I noticed a man today.
I didn’t notice that he was particularly attractive, though I suppose he was. He wasn’t the usual type that would catch my eye. What piqued my interest was that he seemed so nice. He seemed like a genuine person. He spoke intelligently and his smile was kind.
I know frickin’ lock up my chastity belt and throw away the key, I’m an animal.
I didn’t think much on it until later when he crossed my mind again. To put it honestly, I was thrilled some other dude was crossing my mind at all! “Someone new!” My mind immediately lit up and started to reach. And that’s when I had to stop it there.
It felt quite similar to when my hands would reach for that first shot of whiskey at the end (beginning,cough) of the day. It was an enticing prospect of soothing the hurt I’ve been in.
So I’m not ready. Obviously. I knew that when I cried getting ready and cried on my way home from work. Tell me something I dont know, brain.
But then I did ask myself what I didn’t know. What does it feel like to be interested in someone as a healthy minded person? I always do everything to the extreme. I put my whole ass, both cheeks, in everything I do. This isn’t healthy in relationships.
It’s all borrowed worry. I still have a lot to heal before I could be a decent partner to someone. I don’t want to shoulder my pain on someone else. I’ve tried that before with other kind men and I chewed them up and spit them back out. I’m sure I left them with their own trauma and myself with buckets of shame.
Besides, I’m still building my True Self and another person in the mix would only confuse that. I’m too easily swayed. For being such an aggressive person, I need to explore why my backbone becomes jelly in a relationship. Why would I throw myself into someone else when I feel that I am overall a confident person?
I think the man I noticed is progress. One, because I noticed him at all. And two, because of why. I’ve always gone after the loudest guy in the room. The big personality. If I want to really annoy myself I can probably break it down to both of my Dads were the same way. Boisterous, attention grabbing. They were both alcoholics. One dead before forty, the other before sixty. Cool guys don’t make it to their sixties. Neither were shiny behind closed doors.
I idolized my Real Dad. I wanted to be just like him. He loved hunting and fishing so I did too. (I was always relieved he never took me on that hunting trip as the concept actually terrified me.) I played basketball because he told me I could be in the WNBA if I wanted! (I made one basket all season). We would play make believe games and find crawfish in the creek. Once, I lost my jelly shoe in the lake and he scuba’d down to find it. I wanted to be just like him, I did everything he did. There was never any doubt in my mind that he loved me. He put me on a pedestal. He might not have shown up a time or two but he showered me with adoration and quality time when he did.
I think this would have all just been normal parent idolization if it weren’t for the events that happened after.
My Mom and Dad split up briefly when I was in the third grade. We moved and I was able to catch the bus at my Real Dad’s house. At first it was fine.
But then he started drinking again. I would come home from school and find him passed out in the backyard. Once I heard a crash as he had passed out in the kitchen where he stood. I stepped in broken glass from the drinks he would drop and be unable to clean up. I never liked vodka because I accidentally drank a screwdriver that had been left on the coffee table. I never told my Mom it was happening and I don’t know why. Maybe I thought she had enough to deal with, maybe I just didn’t think much of it.
But when she found out, I was ripped out and never went back. I was nine. It was the 4th grade Spring Fling and I was fucking PUMPED. I had my outfit planned out, I knew what I was going to say to the boy I had been crushing on all year. It was going to be my moment.
And it was. Until my Real Dad came to pick me up. I was talking to a friend from class with my back to the door when I saw him furrow his brow in confusion. When I turned to investigate I found it was my Real Dad stumbling over to me. He was disheveled, eyes glassy. I could smell him. I hate that smell. I turned back to my friend, only to see him backing away, his expression turning to what was unmistakably pity.
