I'm Forcing Myself Into What You've Already Been Through

I had a hard conversation the other night with my sister. It eventually boiled down to setting boundaries because the experience she was living through was too heavy for me in the same place to carry with her. I hate the line of thinking that tells me it's because I've sorted through as much of that as I can right now and the rest will have to wait for me to catch it. I told her to maybe speak to a therapist. Then she told me that "our therapists can't understand us because it's our family." Well, that's exactly why you should talk to a therapist about these things. That whole objective opinion thing is powerful. I also balked hard at her telling me that my experience and hers were the same. After she explained to me how our experiences were not at all the same. Make up your mind, please. Can anyone around me just make up their own damn mind?

Where she is — I've been there. I've left that. The feeling that you have to know why. Expecting someone who hurt you to explain it. That's the thing though, you can't expect anything of anyone. It's a one-way trip to utter disappointment and disillusionment and living in your head, driving yourself insane. I have had so much enough of that for several lifetimes. I prefer to get better. To do the work and work through and come out on the other side better.

So I placed a boundary. I said I couldn't talk about this. And she pressed. And I repeated myself. And she argued and told me why I was wrong. I repeated myself. And she pushed past that boundary again. She never understood a single boundary in her life. I finally was feeling so disregulated that I had to stop or explode. I can't do that anymore. That is not who I am. I will not project my trauma and pain on other people. It hurts them and it hurts me and I gave that up years ago. And so I told her that I cannot have this conversation and that I love her and that I was going to hang up. And then I did. And then I cried real good. And she text bombed me, like she does. And I didn't ignore her, I just told her exactly how I was feeling and that I needed to work through it. I won't do what she hasn't gotten to in her journey. I don't want to hurt people because I hurt. 

So during all of this, I realized that she is the person in my life I think I've loved the hardest for the longest. And I think that's why she wrecks me the way she does. The way she always has. The reason boundaries are so hard. We loved each other before boundaries. Not like before we learned them, but before we could even know what they meant. And that makes us so vulnerable to each other. But it's also the reason she had to be the one I had to start with when it comes to working on boundaries. The one I had to place the most firm ones. I know that if I ever get them right with her, I'll never struggle with them again with others. I hate that she's the one who has to be on the other end of my learning. But honestly, I've been on the other end of hers too. And I hope all of my relationships will be that way. I want learning as part of them. That part is hard too. Learning hurts. Love hurts. We'll fuck it up. We have to to get better. And I think that's also important for relationships. If you aren't getting better, how are you getting stronger together?

And then it dawned on me. If I really love someone, I have to set boundaries. Love isn't sacrificing yourself. Love is showing who you are and asking someone to love you anyway. And that is hard as fuck. That is the real vulnerability. And loving someone back is doing the same. Respecting boundaries and loving someone anyway. That's the way love has to be unselfish. I always said my love was fierce. And it is. I need to learn that my love can't be voracious. It has to be satisfied. And that I cannot count on someone else to satisfy that. I have to learn that part myself. I'm getting there. 

I understand "I don't feel that way about you. So let's not do that." And I understand "I do feel that way about you. Let us make this a thing." What I do not understand is "I love you and I adore you and I appreciate you and your presence makes me happier and I can't stay away from you but I can't make a thing of this."

I don't understand the kinda sappy sticky note left one day when I had a moment of clarity that's stuck to the inside of a laptop, right beside a hand where it must be looked at every day, and then to make no effort.

I don't understand why I feel hidden. I don't understand waiting around a place knowing I'll be there and hiding me.

Am I your friend (then stop hiding me). Am I a love interest (then stop hiding me). Is this purely professional (then keep your texts and your music and your hands off me).

And I'm not asking much. Just like, don't bang anything that walks and make the bare minimum effort. Do what you say you will. Stop being around just enough to make sure that no one else can be. I will not be an option. I'm getting nothing and that is not enough and I can't expect anyone to do what I want because that's not how people work. So I have to disengage.

Sometimes boundaries feel like detox. This round is probably most like that than any I've ever been through. Because I believe all the components are there. And we have to see each other at least occasionally. And I've asked for boundaries. And they've been blown through. This love is selfish and I have to let it go.

None of the usual, healthy things I love to self-soothe are working. I took the full dose of my anti-anxiety medication. I needed it today. I've been taking a half dose. But I feel like I'm going to crawl out of my skin with panic today and I will not self-medicate this. I deserve better than that too and for once, I'm going to give my body and my mind what it deserves. Clarity and time. I will do a little housework and I will go to the gym this evening. All of that exercise dopamine sure does kill the urge to kill the urge. I'll go to the grocery store and if I still can't not crawl out of my skin, I'll paint. I'm going to be okay.

Wow, this is the first time I've managed to articulate this so well. We came together to teach each other. And boy, have I learned. So I wait. And it won't be long. I'm not impatient, I just know what a lost cause looks like. Make any effort. Show me like you once said you would. And I said you wouldn't. I knew then. I've proven who I am. Exactly as I said I'd be. And this, right here, is one more example. I promised never to force anything. I promised to be patient as long as I could. That line is the moment that it makes me feel like I feel right now.

DT until it doesn't make me sick anymore. I let the things go that can wait. I am kind to myself. I forgive myself. I eat if I can. I sleep if I can. I burn off what hurts if I can. I give myself a drop of the grace I give everyone I love. Because I love myself. I have such a good and healthy support system right now. People who make me feel accepted and seen and loved anyway. The kind who make me stronger because they believe in me. And not because they want to use all that I am to get what they need. Now that's the real thing. And I'll chase that and be there for that and give all I've got to those loves.