I'm a Loser, baby...

No one wants to be told they're an asshole. They don't want to be told why I think they are an asshole. If a conversation gets to the point where I feel that I have to communicate that point, the conversation is long over.

I don't usually intend to tell people I think they are an asshole. There are exceptions, of course, but I don't like to throw the word around.

Actually, I don't think I tell people much at all. I am a go along, to get along kind of person. It isn't that I don't engage in conflict, I do. I just tend to be passive aggressive about it. Again, it's not intentional, but it is what I learned.

I am trying to be more forthright. It's mostly just getting me into fights. In yesterday's post, I described what happened when I told a friend that due to health issues, I couldn't be as supportive as I had been in the past. They decided that I was no longer safe to spend time with. I told my household that going back to work after a month off was going to be an adjustment, last night there was a fight because I there was no dinner at 7:30 and I wasn't up to making any.

I had a friend tell me that I should just be me, all personality and chutzpah. However, I have been told so many times to quiet down, to be less, to stop stealing attention, that I don't even know what the authentic me looks like anymore. Mostly I just figure that I should withdraw back into the corner and apologize for making a spectacle of myself.

So this is my problem, I am supposed to go through my feelings, finding evidence that my fears (that I am a selfish attention hog and that nobody wants me around) are unfounded. I can't. I get so caught up in the evidence that supports "Rachel is a selfish attention hog", I can't see the evidence that says otherwise.

As is very obvious to anyone who has been reading this blog, I recently ended a relationship (actually, I was dumped). One of the consistent complaints that my ex put forward was that I could only see the negative, no matter how hard he tried to show me otherwise.

He's right, I only do see the negative. I can tell you all the reasons I feel like he doesn't care for me . It's so bad that I asked that we go cold turkey and just not talk or communicate. I just *sigh* and pat myself on the back because it's been over a week since we've seen each other, nearly a week since we last communicated. Yay, I can say that I didn't break my promise for a whole week, woo hoo!  What I have actually done is withdraw into a corner and stopped bothering him. I still think that he stopped caring for me, so staying away from him is justified. No one wants an clingy ex around. Since he is respecting my request for silence (because I asked him to) it just proves my point, he didn't want me around anyway. (I don't actually know what he thinks, since he tells me that he likes me and then his actions seem to show otherwise and then when I say something, he just tells me that all I see is the negative, and that's why we don't talk anymore.)

I haven't solved anything. I still think as negatively about that relationship as I did a week ago or a month ago. No, actually I would say that my outlook is even more negative, because all I have is my own juices to stew in (as I did yesterday). There's nothing to counter the narrative, just more evidence that I was right.

Overall, I believe I am feeling better. I am managing my work load. I am trying to talk to people, planning to do things. I am working on being me. But I am stymied by this idea that people will like me for being just who I am. That doesn't seem to be true, in fact most of my evidence suggests otherwise.

I have plans for the weekend, but since most of them require me to go my myself, I doubt I will end up doing anything. I was going to meet up with someone on Monday and I cancelled on them today because I could only see the possibility for a negative outcome. I feel like I am still watching life pass me by, convinced that no one really wants me around.

I am not sure how books or even therapy is supposed to break 45 years of being told "not good enough". Trying has pretty much made things worse and I don't feel like I am making any progress. Not making progress makes me feel like more of a failure, and so I end up looking at my weekend and simply dreading it.

And then I write it down and feel so damn pathetic that I don't want to admit it, because who wants to read this crap?

So how do I find this "alternative" evidence.  Short of getting Kellyann Conway to spin for me, I feel like all this work has done is to show me that no matter what I do, people are going to be disappointed in me.