intimacy is scary
on struggling with relationships
i’ve never really been alone a day in my life. i’ve literally always had my twin with me in some way — i had to learn how to get along with another person, how to share, how to be patient from the jump. you’d think i’d be better at connecting with other people because of it; the truth is, letting myself have that closeness and letting someone else get close to me is fucking terrifying. depending on the scenario, it’s almost enough to make me shut down. i still have a tendency to feel like an awkward teenager on the inside.
anxiety and PTSD are so fucking stupid. ooh, being around people is so0o0o scary, even if they’re your friends! you have to have your guard up because you don’t want to get hurt! don’t trust them too quick, you never know what’s coming! you don’t know how they’ll react if you get all deep or say something personal. you’ve been seriously hurt before, who’s to say this person you really like won’t hurt you too? what if they secretly hate you too?
i pull myself away before i can get too attached, even though i really don’t want to. i’m an introvert but i don’t hate people. i don’t want to be alone all the time. i don’t want to have shallow, surface level relationships. i don’t want them to be purely circumstantial. i don’t want things to feel so… temporary and fragile. i don’t want to have to constantly question where i stand, if the other person likes me as much as i think they do or as much as i like them. i know, i’m really showing how mentally ill and messy i am.
i’m not sure i even know what a stable, consistent, equal friendship feels like. i spent so long letting myself be made to feel unimportant, like everything i liked was stupid, like i should just put up with being made fun of, and being left out — once very literally, for hours on their front stoop because i didn’t want to tire myself out but i had nowhere else to go — that my perspective is definitely warped. i was taken for granted, because obviously i was too much of a loser and i’d never want to cut ties and try to find other friends, even if i didn’t feel seen or cared about. it’s been years and i still worry everyone will eventually see me as a burden and get tired of me. there’s a part of me that always feels like i’m trying too hard and pushing in where i’m not wanted.
in all honesty, i’m low key jealous of people with solid groups of female friends. having more than a couple people i can confide in, have a group chat with, rely on to be there for me, who actually want to spend time with me… i feel like i missed out on learning what’s “normal” and what’s not when it comes to friendship and social interaction. i don’t really know how to be casual — not in a weird way, more in the sense of like, needing to know that people will accept the parts of my disability that aren’t easy to see, be apart of, or work through in the moment. i feel too intense, too involved, too much, too desperate.
i’m not writing this for pity. i’m writing this because it’s fucking hard. there are things i can write about that feel too vulnerable to say in face to face conversation. i’m already emotional enough as it is before opening myself up. i don’t say it or act like it enough, but i do care… like, a lot. like to the extent that sometimes i bring myself to tears thinking about how much i love people who are in my life now, how amazing i think they are, how much i want to be like them (again, not in a weird way). there are some people i wish i was still close to, or who i wish i could get closer to, but i feel like it’d be weird to just try again out of nowhere.
i know this is all a risk, and a risk i’d really regret not taking — it just feels impossibly huge. because as cringe as it might seem, aren’t relationships with other people what this is all for?