![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
verbminxIt occurred to me, as a result of dreams I had last night and something I saw online this morning, that I just don't trust anyone at all anymore. & everytime I'm dragged out of that, by a boy or a friend or whoever, they end up totally confirming my lack of trust.
It seems odd to me that one of the ways I've dealt with this is by pushing my own boundaries. It was so hard for me to start the anxietypanic community & talk openly about being on BuSpar and then Paxil, because I KNOW that at some point something about that is going to be thrown back in my face (by the law of averages, and by observing other people who have had similar things happen to them). In fact - it already has been, come to think of it, by one of the small handful of people I told when I first started treatment, who I talked to openly about fears of really losing it (strangely, most avoidance behaviors in anxiety don't seem to be caused by a thing itself, but by the fear of having the panic attack that we have had as a result of the thing in the past). I've since learned that most of the things I was worried about being so abnormal are actually pretty normal in anxiety people.
Is my solution to trust no-one, or to trust everyone? Or to find some middle road? I mean... it's just odd. T knows me better than WB, I'd argue, but there are things I told WB after knowing him for less than 24 that I have never told T, and stuff T knows that I probably wouldn't tell WB. I've never been very trustful of anyone in my family, but that's a common thing among people who have suffered parental abuse, particularly emotional abuse, I think. (but isn't all parental abuse emotional abuse on some level? not just the words, but also the actions, don't those mess with a child's emotions?)
I do trust friends (the female ones), to an extent, but... there are a lot of things I don't tell them, a lot of layers I don't peel. Stuff that never comes up. Stuff that I won't talk about. I really don't care if people know how much I was hated in my 11th grade Health class (and I totally was! you have no idea! I didn't have to do anything, didn't make any missteps - it was just a class full of people from the "average" levels, and I was from the "gifted/ap" level of classes, and basically nobody would talk to me, even when I was friendly), but there are things far less trivial that I just won't bring up. An especially taboo topic used to be how I felt about myself, but I'm getting better with that, I think. (I used to talk a lot about how I felt about certain other people - and to an extent I still do - but now I'm more willing to look at how this ties in to ME.) There are ways in which I like myself and ways in which I don't. & some ways in which I think I am morally superior to some people, & some things I really really really think I need to work on. I was told the other day that my gestures are gentle, and I thought that was nice. Because I want to be gentle. I try. (In fact, whenever anyone accuses me of a want of gentleness, I get all mopey and teary.)
Sometimes I wonder if I should talk about myself so much - in terms of egoism, if I don't say "I me me I me I I I me me" in here too much. But then again, it's not really good to talk about other people too much, either. & courteous listening comes in the form of remembering to read my Friends pages. So if I don't talk about myself in my journal who am I supposed to talk about? Perhaps the solution is to not talk at all.
Oh, yes. I wrote to a guy I used to like today. I liked him a lot, actually, but there were a handful of excellent reasons for not doing anything about it, and I sort of cut him off, a while back. He was too connected to things that were unhealthy for me. I'm not interested in him anymore, not that way, but he's a really great guy. I wrote to him (as well as many other people I've needed to write to for a while) today - not because I used to be interested in him, but because I miss him & I'm... trying to get over things I've been weird about. I don't have the emotional energy to keep shutting down areas of my life.
It seems odd to me that one of the ways I've dealt with this is by pushing my own boundaries. It was so hard for me to start the anxietypanic community & talk openly about being on BuSpar and then Paxil, because I KNOW that at some point something about that is going to be thrown back in my face (by the law of averages, and by observing other people who have had similar things happen to them). In fact - it already has been, come to think of it, by one of the small handful of people I told when I first started treatment, who I talked to openly about fears of really losing it (strangely, most avoidance behaviors in anxiety don't seem to be caused by a thing itself, but by the fear of having the panic attack that we have had as a result of the thing in the past). I've since learned that most of the things I was worried about being so abnormal are actually pretty normal in anxiety people.
