Leaving
So.
Every one of my relationships comes with personal work that needs to be done. If I want the person I must do the work. To be with Angus I needed to learn to be kind. To be with Josh I needed to learn to allow a partner autonomy. To be with Tucker I need to learn patience, and to hold space for feelings even when I can't fix them.
To be with Avi with any depth I'll need to learn not to be avoidant. That's one I've been nibbling at the 3edges for years but I haven't ever faced it head-on. My coping mechanism has been either to observe when I'm becoming avoidant and then to leave, or to find someone more avoidant than I am.
Factors:
I need time and space to myself and have often felt guilty about that when I'm needed. I don't know what it looks like to balance someone else's need for me and my own needs or desires; I have no model for how that's well-handled. If someone has lots of other supports the pressure on me is eased so this might be a societal issue, but still it is a real issue in this society.
I like to really super focus on my people or things sometimes. I like to dive in and immerse myself in a person or an activity. My attention is seasonal, it comes in waves. So don't even want a consistent hour a day with everyone; I want weeks on and weeks off with maybe a little connecting thread of contact through the whole.
But also.
In NRE people are super inspired by me and their lives look different. Then the NRE fades and I can no longer make people's lives better by loving them a lot. I see people attribute wonderful things in their lives to me, wonderful developments, and then... they stop. And I feel useless, like a damaging influence, like I've failed, and I don't want to be part of it anymore. But I still love the person, so I remove my presence so it stops hurting them.
It's tough for me to hold space when my actions make people unhappy. I've only recently learned I will always make people unhappy when I rub my life up against theirs, and that the goal is not to never hurt anyone but is instead to hold space when I do, and to decide how to proceed. So I figure I'm poisonous to folks' lives because I hurt them, and I spend less time in their presence to hurt them less.
I can't hand over my bodily autonomy. It's a given in our society that if you love someone you'll grant them some level of control of, or exclusive access to, your body. I can't do that; I've been told to me face many times that means I don't really love people. I believe my love is broken, is flawed, and that it can't be good for anyone. So I withdraw my presence because I don't deserve to be near my partners.
I can't be there 100% of the time for anyone. I no longer trust my ability to know when I'm really needed. If there are folks who seem like they really really need me or else their lives will fall apart, I really want to be there for them but I am terrified of letting them down that one time they really really need me. So I control expectations by never being there when needed instead; that way I can never let anyone down.
I don't trust my ability to not hurt people. I learned to defend my needs, not with open vulnerability, but by tearing down any competing needs. I try so so hard not to do this but. I'm terrified of folks who won't push back against it, who won't say "that's unacceptable, please don't treat me that way". What if I spiral back to the way I grew up relating? So I give space from folks who are bottomlessly soft and accepting because I don't want to spend my life tearing them apart.
And then once I've started avoiding I feel bad about it and avoid more, because I don't deserve the presence of someone I love when I can't be forthright about my fears to them, and instead just leave them hanging.
And it spirals. It compounds.
I've done some work on parts of this.
I've been forthright in new relationships that I won't have constant availability and that I'm cyclic. I've worked, and always will work, on holding space when I cause pain. I've tried to select partners that don't believe my style of loving is innately flawed, and I get rid of ones who do so I don't reinforce those notions. I try to be clear when I need space, to own time apart as my own thing and not a punishment for my partners; I also try to be forthright about what kind of time I like to spend so folks know what to look forward to from me, not just what they won't get.
But.
It may be time to integrate it now. No, it's definitely time to integrate it now, regardless of what else happens.
These are deep old habits that hide behind avoidance and shame. There will need to be habit-breaking exercises, maybe a weekly assessment and check-in when I'm in unsettled relationships.
It's definitely something to dig my teeth into.
Every one of my relationships comes with personal work that needs to be done. If I want the person I must do the work. To be with Angus I needed to learn to be kind. To be with Josh I needed to learn to allow a partner autonomy. To be with Tucker I need to learn patience, and to hold space for feelings even when I can't fix them.
To be with Avi with any depth I'll need to learn not to be avoidant. That's one I've been nibbling at the 3edges for years but I haven't ever faced it head-on. My coping mechanism has been either to observe when I'm becoming avoidant and then to leave, or to find someone more avoidant than I am.
Factors:
I need time and space to myself and have often felt guilty about that when I'm needed. I don't know what it looks like to balance someone else's need for me and my own needs or desires; I have no model for how that's well-handled. If someone has lots of other supports the pressure on me is eased so this might be a societal issue, but still it is a real issue in this society.
I like to really super focus on my people or things sometimes. I like to dive in and immerse myself in a person or an activity. My attention is seasonal, it comes in waves. So don't even want a consistent hour a day with everyone; I want weeks on and weeks off with maybe a little connecting thread of contact through the whole.
But also.
In NRE people are super inspired by me and their lives look different. Then the NRE fades and I can no longer make people's lives better by loving them a lot. I see people attribute wonderful things in their lives to me, wonderful developments, and then... they stop. And I feel useless, like a damaging influence, like I've failed, and I don't want to be part of it anymore. But I still love the person, so I remove my presence so it stops hurting them.
It's tough for me to hold space when my actions make people unhappy. I've only recently learned I will always make people unhappy when I rub my life up against theirs, and that the goal is not to never hurt anyone but is instead to hold space when I do, and to decide how to proceed. So I figure I'm poisonous to folks' lives because I hurt them, and I spend less time in their presence to hurt them less.
I can't hand over my bodily autonomy. It's a given in our society that if you love someone you'll grant them some level of control of, or exclusive access to, your body. I can't do that; I've been told to me face many times that means I don't really love people. I believe my love is broken, is flawed, and that it can't be good for anyone. So I withdraw my presence because I don't deserve to be near my partners.
I can't be there 100% of the time for anyone. I no longer trust my ability to know when I'm really needed. If there are folks who seem like they really really need me or else their lives will fall apart, I really want to be there for them but I am terrified of letting them down that one time they really really need me. So I control expectations by never being there when needed instead; that way I can never let anyone down.
I don't trust my ability to not hurt people. I learned to defend my needs, not with open vulnerability, but by tearing down any competing needs. I try so so hard not to do this but. I'm terrified of folks who won't push back against it, who won't say "that's unacceptable, please don't treat me that way". What if I spiral back to the way I grew up relating? So I give space from folks who are bottomlessly soft and accepting because I don't want to spend my life tearing them apart.
And then once I've started avoiding I feel bad about it and avoid more, because I don't deserve the presence of someone I love when I can't be forthright about my fears to them, and instead just leave them hanging.
And it spirals. It compounds.
I've done some work on parts of this.
I've been forthright in new relationships that I won't have constant availability and that I'm cyclic. I've worked, and always will work, on holding space when I cause pain. I've tried to select partners that don't believe my style of loving is innately flawed, and I get rid of ones who do so I don't reinforce those notions. I try to be clear when I need space, to own time apart as my own thing and not a punishment for my partners; I also try to be forthright about what kind of time I like to spend so folks know what to look forward to from me, not just what they won't get.
But.
It may be time to integrate it now. No, it's definitely time to integrate it now, regardless of what else happens.
These are deep old habits that hide behind avoidance and shame. There will need to be habit-breaking exercises, maybe a weekly assessment and check-in when I'm in unsettled relationships.
It's definitely something to dig my teeth into.