I went to the car where his girlfriend was waiting. I hated that woman. She drove to pick up food and while my Real Dad went inside to pick it up I ripped into her. I screamed at her how much I hated her. It was her fault. She had ruined my entire night for sending him in there. There was something wrong with her! When we returned to her home, I heard her crying to her youngest child on the couch about how she could never make anyone happy. I was pilfering through the food I had refused to eat in the kitchen and my stomach soured. I remember feeling nothing but sheer disgust and hatred for her. I found her pathetic and weak. These are the first all encompassing adult level emotions I can remember feeling.
Finally, I called my Mom.
My Real Dad died when I was sixteen. I pretty much just ignored that it happened. I haven’t had any emotions tied to these events other than the Spring Fling and have always felt like an imposter when I would try. I’m sure thats a psychiatrists wet dream. It’s still buried. I can rattle this story off to you, rehearsed like its nothing, until you get to the Spring Fling. My face still crumples in disgust even typing it.
I’m going to put a big fat Bingo on it being because I could see someone’s perception of me shift in real time when that kid looked at me with pity. It made me feel ashamed of my Real Dad. That was so fucking uncomfortable for me at nine years old that my brain chose to feel nothing instead. I could not mentally handle kicking him off that pedestal. I hated the girlfriend instead. It was easier to face, she meant nothing to me.
I would even put some merit on that being the core memory of when my obsession with controlling peoples perceptions of me was founded. I didn’t want to be looked at with pity ever again. It made me feel ashamed of me. Since my nine year old brain couldn’t handle the processing of being ashamed of Real Dad, it internalized that two fold onto myself. I would also say that the kid’s reaction was most likely my first sense that something in this situation was deeply wrong, I never hesitated to call my Mom again. I didn’t really like my Real Dad anymore. I convinced myself that pedestal had never existed.
All of my adolescent relationships were tumultuous. I was desperately trying to be loved. I needed that attention and adoration I was now lacking. When I found it with my first high school boyfriend, I chewed him up and spit him back out. I was horrible to him even though he was so kind to me.
This all sounds a lot like I was trying to shoulder my pain on someone else. I was using them to soothe the hurts I didn’t even know were there. It’s almost like these patterns have been here my entire life and I couldn’t see them.
It seems to me that after I removed my Real Dad from his pedestal, I have only been trying desperately to find his replacement. I deeply want someone to idolize and in turn, idolize me the same. But, if someone puts me on the pedestal I want, I expect them to turn around and leave me there. So I have mentally lashed out and made myself hate them before they do. It’s easier to take myself down with dignity than to be removed. I overthink their actions, I read too much meaning into their words. I’m on vigilant duty all the time. In turn, I will ignore the things I shouldn’t to keep them on their own pedestal while simultaneously preparing to push them off it.
Well shoooooee, turns out I do have abandonment issues!
It’s time to go from the bottom up, I haven’t processed the deep roots. The vines of these relationship patterns will continue to weave themselves into all aspects of my life until they are dug up, inspected, and planted in new soil to grow somewhere with a fresh start.
I can learn all these things about myself as I explore the depths of my subconscious but it doesn’t mean I’ve healed them or integrated them. They’re still just on the surface. I’ve only just pulled these feelings and dark thoughts, kicking and screaming, out from the dirt. I know the why. Now I need to know the what the hell to do with it. How do I replant these vines in a way that they won’t continue to grow wild, invading everything and choking out the beauty around them?
The ability to know that I wasn’t ready to show interest in a new man and breaking the cycle of using someone to soothe my hurts was the first accomplishment. Truly asking myself what I don’t know, pulling out the core memories I have surrounding my Real Dad and being able to see that I’ve internalized them into all of my relationships was the next. Examining the pedestals I’ve put people on, the ones I’ve allowed myself to be on, and my mental gymnastics to simultaneously keep them upright while knocking them down motivates me to pull up the garden completely.
When spring comes and it’s time to replant, I know they will always grow. They have roots, you see, they’re a part of the garden. It will be up to me to figure out how to prune them back so that the flowers I place around them can turn their face to the sun and thrive.
We’re fucking getting somewhere, dawg.
