"Call my name or walk on by..."

I was talking to a long distance friend recently. We discussed loyalty and it got me to thinking. I consider myself loyal, sometimes beyond reason. I can be a really bitter and sarcastic person, despite that, I tend to look for the best in people. Don't get me wrong, I can say awful things. I can certainly hold a grudge (I learned from my mother.) However, I also know that I have forgiven many "wrongs". I don't benefit from carrying a grudge. I am trying to get better about letting them go.

I forgave one of my best friends in high school for going to prom and dating the boy who dumped me at a dance we were all at. I forgave another friend when he refused to see me while he was home on leave. People screw up. I don't always have all the information. Life sometimes hurts, that's just the way of the world.

Last night I was talking to my husband about this idea of loyalty. Bless him, he listened to my rambling and I got to a point that helped me. About 10 years ago, a friend disappeared on me for fourteen months. They did not answer my phone calls, my texts, my e-mails, nothing. It was heartbreaking. It wasn't like I was contacting the friend daily. After a couple of days of no answers, I had given up. It was just that I worried and fussed about them.

I whined and pined until a friend of mine grabbed me by the shoulders and told me to just fucking let the person go. (Everyone needs friends who are willing to grab them by the shoulders and speak the hard truth.) I did. I just tried to push my feelings aside and let the whole mess go.

I am happy to say that fourteen months later, when I really needed them, they were able to come back into my life. I have never regretted allowing them back. Here's the thing, I had known this person for maybe two months when they disappeared on me. They had done nothing to earn that level of understanding or loyalty from me. I simply gave it. I don't even know why, it was just the right thing to do.

A few weeks ago, I told DA that I couldn't interact with him and that I would contact him when I felt able to do so, if ever. In the original version of my message, I asked for 2 months.  As I was editing, I realized that 2 months was an arbitrary amount and left things indefinite in the message I sent DA. If I am ever able to interact with him, it will be on my time, at my speed. I don't need to hold myself to any sort of emotional deadline. I still felt like I should at least say something when that two month mark rolled around.

That two month mark is fast approaching and I have been agonizing about what to say,. Given that I narrowed my choices to "maybe never" and "never", I am not sure why it was such an issue, it just seemed important to say something by the 2 months mark. While talking with my husband, I realized I don't have to say anything and the deadline is purely self-imposed.

I also realized that I was coming up against my own feelings about loyalty. I don't give my loyalty because it's earned or merited. I give it because of who I am. That doesn't mean I want to welcome DA back with open arms. He caused me a great deal of pain. I don't want DA in my life right now. Maybe that will change, maybe it won't. However, I know that I will likely forgive him, someday. Whether I trust him again, want him in my life or call him anything other than ex is another matter, but I will forgive him. If I can forgive H1 and H2, if I can forgive the friend who ghosted me for 14 months, I can forgive DA.

I realized last night that forgive does not mean forget. I know that my emotional stability is better without DA and his crap. I also know that he is my friend and he stood with me when I needed him. It may be that DA becomes like the ex I saw a couple of weeks back and we are never able to get past his current partner or the life choices he made. It might be different in fourteen months or some other point in the future, when I am able to see his actions as part of a larger picture and reconsider whether or not I want him in my life.

So the only thing I have to decide is if I am willing to open up communication again. I told DA that I couldn't talk to him until I wasn't so angry. I haven't heard a peep from him since. I imagine that I won't hear anything unless there is an emergency or I invite contact. It's my call and for the time being, I am content with no communication between us. Beyond that, I don't owe DA anything, even contact, until I am damn good and ready.

I know this might seem like common sense, but going through this process helped me come to terms with some of the conflict I have been dealing with. I am fine with protecting myself, but grudges make for a heavy emotional backpack. I don't need to add to my load.

Usually the songs I choose are aimed at the other person and describing my feelings in some way. In this case, the song is for me. I don't forget my friends, even if I walk away.

Today's Song - Don't You (Forget About Me) by Simple Minds

"You look at me and, babe, I wanna catch on fire..."

**Spoiler Warning** There are mild spoilers for A Star is Born in this entry. 

There is a man on OKC that has been assertive about wanting to meet me. There is nothing wrong with him, but I am not interested. Our match score is only 81%, so I have no idea why he is pursuing me. I just know that nothing about his profile or our brief exchange of messages that is intriguing enough to invest my time.

I politely told him that I am overbooked and that I am recovering from a nasty break up. He didn’t get the clue. He asked about meeting sometime in the next week. It is nice to feel wanted, but my sixth sense tells me that this guy is not worth it.

