perimeters and tangents

Long time readers of the old blog (all 3 of you) might remember my friend Lisa (The Girl Who Saved Christmas, and the first person I actually loved). We spent a lot of time together in high school and a couple of years after. Some people thought we were a couple, and I hoped our relationship would get there, but I never made it out of the friend zone. Regardless of that, she was a great friend who supported me emotionally, and I think she truly cared about me at the time.

However, maybe things aren’t the way I thought they were at the time.

Lisa posted on Fakebook recently that her father had passed. There were many comments and loving words, including from people who were my friends at the time. But it seemed like they had much more fond memories about their experience with her family, memories that I had no idea about. I was there at the time, but I don’t recall interacting with her dad enough to have great conversations or sing Christmas carols or have thoughtful conversations. I thought Lisa was my best friend at the time, and that was my friend circle, but where are my memories? I was there, but it seems like I was on the outside.

The same thing happened with my other not-quite-a-girlfriend Lena. I liked her a lot, and I think she cared about me too. We were really good friends, but we were never going to make it as a couple because of our clashing personalities. There was a time when our friend group decided that she wasn’t going to be included anymore, and I went along with it. But she returned to the friend group, and I never did.

It seems the world of Goldville didn’t revolve around me. Lisa made that clear multiple times, and our friend group never reached out to me to invite me back in. This was at the same time I was drifting socially, looking for new friends at college, and trying to build new relationships. It was at this time when my future wife contacted me and we started dating, which kept me from being lonely while my former friends did their thing without me. Then everything changed in 1991, and I put Goldville in the rear view, leaving everyone behind and burying the memories.

There is a pattern here. It seems like I have frequently been on the perimeter of a circle of friends, but not really part of the group. That has been repeated in different places and at different times, but the common thread is my inability to understand how to fit in socially. What is it about me that makes it so difficult to form healthy attachments with people? Why don’t I care enough to maintain relationships, or try to throw away the very few people who love me? Why do I choose to withdraw from everyone or disappear from other people’s lives?

Maybe this is all connected to feelings of being unlovable or unworthy of people’s attention. From the moment I started grade school, I felt like I didn’t deserve for people to like for who I am, and that when I was no longer useful I would be ignored. I have a pervasive fear of rejection and abandonment, and I am always watching out for signs that people don’t want me in their life. If someone has any criticism or problem with me, or if I imagine reasons why they would want to abandon me, I make up reasons to throw them away before they can hurt me. There is a whole list of people I have discarded even though I cared about them very much.

These feelings affect every relationship I have today. I’m pretty sure I have work friends who accept me but would quickly forget about me when I’m finished with them. I feel like I try to sabotage my relationship with my wife because I’m so focused on my own inner turbulence that I fail to understand her unresolved issues and how they might trigger my fears. I constantly try to read the context of my interactions with people, and usually come to the wrong conclusions. I fail to communicate honestly to people, and instead leave myself imaginary side doors so I can bail out on a relationship whenever I perceive the slightest hint of rejection.

It becomes so tiring. I often question if it’s worth the effort to have any social contact. Maybe I just go off on my own tangent and move to a cabin in the woods, as long as it has gas heating, a decent internet connection, and a cat.

incomplete thoughts about plants

Some plants are tenacious. They not only persevere, but thrive despite adversity and hatred. They are the assholes of botany, and they will never go away. No matter how carefully you try to control or eliminate them, they keep finding ways to grow and spread their kind, whether relentlessly with rhizomes or opportunistically with seeds. Some people call them weeds, but they will win out eventually.

Some plants are fragile. They can suffer in various ways if conditions aren’t perfect. Whether hot or cold, wet or dry, sun or shade, it seems like you just can’t get them to grow successfully. These plants need constant support, encouragement, and the right feeding schedule, but too much attention can cause more harm than good. Such creatures are unable to be satisfied where they are, and are always searching in vain for the perfect niche environment.

Some people obsess over their plants. They smother their photosynthesizing family members like an overprotective parent, constantly trying to shape them or force them to fit their vision. They don’t seem to understand that most plants know how to grow, if not always in the way or place their gardeners expect.

Some people neglect their plants, yet expect that they will survive somehow. They liked or even loved their plants at first, but they expected to get more satisfaction from plant ownership, and maybe they wish they had a different plant that would grow into what they wanted. It takes a lot of effort to nourish plants and keep them growing for many years, and some people just aren’t good at making that effort. Maybe they are too busy trying survive themselves, or maybe they realize they should have learned to grow in their own way before trying to take care of a plant.

In the meantime, a plant doesn’t understand why it is neglected, but it knows it is suffering. It will do what it can to find moisture and nutrients, but leaving its container just isn’t possible sometimes. It is overlooked, taken for granted, and left to wither when other things become more important to its caretaker. Unable to become a different kind of plant, it can only hope its owner decides it is worth the effort to keep it alive.

throwing it all away

We’ve all heard the old saying: “Wherever you go, there you are.” Most people don’t give it much thought, but it’s been a theme in my life since I can remember. I have had a lot of challenges in the past; sometimes I was able to solve the problem, but other times I felt like everything was overwhelming and there was no way I could make things come out okay. When I get that feeling, I get the urge to discard things, to run away, and to change my life to avoid being hurt again. The escape can be physical or emotional; it can sometimes be immediate and hurried, or maybe a slower process over a period of time. But when you run away, it’s still your life, and all the things you try to leave behind are still following you when you turn around.

During grade school, instead of solving conflicts and problems with students and teachers, I managed to convince my A-mom to get me transferred to another elementary school in town. I decided to enroll in college out of state despite the financial and logistical problems because I wanted to leave my A-mom and my hometown behind, but ultimately I had to return, feeling defeated and depressed.

While in a relationship during college, I chose to run away by myself rather than stay and talk through a difficult time with my girlfriend, and she broke up with me. In another example, I was frustrated by the emotional barriers a girlfriend was creating, and I decided to throw away a meaningful relationship when a choice had to be made between two people, then the other girl I chose soon drifted out of my life.

While in my first job after college, I could have tried harder to resolve a conflict with a boss with a smothering personality, but instead I decided to leave a nice job that I enjoyed; this changed life for me and my family. Years later, when my uncontrolled bipolar was becoming more severe and I was having difficulty at a really good job, I convinced my family that leaving California and moving to a new life in Ohio was the right solution; the results were both positive and negative, but my mental problems remained.

I have had the desire to leave my family and run away by myself, usually when my mental health is at its worst. I have had deluded thoughts of simply disappearing someday by cashing out everything I can and taking a one-way trip somewhere. Sometimes I have a fantasy that I could become more involved with a friend and live in some faraway place. But in each of these scenarios, I know that I can’t leave my damaged psyche behind. Even if my friend were to run away with me to a cabin in the woods somewhere, I am pretty sure that my insecurities and personality flaws would surface soon, she would leave me behind to preserve her own sanity, and I would be completely alone and devastated.

The common threads in each of these examples include immaturity, emotional instability, delusional thinking, feeling overwhelmed, and looking for an escape route that didn’t involve work to improve the current situation. My mental illness deserves a lot of the blame, but I know I could have tried harder to handle things differently. I can’t count the number of times in life I have thought I could escape my problems and have a fresh start by changing things – different friends, different college, different job, different house, different state, different therapists or doctors. But throwing things and people away in the hopes of changing my life has only resulted in damaged relationships, hurt feelings, lost opportunities, financial difficulty, and lots of regret. You would think I have learned my lesson by now, but sometimes I’m not too sure.