Emotional growth sucks. The process of it. The slow agony of it. The way you must examine each clue, each action and reaction, looking into the nooks and crannies to make sense of the great puzzle. Don’t like it. I’m more a big picture person. The energy required to focus on details makes me uncomfortable.

Yesterday my best friend came over to do some Kym therapy. I’m lucky to have someone so wise and perceptive in my life. She pointed out several observations that have started me down this slippery slope of self awareness and growth. I feel like one of those cartoons where you see the person slipping and sliding, unable to get their footing. You know that at the end of all that teetering is a painful fall on their arse, but you are helpless to do anything to stop it. I don’t like knowing what is coming and feeling like I’m an actor in some great big cosmic comedy.

My friend tells me that at the end of all this is a great emotional payoff. That life will have more texture. That I will benefit. She is a wise woman but honestly, I’m wondering if I have it in me to do the work it’s going to take.

Ok.. so you know how I have been feeling so overwhelmed? I have felt like each little connection is sapping me. People want to have a playdate? Uh no. People want to talk on the phone? Uh no. People want to have us over for dinner? Uh no. Why? Because I am actually being sapped dry. It’s not in my imagination. I’m just failing to prioritize. It sounds simple, but it’s not really. It’s not about how much I am GIVING to people I care about; it’s that I am not TAKING back and I am giving an equal amount to EVERYONE.

1. When I get into friendships, I don’t prioritize them. I prioritize what they give to ME, but I don’t prioritize what I give to them. This goes back to family dysfunction issues of course. And I realize now that still, my family is ONLY taking from me. I am still the nurturer and problem solver. And I let them do all this taking because they have disappointed me in the past, I never ever ever think about taking from them. Because it’s easier to just expect nothing and not be hurt again.
2. Because I don’t let people in and tell them about my life, they have no idea about the internal hits I am taking from all these people who each individually feels like they are a really good friend of mine. If I told people about just how much I am drowning with regards to my family obligations, they would get it. They wouldn’t expect so much.
3. I never want to disappoint anyone. I want to nurture people. Especially people who I see “need me” for whatever reason.
4. I’m not finding the middle with how I make people FEEL. I make them either love me or hate me. There is no middle ground for me when it comes to relationships. I tend to make it an all or nothing proposition.
5. When people cause me any pain whatsoever, I tend to go to my usual ways of coping which are to either draw them in or nurture it better or if they take too much work, I just slice them out of my life. I find the whole setting boundaries for the middle ground too hard.
6. The reason I feel sapped by all the “connections” in my life is because I’m giving to them all equally in an emotional sense. And yet, I don’t take from them all emotionally at all.

Now I have to decide what to do with all this. It’s hard to own it. Now that there is a light shining on it, I can’t just turn away from it. I have to process it. And I don’t really want to process it.

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