emotional abuse
- I will recognize that when I’m resentful or angry, I’m really hurt, anxious, or uncomfortable, that you are most likely hurt, anxious, or uncomfortable, too.
- I will care when you are hurt, anxious, or uncomfortable.
- I will try hard to heal my hurt, regulate my anxiety, and improve my discomfort, and I will support your efforts to do the same.
- I will always treat you with value and respect, even when I disagree with you or do not like your behavior.
- I will always appreciate the assets and qualities you bring to
our relationshipus. - I will not criticize or ignore you.
- I will not purposefully talk over you.
- I will not control, manipulate, coerce, threaten, or intimidate you or purposefully make you feel bad in any way.
- I will try hard to discover and correct blind spots about my behavior.
- I will try hard to understand your perspective and sympathize with your feelings, especially when I disagree with you.
- I will stay true to my deepest values.
- I will be the best person I can be, for you.
“what I need to do, is fuck up so badly that I can’t save myself”
i don’t know which is worse. i can’t tell if it’s the sudden realisation that all the failures in my life - from failing in school, failing to be the perfect daughter, failing to be that sort of girlfriend, failing to be that kind of a love - it’s my own fault. always was, always has been.
the people in my life have always cushioned this eventual blow of realisation. ‘it’s not your fault, they fucked it up.’, ‘he was never there!’, ‘you were all kinds of wrong together anyway.’, ‘he should have given you what you deserve.’ - but the thing is, i’ve known, but i believed them anyway. i believed them because they love me and they truly believe that i’ve not done anything to ask for the things that have happened - but i have.
i’ve been to uni, i’ve taken the classes, i’ve dealt with the underpinings of the dirtiest and most twisted minds - self-fulfilling prophecies.
i am, in very essence, the epitome of a self-fulfilling prophecy.
you don’t attempt suicide at age 10, searching for an exit without realising by age 15 that everything that has happened up till then, was a by-product of your own actions.
i am needy, i am possessive, and i am jealous. always have been, and it is very depressing to realise that i always will be.
i spent all of last night willing for sleep to wash over me. i spent so many nights before willing myself out of slumber, because i was constantly plagued by nightmares. nightmares that felt so real, it was almost impossible that it was nothing but a dream. but you see, last night - i wanted more than anything to descend into sleep, because the nightmare, well, it was real. i needed to escape.
i slept and i slept, and i woke up time and time again, forcing myself to return to that nice abyss with your shirt wrapped around me, with your scent still lingering - in my dreams, the good ones anyway, we’re always happy. even the nightmares, we’re always happy, up until something terrible happens. we fight, we argue, we’ll probably always have one of these nights, for as long as.. this will last. but the thing is, we’ve always been happy. and i keep fucking it up and tearing it apart. i need to stop.
i need to stop being needy, and stop being on an emotional rollercoaster. stop pretending to give ultimatums i can’t mean. stop making this one time the end all, when i know it’s nothing close to it.
you see, despite everything else, despite the three hours of sobbing infront of a sitcom (which is silly, even in retrospect), i wasn’t all that afraid. because i know that you love me. which is a silly thing, despite everything i’ve done. i was afraid, because of all the other uncertainties - where do we go from here? will we recover from this? will this just be another one of those fights, or the one that tears us apart? but the thing is, i know you love me. and i was willing to bank on that, on some blind hope, on some blind trust, that because you love me, at the very least, when you’re ready, when you’re okay, when it’s time for you - you’d come out of hiding and tell me what’s wrong. and hopefully, tell me that you love me, all the same.
that’s how i fell asleep.
i kept replaying all the wonderful moments we’ve had, and i wondered what the fuck was so fundamentally wrong with me that i could only appreciate it when i have a certain fear of losing the possibility of any future?
but i’m going to try.
i’ve rarely been the person to write what i feel when i’m happy - it’s easier to just sit there and bask, as compared to trying to articulate all the awesome things that can’t really be articulated. i’ve tried, but ‘tremendously happy’ and ‘bliss’ seems to be my only vocabulary when it comes to you. but i seem to possess a profound talent of analysing everything when i’m hurt, or upset, or downright emotional. i’ve got backlogs of 6 years worth, and not one of them are happy things. it’s true what they say, ‘no art comes from happiness’.
but i’m going to try.
because i i love you, because i love you, because i love you.
so i have to try.
