There’s a part of me that hesitates to write anything about the rejection here at all. Oftentimes when I’ve tried to reach out to my support system to talk about it, they’ve told me that they don’t want to hear it. My mom in particular: whenever I tried to talk to her about P, she either immediately passed negative judgement on how she felt about the situation - “oh, i never liked him” (and not realizing that would make me feel embarrassed for still liking him anyway) - or told me something along the lines of “well, you know what you have to do, don’t expect sympathy from me about this if you won’t actually do it”. I think I inherited some of that attitude myself, to be honest - I sometimes feel it for myself and for my friends. And I feel that lack of compassion from other friends sometimes, too. (That impulse in my mom comes from an obvious family trauma, so I have some empathy for her - but it doesn’t make it any easier for me in the moment when she says those things.)
So, I don’t talk about it. My mom also told me when I was a kid that the *only* way you could guarantee that no one would ever find out a secret about you (a crush, for instance) was to not tell anybody. There is so much that I censor myself from saying, for one reason or another, all the time. I don’t want to make people uncomfortable. I want to manipulate people into not abandoning me, or doing things I need. I don’t want to be a burden or an embarrassment to anybody - this is the one that hurts the most. When I think about wanting to disappear in that context, it takes on a new meaning; I can’t have needs, and therefore can’t be a burden or seen or felt at all, if I don’t exist. I’ll just see myself out.
A has told me before that I wallow (again triggering that sense of shame for talking about it at all, and giving me more reason to keep a lid on it in the future). But, I can’t figure out how to move on from these things. Why do I linger on them so much? Even after 15 years and several more betrayals by him, there’s a part of me that still isn’t over P and still holds onto the hurt and unfairness of it. It feels like A is accusing me of a guilty pleasure, like there must be a part of me that enjoys wallowing if I do it so much, that I should just get over myself and stop. But what is there to enjoy about it? Anyway. Is he right? I worry.
But I want to talk about it. Maybe it’s the only way through to the other side of the feelings. I am so resentful of people for whom that comes easily, who aren’t so afraid of saying something wrong/bad/harmful that they self-censor.
