An Open Letter

I loosely made a decision today and I think I chose the right thing but god is it painful. I realized I could show the parts I’m innocent in, or show the parts where I am also guilty. In my mind, the fast decision was to either accept blind reassurance that I was in the right or potentially show my own wrongdoings and risk S and L thinking significantly worse of me as a person. I did the latter, for the following reasons: I cannot learn from a mistake if I do not acknowledge it fully. If I am afraid to show the messages, that is because I have something to hide. And something to hide there means I did something bad. Therefore, I need to confront that to prevent it in the future.

Now the challenge is to stop myself from giving into self-flagellation and stop it from becoming ammo for my insecurities. I struggle a lot with guilt. Like a horrible amount of it. I regret decisions terribly and they haunt me for trivial things. I’m afraid of this becoming one of those things. That’s why I’m here putting so much effort into this post, at least for me. I want to know myself and understand why I am the way I am. I want to change it, frankly.

Situation: A and I had a date, and the date went fine, the notable parts being the conversation was not bad, but also them not acknowledging the fact that I paid for their drink (only $3) or the fact that I picked them up, and that I had planned and scheduled everything. The problem however is after she said some stuff that rubbed me the wrong way, arguably because of rules I had tried to set myself to handle ambiguity.

Thoughts: Because of their past actions, and also a lack of effort I put everything in the lens of them not considering me someone worth putting in any effort into. When they told me to get them something from Trader Joe’s, I decided I wouldn’t do it unless they either asked me politely (saying please) or if they had shown any sort of effort, as then they wouldn’t just be using me for that. They did neither of those things and then said something about how “my value has decreased” to her. That kinda confirmed my fear.

Feelings: I feel like I am simply something she is using, and that the relationship would be transactional. I felt used, and like I was only really a wallet and convenience to her.

Behavior: I handled things worse than I could have. I’m partially happy I don’t really have an option to pursue this further, as I really suck at stopping myself from red flags. But that all being said, I’m pretty ashamed of the fact that my decisions were clouded by my insecurities and fears. I should have taken more time to wait before sending a response, and maybe even getting a third-party opinion, but I didn’t even think that my decision was so clouded. But that being said S could also be wrong, it’s not like they’re the objective ground truth on interpretation either. But also neither am I, so I should have considered both facts. I kinda set everything into a death spiral intentionally under the guise that I wasn’t IF she had handled things in a therapy-perfect way. It is unreasonable for me to expect these things, and so this is fundamentally a mistake I am making that I am at fault for. This is kinda like the equivalent of taking a left turn while the crossing light is turning yellow while a car is speeding towards it. In the correct world, the car should stop and I should be safe. But now I’m sitting sprawled out on the intersection because I set myself up for this crash.

Thoughts: I kinda went into the date already feeling like they weren’t interested in me due to a lack of any sort of initiative on their part, and a lack of any clear communication which led me to interpret things that way. That probably didn’t help at all, as I had everything in the lens of them not being interested in me more than just convenience I guess. The fact that this lens confirms my inherent insecurity means that I should be more skeptical about it.

God, I find myself wanting to scream and claw at myself so badly. I need to be stronger than this. This guilt is eating me alive. It’s this compounded fear with the fact I’ve revealed this shortcoming to people I care about. I didn’t sweep it under the rug like I could have, I put it out for all to see. I showed them it. I feel this guilt eating me alive right now. I feel shame on top of it for even feeling this feeling so intensely. All I feel is people staring at me for this. What a stupid fucking- I have to stop myself here because I will go down this route of self-hate if I continue. I am stronger than this. 3 breaths, then I’ll continue.

I want to be able to recognize when something that is sensitive for me is being triggered, so I can handle things in a way I have no regrets about.

Feelings: I feel bad but in a more manageable way. I feel like I’ve just been hit, but I’m recovering, rather than slowly slipping down the edge of a cliff. I feel sad, I guess and also scared for the fear of being unloveable. I fear for how sensitive I am and how much I feel and how much I’m scared of. But I am whole.

Behavior: Who knows, maybe I allow the Nova effect a little bit more. I guess I also did show myself that just because I was apprehensive the date went better than I thought. I am not a strict overestimate as a heuristic for dates, which is good news. I can sit with this feeling. I can work through this. Put your money where your mouth is, and face these problems rather than subdue them.