but people who are good people - the kind of people who you should keep - they do not rely on that feeling to guide them. they understand i'm upset right now. when they lash out, they apologize afterward. they take responsibility. even angry out of their wits, they try not to cross boundaries - they don't say things to hurt you, they don't break your things, they don't make you afraid. they take space or deep breaths or write it down before replying. they work hard to not-be-upset, they return to you and say. okay. i'm sorry i lost my temper, that was really upsetting for me. i'm ready to listen this time, let's solve this as a team.

there is a gripping , soul-crushing fear i have of making someone upset. i catastrophize the situation. being upset is dangerous. is to be solved immediately, regardless of what it takes out of me.

there is no person on earth who can always be happy with you. someone who is never upset with you is likely someone who is pretending. but the hard thing for me to learn was that being upset with me was not a binary love/unlove, friend/enemy. it was not - that person hates you now, forever. it was instead - there's a whole spectrum of use for an apology. my trauma doesn't understand the lighter grey shades at all - the idea someone can have just a passing displeasure because i stepped on their foot or misheard their coffee order. that a person might just be upset at the situation, and not even think to hold it against me.

i used to avoid any contact with a person i thought i had even vaguely upset - interrupting them by accident, or, once, because i had not known about a rare allergy before i made dessert for our company - on the assumption that it was one-and-done. once someone disliked me, it was permanent. or else, maybe worse: i would have to work, tirelessly, wrought over with it, like a sick sad puppy. i would do anything to make the person love me. i didn't make a lot of close friends. i assumed nobody really liked me, because of course they don't, i'm annoying. i wanted to get out of their life before they realized i am worse than they had expected. i wanted to get out before i could prove them right.

i wish i could give you a happy ending to this. i am still carrying it with me. people pleasing. my therapist admits she isn't too surprised ("well, it sort of perfectly fits with your history of trauma and adhd"). i feel rejection like an open wound, all gaping and torn inside me. i hate the idea so much that i simply assume the worst and skitter myself into the dark corners, cowering. thinking - i've done it! i've made everyone safe from me! if i'm in here, and they're out there, they can never be upset with me!

you will love deeper, you will love kinder, you will love more (in spades, in large swatches of caution tape, free and unbidden; the numb finally slushing away)

but you will still sit on the floor of your apartment and feel heinous little snatches of your mental illness. you will unwind over small things. you will desperately want some-kind-of-validation, but know there's actually-something-else-here, a thirst unable to be slaked, a hunger that causes you to rip open the world so it understands your pain. you'll think about how you want to leave before you get left, how the hurt will be so manageable if you just steal out the back door and run with your bare feet. you will call it a controlled detonation, your tongue dry while you plan relocating to the city.

but you will exit the car fire of your childhood and you will hold the child you didn't get to be and you'll say: shush now. we won't run, we know how to make our home.

and the child will say: it's all sand. there's no foundation. the world isn't safe to build upon.

and we will stretch our hands and our old back and the hips that keep clicking. and we will say: from sand we made glass. and what else is there to say after that? the world isn't safe. the world isn't always kind.