Jennifer’s voice notes
I feel, at my core, that I am unreliable. I don’t want to be like this, because it hurts and disappoints people I love and care about, and obviously, myself. I feel like every time I sign up for something, whether it is a project of my own (that I inevitably tell others about) or, even more consequential, a mutual co-project, deep down I feel like there’s a chance I won’t follow through. And when I sign on I let them place their trust in me, and I give them my enthusiasm and promises; somewhere inside I’m just hoping I’m past my old ways and I’ll be the strong, trustworthy, reliable person others see me as, and I’ll actually do something cool and make my working partner(s) and people in my circles proud — and I’ll know that their pride is real/I’ll be able to believe it, because I’ll feel it in myself, too.
In some ways this parallels my relationship with Hunter too. False promises of happiness, joy, success, when I didn’t even believe in myself or the reality of it for me. She’s so afraid to disappoint but can’t stop doing it anyway. Am I just saying these things to hurt my feelings? I don’t know. It feels true. I question my ability to reflect on all this too, because of all this ego philosophy shit. I don’t even really know what that means.
So I’m kind of afraid to respond. I feel like it’s going to feel like the same shit I do, all over again — every time I have to apologize to my agents, my professors, my therapist, my college counselors, my boss/supervisor, anyone who has ever expected something from me — it’s like all I learned at NITEO was how to deliver the sincerest apology and try and demonstrate that I’m grounded now, learned my lesson, and it won’t happen again. I even convince myself sometimes. Of course I betray others. I betray myself over and over again.
I should update this, because we did talk about it in therapy today. I didn’t pull this up so I didn’t talk about every painful thing I said here, but essentially. The word unreliable stuck. But there is no benefit in calling myself names or saying things that exist as defeatist defining words. Maybe I try to do that because I want to scare myself into changing or something. Or anyway, the point of this is that Lily said something like well, not really — it’s how you handle stress. How you avoid it. How do you sit in it and confront it better? So I was thinking about how I read or listened about facing your fears. You have to, in small, controlled doses. This is my life. i can control the things that I do that give myself stress, I can practice working with it. And I know they do not immediately give me stress when I actually do it — it is the preemptive avoidance and self-fulfilling prophecy of avoidance of stress that gives me stress. If I just did it, then I wouldn’t feel the stress? But I procrastinate. And there’s deeper reasons for it but not always. I can take small doses of this, try, and do it. Do not let emotional fatigue get in the way. or you can, but handle the world in small doses. soon the capacity will build up. I can face the scariness of changing.
