My goodness, my thoughts are a tangled web this week. Each thing has opened another door and I am officially exhausted of being a human with a nervous system.
I don’t know where to begin. Nothing is an obvious starting point. Actually, maybe there is an obvious place because I don’t think most of what I have felt this week would’ve come up without it. I have started dating again…sort of. I have allowed a man into my direct messages and begun feeling things I haven’t felt in a really long time. When I say it has opened many doors in my brain, you have no idea. I’m here running round trying to close them all whilst my subconscious is laughing manically as I chase after it… prick.
The issue is, I understand myself to death. And therefore I live in this cycle of feeling, analysing, understanding, feeling, until I’m left confused by what is ‘right’. Since when were emotions ‘correct’, Lucy? Trying to articulate all of this without rambling and just telling is extremely difficult – I’m too busy chasing my manic subconscious.
Talking to someone again has helped me recognise that a part of me I thought was long gone, is still very much alive, it has just been in hibernation. I have this really fun, playful and flirty side that has been enjoying getting to know somebody again. I have felt excitement and hope… Things I didn’t think I’d get to experience again, at least not for a really long time. I have no idea why but my brain has this timeline that I wouldn’t be feeling any of this until I’m thirty-two. What the fuck? It has been lovely rediscovering that side of me though.
However, it has also opened up another side of me… I don’t know how to date. I don’t know how to get to know someone. What is it supposed to look like? So alongside the excitement I have also felt: confusion, fear of liking someone, uncertainty about what to disclose, and dread of being rejected after becoming vulnerable.
I can understand where a feeling comes from, I can understand why I feel that way and what I should do with the information going forward (to some extent) but I don’t know how to just feel it and stop revisiting it.
With every feeling I experience, I have found myself questioning it – even the ‘positive’ ones. I put myself on trial, wondering whether it’s okay to feel that thing. Then I use it all as evidence that I have some sort of flaw: I’m too much, I feel too strongly, I have an anxious attachment style, I’m selfish, I’m being/feeling wrong, I’m not enough. It’s emotional whiplash. Can I not just feel an emotion and go ‘ok, cool. I recognise the feeling, it’s offering information, done’? No. Apparently I can’t.
Understanding myself has become a requirement of accepting myself. I am constantly asking myself ‘am I allowed to feel this?’ I take every possible argument and try to justify a reason to feel or not feel it… EVEN THOUGH I AM ALREADY FEELING IT. There’s this disconnect between my brain and nervous system and sadly, it always leads me back to the thought that ‘I am wrong.’
I observe everything happening inside myself so closely that I struggle to experience it without judgement. I use my own emotional self awareness as a reason to punish myself. It sucks so bad.
And honestly? I find it fucking funny. I have spent months (and a lot of money – thanks therapy x) reconnecting with myself – trying to understand my needs, recognising my feelings, rediscovering my personality and now that I’m experiencing those things… I’m interrogating myself for experiencing it. Apparently I need a bloody permission slip for every emotion, woohoo!
Still the wound is deeper than just putting myself on trial. I don’t trust myself to be myself even when somebody else might not approve. I ensure I judge myself harshly before anyone else can. I set myself up for disappointment, disapproval and rejection before they can. I try to make sure I cannot be misunderstood. I make sure that before I say something, I can argue every possible side so I can reject my own thoughts and feelings too if they do. If I understand everything about myself well enough, I can prevent myself from being hurt again.
I know why I do it, I know why I act like the judge, jury and executioner of myself. I spent years having my thoughts dismissed. I have spent years being misunderstood and having to justify myself out loud, so much so that it has now become an internal monologue. So now I can control how I come across, I can control the lack of understanding, I can make myself smaller before someone else can… because fuck that feeling of being made to feel small, right? I want to be able to control their reaction to me.
Understanding why I do something though doesn’t make it any easier to just exist without living in a constant state of trial of myself.
None of it has actually protected me either. You don’t say?
Understanding every possible outcome hasn’t stopped rejection. Criticising myself hasn’t stopped others from criticising me. And it certainly hasn’t stopped any of it from hurting any less. In fact… It has just made me feel everything before I needed to. I have felt rejection before someone has even rejected me – even if they don’t reject me. It seems I endeavour to hurt myself before anyone else can so I have the illusion I was the one who chose it. Fantastic x
I don’t want to wrap this up in a neat little bow and pretend I’m going to change and stop analysing myself because then I would be a liar. But I can’t help but wonder if the reason I feel ‘wrong’ is because I make myself feel wrong even when no one is actively questioning me. I wonder if there is going to be a moment where I finally believe that I can be wrong about something or misunderstood and that doesn’t make me wrong as a person.
Thank you for watching me spiral on the page. If you enjoyed it, subscribe for more chaos. If you didn’t, feel free to go away and think, “wtf was that?” 🙂
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