How come I am not feeling wanted?

It’s absolutely stupid that I feel that way; I am not hurting for attention. I have had to turn people away, and Mr. 81% is the least of my options. I have been wondering what I feel is lacking and taking a hard look at what I am missing and whether or not it's a healthy to want it.

I miss feeling like the center of somoene's world. 

One friend of mine calls it “love bombing”.  That is as good of a phrase as any other.  Keto and Rope Guy had lives before they came into my life. I am very happy that they continue in their pursuits. Neither of them are spending all of their attention on me and I know that it’s a good thing. My husband is the same way. However, getting the sort of attention that one gets while being love bombed is intoxicating. I miss it.

That sort of love bombing suggests a larger problem with mental health and that's where the problem lies. A different friend told me that the way to tell if you are involved with someone who has Borderline Personality Disorder is how they make you feel. Either you feel like the most important person in their life or you are shit and worthless. There is nothing in between.

I saw A Star is Born last night and it got me thinking about intense relationships. Yes, I want intensity, I just don't want the consequences. I think I've been dealing with nothing but consequences for the past couple of years. Nothing like in the movie, but sometimes seeing something taken to an extreme helps put things in perspective.

As a psychology teacher, I run the risk of analyzing everyone I interact with. I know that my knowledge is limited and that I am not qualified to diagnose anyone. However, when my friend said that about people with BPD, I clicked onto the idea that this is one time where I can diagnose how I feel and do so with confidence. I can trace a number of my relationships with the same pattern as described as in the article.

I won't lie, the most recent is DA.  However, I am drawn into intense relationships and I think I could pin BPD on a few of my exes.

1. Excessive Mood Swings - Check
2. Excessive Behavior - Check
3. Quick to Feel Abandoned - Check
4. Intense Absolutes - Check

I think the part that resonated the most was the journey from "how you are the only one who understands them" to "all of their pain and suffering will be blamed on you".  

I haven't spoke to DA in over a month. Any time I am tempted, I just ask myself when the last time I was blamed for all of our relationship problems. The answer is always the same: the last time we talked. Amazingly, if I don't talk to DA, I don't have to hear that narrative.

There is a part of me that wishes that DA were still able to read my journal. I want to tell him that the reason I have to exit his life is because I think he is challenged by BPD. I feel that's why his life has been a series of intense relationships that crash and burn. I believe it so much that I am starting to feel actual sympathy for his current girlfriend.

Her fiancee had left her just a few weeks before she met DA. I can understand how alluring the sort of attention that DA was able to offer could have been, especially if she was vulnerable. Perhaps she will be the exception, but I have the feeling that she will find herself blamed for everything that's wrong in his life. The reason I feel sorry for her is because it seems like she made DA the center of her life.

I might have been the center of DA's life for a while, but he was never the center of mine. I had other relationships and activities  that I tried to maintain, in spite of our relationship. I am grateful that my life was waiting for me when I gave it my full attention again. I am very lucky.

I know DA and his current girlfriend are not my responsibility. But I think it says something that I feel sorry for his current girlfriend. Probably it says that I still think about DA too much. I know that if I was going to tell DA that I think he is someone with Borderline Personality Disorder, I would want to tell him in person. However, that means I have to contact him and quite frankly, life is so much better without his intensity sucking up my bandwidth.

But that doesn't mean I don't miss it. That's something that seeing my ex (see previous entry) and his wife last week made me face. It's like procrastinating. I hate that I do it, but man do I thrive when the deadline is looming. A relationship doesn't feel real if there isn't an absurd level intensity.

Obviously I am capable of non-intense relationships. My husband is many things, but I don't know anyone who would call him emotionally intense. I know that life without the intensity is better. I am better off if I don't procrastinate. But bad habits are hard to break.

So, today's song is from A Star is Born, because while I really liked the movie and the music was beautiful, I could see how much their relationship cost the characters.

Today's Song - Always Remember Us This Way by Lady Gaga

"I can breathe for the first time..."

I learned something that seems obvious in retrospect, but was a revelation to me: I am not responsible for the behavior or the emotional health of other people.

My parents were not terribly expressive people. They would explode unexpectedly. They did it in different ways, but the end result was the same. I would set them off and then it felt like my responsibility to calm them down and address their anger. I was supposed to handle them.

I realize that I have carried this into my life. I am well trained to watch the people around me, anticipate their needs and address them before they can explode. I feel like I have devoted a lot of bandwidth to preventing the emotional outbursts of others. I thought that’s what I was supposed to do and I took pride in being damn good at it.

