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allfireburnsI'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 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.
no subject
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.