Letters to the Editor
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Learn to be alone.
Being alone will not kill you. You can be alone for one evening; you can sit and observe your thoughts and your feelings and your craziness and you will NOT DIE. You don't have to change yourself right now; all you have to do is observe yourself. You can sit and watch your need, feel it, enter into it, not get it met, and notice that you haven't died yet.
You don't have to communicate yourself to anyone else; you have to communicate yourself to YOURSELF. You do this by being alone. Being alone for awhile doesn't mean you will be alone forever; it just means you're alone RIGHT NOW, and it's uncomfortable, but you can stand it.
You have to learn to be alone so that other people can stand to be around you. Right now you're chasing them away with your inability to confront the possibility of being alone. Being alone, and being okay with being alone, is the first, necessary step to being with other people in a healthy, non-parasitic way.
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Hey, you don't seem all that bad, really....
And honestly, I'm at a loss as to why your friends, who seem to have been your friends for awhile, and so must know how you process things, have deserted you--especially as you seem to be a very self-aware person who can explain himself to others when the moment passes. It makes me wonder just what this woman is telling them--not necessarily on purpose, mind you, but perhaps her perceptions of what happened are different.
Still, one day, someone will find all of that passion very attractive or, you will find a calmer partner who can absorb the drama and help you tone it down a notch (that's what happened for me).
Best wishes,
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insane in the membrane
Cary is onto something when he says he hates it when they tell you to calm down. What I hear a lot of in your letter is that feeling of being misunderstood or judged. Everyone goes through rough patches and everyone behaves inappropriately sometimes. Give yourself a hall pass and move forward with dignity and intention.
I say this as if I know what I am talking about only because I had a group of friends once who aren't around anymore. Years ago I introduced them and they all ended up estranged, from me! Who knows what really happened, it was a tough time and they probably got sick of me whining. We can only control ourselves and it is unrealistic to expect friends to love us even when we are acting very ugly for long stretches of time.
I hated it when they told me to calm down!
Bring on the monsters, the inappropriate and the unstable, the extremes and the misunderstood! I just want real and LW, you sound pretty real. It will be alright. You can make changes to your expectations of others and choose to be happy and grounded. One thing I know for certain: The world just needs a few more Carys and a few less critics and judges.
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greetings from the skeptical side
I just have to ask LW, did you abuse this woman in some way? Something isn't adding up about your friends keeping their distance from you. People have their ups and downs in their relationships but don't get abandoned by the peripheral friends over it.
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You're doing it again
Your friends are not gone from your life forever, they just need some space and time for this all to blow over. And it will. You said so yourself, they need space from you, you need to have respect for that. Part of being the new you, is not blowing the fact that they just need space out of proportion. If you don't want to wait for that, you're being impatient and only impatient asses like you who think me me me all the time just decide the friendships are over if you can't have them now, and that you have to move on. Old habits are hard to break aren't they? Stop trying to force things to go your way by acting up. Seriously man, calm down :)
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Drama queen!
You said yourself you tend toward theatrical confrontation. That's what you need to work on. All the world's *not* a stage. Also: just because you have a thought doesn't mean you have to express it. Quit unloading on your friends. Good luck with the therapy.
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Quit Feeding The Monster
LW, here's something for you to try, the next time you are lucky enough to spend some time with your friends. I don't know if it will work but I don't think it will hurt.
Think about them.
Don't think about what a great job you're doing of thinking about them. Don't think about how much you want to think about them, or how hard it is for you to think about them, or how sorry you are that you haven't thought about them more in the past.
Carefully listen to what they say, so that you could repeat it back to them word for word if you had to. Notice whether they seem to be enjoying the conversation, whether they are making eye contact, whether they seem comfortable. Ask them questions about themselves, about their families, and about their lives and their thoughts. Then listen when they answer. Remember what they say.
I think if you can learn to pay attention to them, you will have to focus on yourself less. Then maybe the monster will begin to starve to death.
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to the skeptical anonymous at 7:46pm
He didn't have to abuse her, he probably just acted crazy, and crazy needy. You can piss off everyone enough they just quit calling you. Actually, LW, are you my first love? He was just like this guy describes himself. Seriously, did you grow up in Nashville?
Anyway, not just the first boyfriend, but there was someone I truly liked and valued and wanted as a friend forever, but she was all paranoid and suspicious of people, particularly other women. None of us had the energy anymore to assuage her paranoia. She took everything SO PERSONALLY. And none of us hang out with her anymore. I miss her. She was really cool underneath the crazy. (And to Cary: yeah, it was her mother that did it to her.)
So, yeah, you can be a crazy MF and drive everyone away without abusing them.