One of the huge issues in my relationship with both DA and H2 is that they would have an emotional incident and if I didn’t handle it, I would get grief for weeks or months afterward. (Of course, if I mentioned something that they did to me, I was dwelling in the past.)

I didn’t realize what a relief it has been not to have to deal with that for the past few months until someone had (what I feel was) an inappropriate and emotional outburst at a party I was at. To be very clear, the woman of whom I am speaking was not responsible for my reaction and did nothing wrong. It's my trigger and my broken. 

In the many years this woman and I have been acquainted, emotional and verbally abusive outbursts have been an issue. I have been her target many times in the past. Anytime I see her, I am waiting for her to explode.

Keto and his friends host parties, on a rotating basis, in their homes. Keto and I were attending one of these parties. While I knew that the hosts were acquainted with this woman and her husband, they have not been active participants in the group since they added to their family. They were only at the party to say farewells before embarking on new part of their lives.

Just to add to the drama, this woman’s husband was someone I dated a long time ago. Further, Keto thinks the world of both of them and was very happy to see them. We all managed to spend most of the time we were both at the party in companionable socialization. I was relaxed enough that I let down my guard and stopped walking on eggshells. That was a huge mistake. I said something about a mutual acquaintance that set this woman off. She started ranting and saying some really horrible things about someone I have known over half my life. I was stunned. There was absolutely no reason for her to have said anything. This acquaintance was not at the party and I believe that none of the other attendees knew who the hell the woman was ranting about.

I am not saying that this woman isn't allowed her opinions. If I understood her complaints correctly, her anger is quite justified. It wasn't the negative feeling, it was the language, the anger that seemed to come from nowhere. Her rage was incredibly upsetting to me. It make me feel like I failed. I felt like I did something wrong and caused a public scene by saying the wrong thing.

I was so flummoxed that I just walked around the party in a daze. When her husband came up to me later, I feel like I just stared at him stupidly. I simply couldn't process her outburst.

The husband and I have barely interacted in years. I don’t talk with the woman's husband because it usually causes a problem. I don't avoid him, but I try not to engage with him without someone else nearby. This is the first time I can recall him coming over to me when I was alone.

Husband engaged with me in a way that was akin to the way we were when we were still friends. We talked for what felt like a long time. Then he hugged me. I can’t remember the last time we hugged each other (because again, it would cause an incident). I don’t know why he did it, but the next morning it felt like an apology and sympathy.

I stayed at the party for a couple of hours after the woman and her husband left. Despite my plans with Keto, I had no interest in playing (it was that sort of party.) It was too risky. I was wound up in the wrong way. I didn’t want to make another scene by falling apart or crying. I left early, leaving a very confused and concerned Keto with an excuse . (We hadn’t planned to leave together, but I think he felt like he should have done something.)

On the way home from the party and the next day, I realized that her behavior wasn't my responsibility. It never was. The same goes for DA and H2. People are in charge of their own feelings. It is never my job to anticipate their emotional needs and deal with them before there is an incident. An emotional outburst that I am expected to cope with, without prior discussion, is a violation of consent.  The woman of whom I am speaking did not expect me to deal with her anger. She expressed it, but it wasn't about me. She did nothing wrong. It is not her fault I was triggered. In fact, I owe her some gratitude for reminding me of something that I had forgotten. I was not responsible for her feelings and she is not responsible for mine.

My feelings and my attitude that someone's behavior is my problem is typical of Adult Children of Alcoholics. It is something I am aware of, but it never quite hit me as hard as it did at the party. I wasn't trying to set the woman off. I don't believe I had directed my comment at her (I honestly don't know.) I would have been much happier if I could have shrugged it off and let it go.

I haven't communicated or seen DA since early January. It has been wonderful. I don't walk on eggshells, I don't worry about saying the wrong thing. I don't miss the drama. I suppose I should be grateful for the party for reminding me of what I have not been missing. But it also made me sad. I cared very deeply for the husband. I have missed having him as a friend. I am starting to think that it will be the same with DA. It is probably for the best, but I feel that I was closer to DA than I ever was to the woman's husband. Regardless, in both cases, they chose not to engage with me after they ended up with someone else. This is probably a reflection on me, but I am not sure what I could have done differently.

I hate losing people I care about, even if it is better for everyone involved.

I feel that my choice of song is clichè, but apropos.

Today's Song - Since You've Been Gone by Kelly Clarkson