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I've spent the last week or so feeling like I'm fourteen years old and in fucking high school again. And the more I feel like that, the more I realize - when I guess it never really sank in, before - just how much my childhood screwed me up.
It's no one's fault, really. Part of it's the military brat thing - and not all military brats are even like this, it's just that I got moved around a lot more than most. And my mom lived across the country, and my dad was being deployed all the time, and my siblings were much more socially apt than I ever was, so they made friends easily where it usually took me a year or two, and by then we'd be moving again, and... I got used to being lonely. To not being able to count on anyone, because even when they might want to help, they probably won't be available when I need them.
I never learned how to hang onto friends when I moved away, or they did - I usually let go as quickly as possible, because at least there's a clean cut then. When I got into huge blowout fights with my friends, I never learned how to fix it, because I'd be moving in a few months anyway, and what was the fucking point? I still don't know how to do those things, even though I'm a goddamn adult now, and these should not be difficult things to master.
But I feel like I'm losing people, I start feeling lonely and isolated, fourteen years old and fighting the world alone, and I don't even know how to begin to make it better. I know how to let go before I get too badly hurt, how to pull into myself and isolate more so it can't happen again, and...
I've caught myself thinking, a few times the past week, that I should just stop having friends. Stop talking to people at all. Because that's totally a reasonable strategy to avoid losing people, and - seriously, what the hell kind of thought process is that? I know it's incorrect. And insane. I just... I don't know. My emotional toolbox is a little low on alternatives.
It's no one's fault, really. Part of it's the military brat thing - and not all military brats are even like this, it's just that I got moved around a lot more than most. And my mom lived across the country, and my dad was being deployed all the time, and my siblings were much more socially apt than I ever was, so they made friends easily where it usually took me a year or two, and by then we'd be moving again, and... I got used to being lonely. To not being able to count on anyone, because even when they might want to help, they probably won't be available when I need them.
I never learned how to hang onto friends when I moved away, or they did - I usually let go as quickly as possible, because at least there's a clean cut then. When I got into huge blowout fights with my friends, I never learned how to fix it, because I'd be moving in a few months anyway, and what was the fucking point? I still don't know how to do those things, even though I'm a goddamn adult now, and these should not be difficult things to master.
But I feel like I'm losing people, I start feeling lonely and isolated, fourteen years old and fighting the world alone, and I don't even know how to begin to make it better. I know how to let go before I get too badly hurt, how to pull into myself and isolate more so it can't happen again, and...
I've caught myself thinking, a few times the past week, that I should just stop having friends. Stop talking to people at all. Because that's totally a reasonable strategy to avoid losing people, and - seriously, what the hell kind of thought process is that? I know it's incorrect. And insane. I just... I don't know. My emotional toolbox is a little low on alternatives.
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Date: 2010-10-25 03:31 am (UTC)But I just don't know.
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Date: 2010-10-25 11:30 am (UTC)Even with your lack of social skills until your late teenage years, though, you remind me of my sister.
My father says she was born lucky. He says I was- no, wait. That's not right. Though now that I think about it, unrelated to the rest of this post, suddenly a large part of my love for Zuko makes sense. Except for the part where his sister's a sociopath. ...ANYWAY.With the making friends easily (casual friends, even, which I have never had), and having so many of them and keeping in touch easily and I am really jealous sometimes. HOW DO YOU DO THAT?...I don't expect you to actually be able to answer that question. And I know a large part of it is just that you are extroverted (or at least do an extremely good show of it) and I am... not... but I still can't get the rest of it.
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Date: 2010-10-25 12:34 pm (UTC)And, for the record? I'm HORRIBLE at keeping in touch. If I'm not having some sort of interaction through something I use on a regular basis (twitter, WoW, an RP, work), I drop out of contact SO fucking quickly. >< It's kind of depressing, 'cause it means that these people who MIGHT be friends one day... never become friends.
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Date: 2010-10-25 05:27 am (UTC)Oh yes, I totally get this. Or you know, the job change or breakup "because I'm moving" is a great way to either dodge issues or stick things out for a short period of time when it's not working, too. And now, social networking makes clean breaks almost impossible. :/
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Date: 2010-10-25 02:46 pm (UTC)I disagree. With anything other than people and art, I feel like there's some concrete science to fall back on. With the above, it's all variables and uncertainties and the rules of the game are constantly changing. (I once saw someone make the comparison that we can predict complicated global weather patterns, but we can't predict the stock market – but then, global weather patterns don't watch the Weather Channel and adjust their behavior on what was predicted.)
And... yeah. I wish I had some advice or handy tips or tricks or anything, but I have never managed to work out the mechanisms of how one finds or forms friendships. I swear it's high alchemy.
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Date: 2010-10-26 04:11 pm (UTC)If it helps, I will try to remember to poke you more often?
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Date: 2010-10-26 04:15 pm (UTC)My social skills, let me show you them. 9.9