3.21.2008

unrealistic expectations

I seem to have this idea that I can't mess up. That if I mess up somehow it will cause people to stop loving me.
I have this perception with people that have given me no cause either through behavior or words that this is true.

Where does this come from. This gut instinct to believe that people will abandon me? I have amazing parents. They're still married like a million years later and so it's not from that.
This feeling has been pervasive from long before any sort of real relationship, this feeling of irrational expectations that I put on myself. This ideal that I hold myself to but not others.
I know from experience that I appreciate the mistakes in other people way more then their perfection.
But when I mess up, and I mess up a lot lately it seems, I feel like I have to hide it. Keep it bundled inside sharing with no one for fear they will flee the scene of whatever crime I've committed.

I realize that our past impacts us. But at what point does it stop? I loathe when people blame something from decades ago for their inability to function today. I don't want this to be about something like that because I feel like I should just get over it. Besides, most of them aren't alive anymore...the purveyors of perceived perfection so who exactly am I trying to impress.

It all makes me feel substantially crazy, and not in the cute "you're SO crazy" sort of way.
I spent years perfecting ambivalence and the lack of public emotions. Then I spent years trying to find the balance of appropriate emotion.
Somehow without my even noticing I've almost totally slipped back into ambivalence and emotional robotism.
When did that happen?
Is it really as simple as it's just this time of year?
Am I just "in my head to much"? (and what does that even mean)

Since Tuesday my emotions so skillfully buried have been lurking just under the surface. I swing wildly between rage and joy, sorrow and boisterous laughter, grief and rejoicing. Just talking about it will reduce me to tears that I swallow down and inhale with clandestine smoke and double stuffed oreos.
I almost am finding having the emotions to be utterly exhausting.
But I've been excavating.
I talked to a friend on the phone today and realized that I'm holding this behavior standard to someone that has never even hinted at that tendency.
I fanatically hide and evade to ensure that my secrets aren't revealed, I joke and play the carefree role to assure this person that I'm doing just fine juggling on my own.
Until the balls come crashing down.
Even now my instinct is to only pay enough attention to resolve this, only enough attention until the glaring light of my self imposed reality turns to someone else and then scuttle back to the hole I've buried myself it.

There has to be a change. It has to be me that changes. I have no idea how, I have no idea if I will become even keeled and then the monster that ravages my heart will rear his head again, just as I get used to the calm in my head.
I just feel so lost, and I don't really know how to find my way back and I have no idea where it is that I'm trying to go anyway.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

I wish I could off you advice. I wish I could help take the burden and carry some of your load.
Alas, I'm here and you're there.
So just know the He is with you, and that He knows you down to exactly how many hairs are on your head. So even though you may not know what it is that is troubling you, He does, and He'll help you through it all...
I love you...