The biggest disservice I’ve done to others

[NarcsEverywhere]

Is to expect them to be someone they’re not. It’s not always easy to gauge a person, to know where they’re at, to know who they are, and what they are capable of, or what they want. It’s not always easy to know if they’re lying.

I think I tried too hard to love people into being the healthy people I wanted. I really did genuinely care, but when I saw the limitations of my relationships, I tried to force more help, more advice, more humor, more compassion, more love. I just tried to damned hard.

One of my codependency books said “our strength is that we care so much, our weakness is that we’re naive and underestimate other people and their own agendas”

I want so bad to stay naive, I don’t like all this reality hitting me like a semi truck. I feel like this whole experience has jaded me, not out of bitterness, but out of seeing these deceptions for what they are. I think like a lot of us, we just want so bad for it to not be true, we want to believe all the lies, because it’s more comfortable than to know the love you got wasn't what you thought it was.

I feel sad, I know many on this board are too.

Back to my original point, I see when I back off of people, when they breathe more, even my abusers do better, but it’s also sad to me to see them for what they are, because the quality of life they settle for is so low, that I feel sorry for them.

Gonna go do something for myself now, life is hard sometimes. Hope someone is listening.

[cranmango]

We are indeed listening, NE. You’re doing good work reflecting and mapping out your next steps for personal growth. Keep moving forward.

[NarcsEverywhere]

Thanks, it's hard to tell if people are or aren't. But I am not going to give up, and hide in a corner, even though it's damned frustrating putting myself out here so much, and struggling to connect to others. Thanks for acknowledging me, it helps.

[NarcsEverywhere]

I feel really sad and ashamed, and regretful about how much I've done this to people and animals. I feel like I am responsible for my actions, but so many times the context was under abuse and wholesale lies, and very tough conditions, in which I was being sabotaged or abandoned, so it's hard to know where my accountability is. I think the most important thing is to try not to do it now.

I pressured people to face grief they weren't ready to face, because I thought avoidance would hurt them. I pushed my old dog into walks he didn't like, because I didn't have the patience for them, and I couldn't accept his old age and death enough and pressured him to eat too much, or play too much. I pressured my Dad to do all sorts of stuff during COVID, and made him do it my way, I pressured my mom to lose weight for a brief window, because I was scared of losing her, but it affected her drastically, because it was her biggest vulnerability, because of how her mom treated her. (my mom pressured me to quit Buddhism, which she was super right about that one, since I way over did spirituality, and screwed myself hard, or got controlling about how I got a job and left a job) And my friend who killed himself, I pressure him to "become a boss" instead of empathizing, because he was perpetually miserable at work. (He constantly pressured me to get a job and overcome agoraphobia, etc)

In all these instances, I really wanted the best for all of them, but underlying it all was my fear of losing them, and in all those instances, I did lose them. My worst fear always came true, and I couldn't stop it. I've tried so hard to accept death/loss over the years, I've learned to grieve. But without a healthy support network, you never quite recover from it all, enough to hit the next loss, especially when it's a big loss, like during COVID. Where I lost my dog, my other dog went diabetic, and my relationship with my Dad got destroyed, and I lost my ability to go out into the world, because of all the stress and the circumstances of COVID. Or after my friend killed himself. I see the good in the experience, but god, I hate learning the hard way so often.

It's really hard to hold it against myself so much, when most of the people I did it to were lying and abusing me, or were doing the exact same thing to me, but with my poor doggy that died, he never did anything to me, so that one especially breaks my heart. I wish I let him get old and die a little more gracefully, even though I did so much good for him too, near the end and in the year or two before that. Same with my current dog, I really regret it there too, was a nervous wreck with him, instilling tons of anxiety in him, because I was so scared of losing him after losing my other dog. Or my cat, I did it with. It's still terrifying to me, but I am trying to act better, even though it's hard.

I think you know, a lot of my difficulty, not all of it, is from my initial trauma (posted on the other board), it's probably why I have so much agoraphobia and trouble working. That and the complicated dynamics of my family and friends. It's really a lot to take in, I understand it logically, but these things sink in so slow emotionally.