Is my solution to trust no-one, or to trust everyone? Or to find some middle road? I mean... it's just odd. T knows me better than WB, I'd argue, but there are things I told WB after knowing him for less than 24 that I have never told T, and stuff T knows that I probably wouldn't tell WB. I've never been very trustful of anyone in my family, but that's a common thing among people who have suffered parental abuse, particularly emotional abuse, I think. (but isn't all parental abuse emotional abuse on some level? not just the words, but also the actions, don't those mess with a child's emotions?)
I do trust friends (the female ones), to an extent, but... there are a lot of things I don't tell them, a lot of layers I don't peel. Stuff that never comes up. Stuff that I won't talk about. I really don't care if people know how much I was hated in my 11th grade Health class (and I totally was! you have no idea! I didn't have to do anything, didn't make any missteps - it was just a class full of people from the "average" levels, and I was from the "gifted/ap" level of classes, and basically nobody would talk to me, even when I was friendly), but there are things far less trivial that I just won't bring up. An especially taboo topic used to be how I felt about myself, but I'm getting better with that, I think. (I used to talk a lot about how I felt about certain other people - and to an extent I still do - but now I'm more willing to look at how this ties in to ME.) There are ways in which I like myself and ways in which I don't. & some ways in which I think I am morally superior to some people, & some things I really really really think I need to work on. I was told the other day that my gestures are gentle, and I thought that was nice. Because I want to be gentle. I try. (In fact, whenever anyone accuses me of a want of gentleness, I get all mopey and teary.)
Sometimes I wonder if I should talk about myself so much - in terms of egoism, if I don't say "I me me I me I I I me me" in here too much. But then again, it's not really good to talk about other people too much, either. & courteous listening comes in the form of remembering to read my Friends pages. So if I don't talk about myself in my journal who am I supposed to talk about? Perhaps the solution is to not talk at all.
Oh, yes. I wrote to a guy I used to like today. I liked him a lot, actually, but there were a handful of excellent reasons for not doing anything about it, and I sort of cut him off, a while back. He was too connected to things that were unhealthy for me. I'm not interested in him anymore, not that way, but he's a really great guy. I wrote to him (as well as many other people I've needed to write to for a while) today - not because I used to be interested in him, but because I miss him & I'm... trying to get over things I've been weird about. I don't have the emotional energy to keep shutting down areas of my life.
![[identity profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/openid.png){kind=small}
Cautious
Date: 2001-07-03 05:04 pm (UTC)So, stay true to yourself. Nice that you could talk to a guy you once liked and still be okay with it. I've tried to reconnect with a few guys I once dated at very times in my life. They still seem resentful. And I wasn't mean! People rarely change. But sometimes they do alter some of their destructive tendencies.
Take care,
Fauxfille
Re: Cautious
Date: 2001-07-03 09:24 pm (UTC)This guy, today... we were never involved or anything, just... had an attraction, I think. But he lives really far away from me - I met him at an event that was in neither of our home cities - and when I met him, he was going through a divorce from basically the only girl he'd ever dated, after being married for like two years. & I was getting over a REALLY bad breakup (of a longdistance relationship) & not ready to get involved with anyone, least of all another LD guy.
trust just gets harder and harder. i'm naturally secretive and suspicious. then i think, really, who cares? nobody cares about some of the things i hide, nobody's interested. it's not like i'm running for president, it's not like things that have happened to me are terribly unusual. I just have a greater need for privacy than some people, I guess, and I think it is my family's fault - my mom was very intrusive when I was little, and all of her brothers are very harsh teasers.
i dunno. at the very least i think it's definite that there are certain things one should never ever tell certain people. :) aside from that, there is a lot of grey area.
Re: Cautious
Date: 2001-07-07 11:37 am (UTC)Yes, it's true. It seems like one's privacy isn't as important as you'd think, or keeping secrets. But I feel as if a part of my soul dies if I just let it all out to an uncaring or thoughtless person. I try to reserve my special thoughts, or the more introverted indeas of mine, for the right people. Maybe it's a conservation of energy rule that I've developed. I don't know. A complicated issue.
All the best,
Fauxfille
no subject
Date: 2001-07-05 06:23 am (UTC)so all i can do is think good thoughts and send positive vibes your way.
no subject
Date: 2001-07-05 05:06 pm (UTC)