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[aimorai]

Easter weekend wasn't as good as it could have been, but I'm not complaining (Ha! I just re-read this and I totally am complaining below). I've come to the conclusion that things are only as good as I make them be; and, try as I might to hide it, I'm not really the world's best person for initiative. I tend to go around thinking that if people want

Comments

[ladytear]

I will give you some advice, as a person who regards her privacy somewhere in the vicinity of the cylon God for holiness - there is only so much of a friendship which is about you. If you think of a friend that she should be obsessing about your reaction to her problem, well, that's one of her ways of dealing with the stress she's under - by throwing it at someone else and making stupid drama. The hands-off approach to trauma is a well-respected and common one and anyone who choses to kick shit about it is just doing it because they're wound tighter than thelineofeld's current hairstyle, so take it with a grain of salt because it's not really who they are. If they are, honestly and absolutely, offended by it, they're probably not friend material, because how much of a freak do you have to be to pretend that it's not an attitude of respect between friends? If you honestly think a friend's respectful distance is apathy then your friendship wasn't stable enough to survive anyway, so no big loss there.

You are clearly making a mistake by assigning yourself a family position. Once you pick a role you're easily shoehorned into it, both by their expectations and your own. Stop quantifying yourself. It's limiting and insulting to the human condition, despite how much pressure people are putting on you. If I want to wake up tomorrow as a kind and compassionate Christian, by god I will and fuck anybody who whines about it. The things that we actually can't change about ourselves are few and far between, so take the identity you like because you're going to be worm food soon enough and that's reason enough to decide that you yourself are the only person worth pleasing.

Seriously though . . . who the hell cares if your family likes you? Half my family are Republican Catholic Italians . . . so you can guess how much they like me, especially after I came out. Fuck 'em. Stop letting other people's opinions of you matter in any way, shape or form (unless they're responsible for your next potential promotion/raise. Then, kiss their ass.)

Your life gets so much better when you embrace your inner selfishness. Your dependence on other people's opinions is clearly not making you happy, so why cling to it? CHUCK IT. RUN NAKED IN THE STREETS. OR DON'T BECAUSE YOU CAN GET ARRESTED. RUN METAPHORICALLY NAKED IN THE STREETS. SLAP SOMEBODY WHO HAS IT COMING. KNIFE A HOBO. HOORAY FOR MINIMAL INVOLVEMENT IN SOCIALIZATION CONSTRUCTS.

[aimorai]

I think you've hit the nail on the head in a sideways manner.

First, I must jump to the defense of my friend and say that I don't think she was obsessing about my reaction to her problem. On the contrary, *I* had been obsessing about how to react all damned day and had projected my worry onto her reactions. I'm sure that reactions that had nothing whatsoever to do with me, I interpreted as such, because I am a horrible masochist and tend to think that people are thinking the worst of me at any point in time. It's ego-centric, in a way, for me to think that people are always reacting to what I do or don't do.

It's probably because deep down I realize that most of what I do doesn't matter, and that at the moment is a sad thought for me (though I can totally see how it could be a happy thought! I need to work on happier interpretations!).

I do appreciate and thank you for knowing that the hands-off "I'll help you/talk to you/be there for you if you ask, but I'm not going to unneccessarily make a big deal of it and embarass you" approach is one of utmost respect; it definately is for me. Most of my friends are big boys and girls, and if they can handle something on their own, who am I to try to run in and be the knight in shining armor? If they ask for help, so it is.

It is very, very, very, insanely difficult for me to NOT care about what other people think. By my very nature I'm a pleaser. I truly derive happiness from the fact that others around me are happy, and I will move heaven and earth if I think it might ease someone's pain (if I truly and deeply care about them, which is for fewer people than you might think).

I actually try to avoid selfishness... possibly because I'm the one that always seems to clean up the mess after selfish people come through and leave all the ends loose. I'm the one soothing the egos, calming the fights, cleaning up the harshness, etc. etc. etc. ---- and I'd hate to make someone else do that because it's not much fun.

And I know that it's probably so much better to just let them have at, let there be fights and mayhem and loose end and let the chips fall where they may and the dust settle, but I'm not a big fan of fighting either, so there you go.

I care if my family likes me. I do. I don't see how it's a bad thing other than the fact that it gives me headaches once in awhile. I think it's just another case of me projecting my insecurities onto them, in a way, looking at it the day after now that I'm over it. I don't think I'm very interesting, or exciting, and all that, and I interpret things through that view.

If I stopped worrying so much about whether I'm a damned perfect human being life might be easier.

Maybe I just need to grow a pair ;)