I hate this. Ugggghhhhh!!! I hate this sooo very much. This happens every time I try to set a boundary or remove someone from my life, not because I’m trying to be a terrible person but because I am trying to practice not putting up with things that are not healthy, and it’s soo completely frustrating. I’m not sure if there is a psychological term for it but it feels like the emotional equivalent for when separation anxiety and buyer’s remorse got together and had a kid.
Ok, so let me explain because I’m really trying to figure out if this is like a trauma response or if it’s one of those really annoying personality traits. For example, I recently made this blog post about a girl who I recently stopped being friends with. The TLDR version is that I took her mental illnesses and anxieties into consideration through whatever she was doing. Gaming, real life, venting, literally anything we did. I had her back. She started off kind of doing the same for me, then just stopped. When I would get frustrated because I was feeling badly due to her lack of concern, I was called oversensitive and accused of trying to change her. Whatever. So I just stopped being her friend. But here’s the thing that annoys and frustrates me to no end.
I feel bad. I feel bad because I’m not this person’s friend anymore. I feel bad because even though I know I wasn’t being unkind by setting boundaries and despite the fact that I know I wasn’t the oversensitive person she tried to make me out to be, I think about the distinct possibility that I hurt her. And yeah yeah, I know I’m not supposed to feel bad. I know that most people might say, “Oh well..” and never look back, but holy fuck do I feel bad. That’s why I mentioned it’s like buyer’s remorse and separation anxiety got together and came up with this masochistic form of guilt that makes you long for the thing that hurt you. And it’s terrible because it creeps up on me. Now granted, one of the things I’m working on is how I set boundaries because most of the time it goes something like this: I let things go, and build, and build, and then I try explaining but I’m nervous because I don’t want to upset them so it comes out awkward or at least I think it does. Then whatever we talk about still doesn’t change for some reason so the frustration builds more and more until I end up exploding on this person. So here’s where I should be happy right? I have literally bought myself a ticket to peace, free from their shit and away from their drama. Yes!! I should be ecstatic right? And for a couple days I am. Blissfully so. I don’t think about them for days and I even rethink how the argument went so I could’ve gone off on them somehow “better” telling myself things like, “Yeah I should’ve said that!” or “Yeah that would’ve been funny!!”
But then the buyer’s remorse for that ticket to freedom kicks in. And it’s not like a bucket of ice water being dumped on me, it’s a slow seeping of guilt. It’s more like honey being poured on me. I start to miss them. I start to second guess my decision of cutting them off. I think to myself, “maybe I could’ve handled it better” or “maybe I shouldn’t have yelled at them. Maybe if I would’ve just spoken with them in a calm manner that would’ve been better.” and slowly and inevitably I regret my decision to remove them. That’s when the separation anxiety kicks in. All of a sudden there is this crushing feeling of loss and I miss them terribly. I’ll go back over our last argument and now instead of laughing and cheering myself on for how clearly and concisely I cut them out, I wince at each and every raised note of my voice, and that regret slowly seeps further into me. So even though I know in my heart of hearts that I made the right choice because the shit they were doing was truly insensitive towards me and they without a doubt hurt me, I will long for this person. I start to go back and try to think of how I could have communicated better and hate myself each and every time I really think of some perfect means of explaining my feelings that I didn’t do. I’ll cry because I suffer from crippling anxiety when I am making a new friend because a lot of people were terrible to me when I tried to be their friend, and the thought that I may have added to someone else’s anxiety with friends is devastating to me. So I think of ways I could make amends with this person. Even though they were detrimental to my well being and peace, I’ll drive myself crazy thinking of ways I can bring them back into my space.
Then I get frustrated because the small semblance of self worth that I still have rejects the idea of me being the one to reach out or the one to make contact first. Because, I’ll tell myself, they hurt me. A lot. I give the benefit of the doubt over and over again when it comes to friends, so for me to reach the point where I’ve had enough takes a ton of stuff for the other person to do. Just about everyone I’ve cut off has legitimately been a person who I have been better without, and despite all my mental shit going on, I’m still a pretty good judge of character. Yet, I still miss this person. I always regret hurting them. I’ll be racked with guilt and with missing them. Then the realizations kick in and make everything worse. I’ll realize that they’re not reaching out to me, even though I really really want to fix things. I’ll realize that even though I was a good friend, they’re talking about me behind my back as if I wasn’t. And yeah, sometimes this lessens the guilt but never enough to change me back to those blissful couple of days when I first cut them off when I genuinely didn’t give a fuck. Instead, what usually happens is that these realizations make me feel worse because I’ll think to myself, “Wait, I was a good friend right? I was kind and considerate about all their shit right? So why aren’t they trying? Why aren’t they racked with guilt over the shit they did to me?” And these thoughts will ultimately dump me in the land of, Why Aren’t I Worth Anything to Anyone? And this place sucks. Because I never wanted to be here in the first place, I thought the ticket I bought was to Freedom and Inner Peace Island. That place seemed super cool! So why there fuck am I here in this place where the other person doesn’t seem to care they they lost me, ME, an awesome friend!! So I feel worthless and on top of that…I miss them.
I feel like through the work I’ve done with my therapist and in doing my own healing work like listening to podcasts or reading books something I come across is to be able to control your thoughts because they drive your emotions. It’s just that I often feel like trying to stop my emotions is like trying to stand in front of an avalanche with one of those riot body shields. Then I’ll get frustrated because I really do want to control my emotions, it just seems like there is soo much of them. I really have been trying to work on my control and granted it is getting better. But I’m so frustrated because I still find myself missing someone I shouldn’t and telling myself that it should matter to them that they lost me as a friend when it doesn’t.
So there’s still an avalanche. I mean it seems like my shield is a little bigger now because of all the work I’ve done. I used to just stand there and get smashed by all these emotions until I’d be wishing they would just bury me completely. It’s just…I don’t want to be in this land of, Why Aren’t I Worth Anything To Anyone…I want to end up where I originally wanted to go. Freedom and Inner Peace Island. I packed for that flight. I have my slippers, my bathing suit and dammit I want those drinks with the stupid umbrellas.