The Art of Obscenity

I wonder sometimes just how far back it goes. During pregnancy my mother started producing specific hormones that she was allergic to. For 9 months I made her uncomfortable and unhappy. I have to wonder if it stuck with me. Is it possible that even unborn I felt unloved, unwanted, troublesome? Could that explain why it’s so god damn terrifying to ever let anyone close to me. Why no matter how much better I get, no matter how much I know in my head what I want, I just can’t get my heart to calm down, to understand, to choose to care? Does it even matter though? Am I just focusing on something else, trying to shift the blame so I don’t have to accept and deal with my issues? Forever trying to find that absolute explanation for why I’m broken so that I can just give up and believe I’ll never be better? I don’t want to be that person anymore. It’s hard not to think of myself as broken, but there isn’t a damn thing in this world I haven’t been able to fix when I put my mind to it. This might be the scariest, hardest thing to fix for me, but I can do it. I can love again. I know I can, know that I already am, I’m just so afraid to admit it to myself.

I’m never really sure if I’m standing up for myself or just being an asshole.

I’m committed when I’m in a relationship.

I won’t cheat on you.
I won’t do you wrong.
I won’t want to stop talking to you.
I wont want to leave you for anyone else.
I won’t do anything to hurt you.
I chose you & that means I only want you, no one else.

(via bendezdrowa)

Well I’m pretty freaked out, I admit it. In fact that barely covers it. I’m totally fucking terrified. But I can also admit I was reacting to a lot of shame last week. I’m willing try again in a more straight forward manner. I can’t guarantee a damn thing, but I can actually make an effort. At the very least it’ll be a learning experience.

There’s no reason to be so afraid of someone caring about me. It doesn’t make the feeling any less real, but it’s not about ex-gfs. I was never honest with any of them either. I never wanted anything because I convinced myself it was selfish and I had no value. She kept telling me she wanted a chance to prove things could be different, but they all said that. The problem isn’t another girl, the problem is me. The problem is I grew up with people who had the same pattern I keep going through. Blame everyone else, ignore what’s going on right in front of you, and if you can’t, yell about it and act like an asshole. Don’t make friends, don’t let people close, keep a heightened sense of superiority by judging people and never giving them a chance to defend themselves.

I’m tired of it. I’m tired of me. But for once I’m not angry. For once I understand that I was an asshole. Right now, right this minute, I’m not a bad person, but I’m not a good person either. Until I make a decision, until I choose how to act, I am nothing. Not in the empty way, the sad way, but in the way that means my future is for me to decide. Am I disappointed in who I used to be, in how I’ve acted in the past, absolutely, but that doesn’t change I’m not that guy anymore. Haven’t been him in a long time.

interdependance:

“Interdependence refers to how much you need dependency or a couple identity with your partner. Your answer pattens suggest that you tend not to become overly dependent on a romantic partner. People scoring like you are comfortable being singled out for praise and rewards, and their personal identity and independence from others is important to them. Therefore, it seems you need a reasonable level of independence in a relationship. This does not mean that you do not desire to be close with a partner. Indeed, when you feel close to someone, this person often becomes an important part of who you are on the inside and you probably like showing off your couplehood in public. However, you do not necessarily need to be constantly joined at the hip in order to feel connected and secure in a relationship. Bottom line: you need someone who reciprocates a strong feeling of attachment to a partner but who also respects and copes well with the fact that you benefit from a reasonable level of physical and psychological space at times.”

My problem is I still don’t know how to handle being both even though I want to be both. I can’t handle grey areas. My mind won’t accept them.

You know… I keep accusing other people of doing what I’m doing. I’ve always known it on some level, but it’s one of those things that’s hard to see. Yet this last few days has made me more aware of it than I’ve ever been in my life. I am all or nothing, and I don’t want to be that person anymore. One of the ways in which I don’t want to be that way is relationships. As I said yesterday, I get so caught up in how good it feels I avoid being honest, dealing with things on a real level, because I don’t want reality to interfere, but that’s so unhealthy.

Over the years I’ve learned the people I care about the most are the people I took a long time to get to know and understand. I refused to immediately care about them or trust them, but I liked them enough to keep them around and let myself get used to them. I understand who they are, flaws and all, and I know I can deal with them. That I’ve seen them make mistakes, seen them apologise, had them accept my apologies.

I didn’t like that I wasn’t acting like I had a fuck buddy or a friend, I was acting like I had a girlfriend. I felt trapped because I knew in my head this was all too fast. That I’d been here before, that I’d made these mistakes before. That I was getting so caught up in the physical and emotional I wasn’t being realistic. It’s like an addiction. I have an addictive personality. And worse, I hate myself when I do that. Which brings out the worst aspects of my personality. I stop thinking I don’t want to talk because I’ll mess things up, and instead I protect myself by saying I don’t have to talk. I turn cold. I go from on to off, and there’s nothing more terrible to do to a person than show them how much you care and then completely turn it off.

So I want to be proud of myself, that I didn’t kick her to the curb, that I continued one right move with another.. It’ll be awkward and weird, but I want to be her friend. I want to keep caring. I want to find out if she’s really worth keeping around in my life long term. And instead… I have to deal with this crushing guilt that I’ve made her feel unwanted, unloved, undesirable. That simply removing sex could mean more than everything else combined. But there’s two sides to everything, everyone has their own version of the truth, their own perspective, right? And while I feel we’re now moving in the right direction, she only feels she lost something, that she isn’t good enough. I wish I could make her understand that if that was the case, I wouldn’t be making the unbelievably hard (for me) effort to be there for her.

I guess, in the end, all I’m really trying to say is that I no longer want to be upset about any of this one way or the other. It’s so apparent to me that I have no clue, that I jump to conclusions and I let my bad feelings lead me down a bad path. If I don’t let myself feel terrible then I remember that I actually know what I’m doing in my life. That I have the experience and maturity to make the right decisions. I just have to make them and stick to them and not let what I know is irrational get the better of me.

I always get so caught up in the awesome parts. The being together, cuddling, sharing secrets. And there’s nothing wrong with that, except that if two people spend all their time talking about themselves, their problems, their issues, they neglect talking about who they are together. We avoid the hard parts. The wondering where things are going, if things even make sense. I know I do. And then when it’s over I realise there’s all these things to say but it’s too late. Should have said them before. Should have said them when it mattered.

me: what the fuck is wrong with me?

me: All I want to do is care about people, but all I want to do is not care about people.

me: I can’t just leave well enough alone. If there are no problems then I create them.

s: you are a bit of a drama queen :P

s: but seriously

s: i think you want to care about people to a certain extent and you’re more of an all or nothing kind of person

s: (black or white, as you say)

s: you haven’t learned or mastered the grey zone of caring

me: ain’t that the truth