Excerpt from "Everything I Did" (working title) new book out September 2020.
Trying not to look crazy.
In the past if you entered into a relationship with me there was never a ‘honeymoon’ period (unless you consider me hurling all of my insecurities at you without reprieve a relaxing holiday). I think the common wisdom is that you’re supposed to ease into intimacy, not reveal everything all at once, and slowly let your partner see more of you as they share more of themselves with you. This has never been my strategy. I would generally attract men with my independence then reveal all my fears around not being lovable right around the time we slept together a couple of times. This can go on for as long as it takes for them to realize that what once looked fun and easy was a mirage, and that the day to day reality of being in a relationship with me is actually super labour-intensive. It’s a test. I was testing their resolve to stay and my belief that they’d go.
My insecurities around love and trust would force me to show my worst right off the bat to test my partner’s resolve and commitment and sanity before either of us took things too far (and by that I mean before I started to feel safe). So while some people will use the early time in a relationship to ease in, slowly revealing deeper and deeper levels of themselves over time, showing only their best sides initially and then gradually peeling back the layers, I dove in, buck naked, screaming bloody murder daring you to love me. It’s not easy. In fact, its really fucking hard for both them and me, which was exactly the unconscious point: make it impossible to be with me in order to prove that I’m impossible to be with.
It’s super fun. (No, it isn’t.)
Recently, I tried to play the game like normal (I call it a game for lack of a better word. It’s not conscious or fun or planned, but it is confusing and exhausting with a large amount of risk) with someone who refused to get scared off. It threw me off balance in a big way. Having someone steady and constant was something I’d never experienced before. And God was it awful. It was like having a mirror held too close to my face for 18 months. There was no escaping myself, no not seeing myself. He was a reflecting pool and I could not escape having to look at myself in a way I’d never been forced to before -- every vulnerability, ever fear of being left, every mommy and daddy issue, everything came up in that time.
I believe it’s true that when you’re body finally senses itself to be safe, the long-held injuries it’s learned to live with will choose that time to rise to the surface. The pain you’d buried will now make it impossible to ignore any longer. I liken it to car accidents and how people can live longer than their injuries can sustain because their adrenaline is pumping, but as soon as the danger has passed, when their heart rate returns to normal, that is when they go into cardiac arrest. I was fine going it alone because I’d become so used to it as my normal. It was being loved that sent me into a tailspin and knocked my legs out from under me.
It’s a lot easier to see yourself as stable when you don’t have anyone close enough to push any of your buttons. And relationships are where we get to see what our buttons are, up close and personal. Our triggers, those moments we feel defensive or scared, are where we have the potential for growth when we choose not to react with fight or flight. When triggered, our sore spots show us where it is we never healed correctly, and our reactions to our triggers show us how we have learned to protect ourselves. So when the self-help gurus say, “be grateful for discomfort,” this is why. In the discomfort lies the lesson. In the lesson lies the opportunity to heal. In the healing lies the opportunity to become who you could become instead of who you are when you’re just reacting to what’s happened to you.
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