Appreciating the people in my life

[justnothing]

I just want to write this down because posting here seems to help me remember and process things better.

Yesterday I had another breakdown because of my ex who killed himself two and a half months ago. I wanted to kill myself and ended up drinking instead. Then I talked to a friend of mine and she helped me feel better. This may sound simple enough but as I was talking to her I realized how little I had appreciated her up until now. I had been afraid of telling her about his suicide because she’s sensitive and I was afraid she’d get triggered at the mention of suicide. Also, because she was someone I had gotten to know from an online group in which I played a supportive role and because she kind of mostly appears to talk to me when she’s in pain, I kind of assumed that she wasn’t a real friend and just wanted me to be supportive of her. This was despite the fact that she had, in fact, been supportive of me several times in the past. But yesterday I finally understood that she really is a true friend.

I have been thinking about my ex a lot and in all honesty I’m not sure that back when he was alive I had fully appreciated – as much as I do now – how precious he was to me as a friend. Normally I’m a recluse and I don’t see myself as having many or any friends and so when looking back at the times we spent together I’ve been seeing it as “having lost one of the few friends I had”.

But then last night I had an epiphany and I realized that in fact I DO have friends. Just like my ex, I have a number of people in my life whom I don’t really see as “real friends” and don’t really appreciate as much or as fully as they deserve. When I find myself with no one to talk to I lament over the fact that “I’m alone” but looking back I realize now that I’ve spent my whole life either pushing people away, assuming that they’re not real friends for whatever reason and/or simply not valuing them as much as they deserve.

Without even realizing it, I think I’ve adapted the same method of avoiding rejection that my mother used only more covertly. Behind closed doors my mother used to openly rail against other people over their perceived flaws (which she’d ultimately use as excuses to push them away) or alternately talk about how unimportant and insignificant the people all around her were. Up until now I thought I was different from her because I won’t talk like that out loud to anyone but last night I realized that maybe this is something I also do with people, only on a more semiconscious level. Like in the case of the girl I mentioned at the start of this post, I remember at least one time in which she messaged me about something and I was feeling bad at the time and I secretly cursed her in my mind because I assumed that she only ever wanted me as a shoulder for her to cry on. But now that I can see her for the real friend that she is, I suddenly find myself looking at all the other people in my life and I’m suddenly seeing all the unflattering labels I’ve put on each one of them as an excuse to not have them in my life. A is too sensitive, B isn’t sensitive enough, C never has time, D is too clingy, etc’ etc’, as though I could ever expect anyone to be perfect. And when it comes to most people around me I just lack interest in them which I think is probably derived from that “they’re not important” attitude, even if I don’t consciously think that.

Today I found myself feeling more of a need to talk to my coworkers and even though it’s a *need* it came with a little bit of joy and anticipation that I haven’t felt in years (here’s hoping it won’t just peter away).

I think I’m afraid of seeing/feeling/fully appreciating how important people are to me because of a preconceived idea I have that at some point I’ll lose them anyway so I don’t want to feel that loss. But in doing so, without even realizing it, I push everyone away.

So yeah… I just wanted to put that out there, so that I won’t forget it…

[Grey Kitty]

Reading this has me thinking of things like Brené Browne's talk on vulnerability and some of her other work.

It is a huge risk to be vulnerable like this with somebody. You really can't know that somebody is trustworthy like that without taking that leap of faith.

My closest friends are people I've been vulnerable like that with. Some of them I had been supportive of first, before I asked them. Others I chose to trust for who knows what reason, maybe intuition, as well as a bit of history, but not that I could say I was "owed" it in any way from prior support I'd given.

It is really easy to talk yourself out of being vulnerable like this. I think it took me being knocked way down to do it--first when my marriage had turned horribly abusive (which it recovered from), and second when my marriage was ending.