it. i am child-like in this regard, i think; sitting here poking and prodding a bruise and trying to figure out why it never seems to heal.
sad humor, that. but i’ll laugh. i need the laughter, even if it comes out of pain.
the process of trying to shift the pattern of behavior is frustrating to me because it requires a level of thought, attention, and effort that is damn near impossible to sustain on a constant basis.
this is the place, i think, from which the sense of wishing/wanting/needing outside help rises.
a good bit of this is completely mine to manage, but i recognize and accept that i need to have people around me who are willing to help. not ‘do it for me’, as that is impossible (regardless my occasional wish this were not so).
i need to have more people in my life who are not as i am and who can, because they are not as i am, be understanding, patient, and kind when i am convulsing with these things. it is the only way i’m ever going to have enough of a difference in experience to short-circuit the habits and patterns of old.
role models. hah. do you know how ridiculous it feel to sit here and say, at my age, that i need good role models because there’s a good part of me that never got the chance to learn these things and i need help?
it occurs to me that self-loathing is a huge obstacle for me. i do not often see it in myself. of course, i see it regularly and all to clearly in others. here, a chuckle, as it seems that seeing things clearly in others IS to see them of myself…. but in a way that is ‘safe’…. well, for me. hah. oh my. such an insidious thing, self-loathing.
it also occurs to me that a good bit of this progress is due to practice. i am chuckling here because i suppose it doesn’t exactly read like ‘progress’ to anyone but me. but i can see it as such because i know how long it has taken me to get to a point where i could comprehend any of it well enough, thoroughly enough to actually sit here and write about it.
humans tend to think of progress as a completion; that you can only say ‘progress’ when the effort is behind you and the goal, won. i find rather that progress is never really won, that it is a constant state of change. so, naturally, it is important to note movements and to celebrate them as you can… even if that celebration is nothing more than saying, ‘holy shit… look how far i have to go!’ and then, turning for a brief moment to allow yourself to say, ‘yes… but look how far you’ve come.’
this is definitely progress. and it helps to put it here as such. it helps the sense of being little more than a bruised psyche, and it helps the sense of feeling impotent or incapable, and it helps the sense of feeling lost and blind, and it helps soothe the sense of self-loathing from which so much of this rises.
i am realizing lately that it is better to be alone than to be surrounded by people who contribute to unhelpful habits. i am also realizing that it is a blessing to have many good friends at distance as it helps in the interim, as i am looking for friends who will be in proximity.
it is a shift in perspective, which is a thing i celebrate. i do not have to be depressed for not having more friends in proximity because it means i do not have unhelpful presences. i can take my time in developing helpful friendships and be content in it because it is a positive step to engage and support helpful presence rather than accept or allow unhelpful presence.
little buddha girl is laughing, ‘you see? it really is just as simple as changing your perspective.’ i forgive her for what seems a derision of my efforts…. realizing that she means it as comfort, not sarcasm…. realizing that she does not realize how difficult it has been to even get to a point where ‘changing my perspective’ could be articulated, let alone enacted.
it is given to us in practice time and time again that all things begin inside, that all things we would see in the world we must first find in ourselves. that we should be kind to ourselves.
being kind to ourselves doesn’t mean ignoring the bad things and patting the good ones on the head. it means being willing to do good things to and for ourselves; being willing to say ‘no’ to things that are hurtful or unhelpful so we have the space and peace in which to say ‘yes’ to things that will be healing and helpful.
beginning to do more than conceive of it is a huge step here. of course, i say i am managing it. it remains to be seen. but i think i am, and i think i can, and that of itself is really quite auspicious.