(no subject)
It's easy to tell if you're trying to avoid thinking about something. You do silly things that don't need doing. Like rearranging the clothing in your dresser. Or hunting imaginary dust bunnies. Or arranging your pencils in the order of how often you use them, and then rearrange them to where the infrequently used ones are at the front. Or remake your bed for the eighteenth time. Or clean your bathroom three times in a row before realizing that if you clean it once more, the sun will blind you with the reflection.
But slowly, the thing you're trying to avoid comes creeping to the forefront of your mind. It happens when a song reminds you of the catalyst you're trying to ignore. The lyrics make you think of the events you want to forget. The person you want to forget. And then you find yourself thinking only of that. And you don't sleep because of it. Because you're to busy trying to contemplate the uncontemplateable (if that's not a word, it is now). Or trying to shove it back in the corner that you wanted it to stay in.
The only problem with that is that it's not content to stay there and wait for you to decide that it's time to think about it. It wants to be picked apart, analyzed, examined. The tools to clearly do so, to formulate the correct outlook, you probably don't have them. But the avoidant doesn't care. It wants you to muddle through it. So, you have to.
But therein lies the problem. You don't have the tools so you can't formulate the outlook that the avoidant wants you to form. Therefore, it causes you pain and grief. And you go on avoiding it. And it gets worse before it gets better.
Even when it's getting better, you still hurt thinking about it. You get mad more easily, take offence at things that otherwise, when you actually have the avoidant manuvered into the corner, wouldn't make you mad. You want to be alone when you have people around you. But at the same time, you don't want them to leave you alone. Because then you have to hear your own thoughts. And the thing you don't want to think about is always there, whispering, trying to snare your attention, make you recognize it. You try to be normal, but it won't let you. People who know you well enough want you to talk about it and you lash out. And when you want to be alone, they won't let you be. And that makes you mad, causing you to strike out again in whatever way presents itself first.
But after time, you grow to accept that there will always be a voice trying to draw your attention to it. And you'll come to acknowledge it, and not ignore it which makes it easier to deal with. There will always be rough spots, hard days, and the like, but you become accustomed to it.
Hopefully that last bit will happen soon. Seven years is a long time to hurt.
But slowly, the thing you're trying to avoid comes creeping to the forefront of your mind. It happens when a song reminds you of the catalyst you're trying to ignore. The lyrics make you think of the events you want to forget. The person you want to forget. And then you find yourself thinking only of that. And you don't sleep because of it. Because you're to busy trying to contemplate the uncontemplateable (if that's not a word, it is now). Or trying to shove it back in the corner that you wanted it to stay in.
The only problem with that is that it's not content to stay there and wait for you to decide that it's time to think about it. It wants to be picked apart, analyzed, examined. The tools to clearly do so, to formulate the correct outlook, you probably don't have them. But the avoidant doesn't care. It wants you to muddle through it. So, you have to.
But therein lies the problem. You don't have the tools so you can't formulate the outlook that the avoidant wants you to form. Therefore, it causes you pain and grief. And you go on avoiding it. And it gets worse before it gets better.
Even when it's getting better, you still hurt thinking about it. You get mad more easily, take offence at things that otherwise, when you actually have the avoidant manuvered into the corner, wouldn't make you mad. You want to be alone when you have people around you. But at the same time, you don't want them to leave you alone. Because then you have to hear your own thoughts. And the thing you don't want to think about is always there, whispering, trying to snare your attention, make you recognize it. You try to be normal, but it won't let you. People who know you well enough want you to talk about it and you lash out. And when you want to be alone, they won't let you be. And that makes you mad, causing you to strike out again in whatever way presents itself first.
But after time, you grow to accept that there will always be a voice trying to draw your attention to it. And you'll come to acknowledge it, and not ignore it which makes it easier to deal with. There will always be rough spots, hard days, and the like, but you become accustomed to it.
Hopefully that last bit will happen soon. Seven years is a long time to hurt.