Letters to the Editor
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I'm a needy pain in the ass who lost all my friends too
It's kind of ok.
I mean, at the time I wondered if I was really horrible...if the stuff I was going through was smaller than the stuff I was putting my friends through.
In the end? It was not.
What it WAS was that I simply had friend who didn't quite jive with what I needed. And I don't know if you can say this about yourself, but although I am pretty needy when I am in crises I am also very present for my friends when THEY are in crises.
But I had all these friends (and no, they weren't all Midwestern, although I am) who handled trouble with more austerity than made sense to me. But I was a rain dog without them.
My therapist spoke of the difference between surviving and thriving. That I kept these friends around...that I clung to them because I was in survival mode and didn't have like-minded friends. And that I needed to thrive. I needed true friendships.
"But I've known these people since high school! Since college! These ARE my true friends!"
Nope. No they're not.
So I thought about what real friends might have done. How they might have brought out the best in me, and how I might best serve a different kind of person.
Now I've got more fabulous friends than I can shake a stick at. And in therapy I've also overcome some of my less-attractive tendencies so as to ensure I am the best kind of friend I can be to the right kind of people.
It's ugly in the middle there with no one around you except maybe one or two people saying "I'm your friend and no, you're not crazy." Thank goodness for those guys. They were my lifeline. Patience of saints, those people.
The thing is, with good friends there isn't nearly as much angst. You're not hollering into a vaccuum. You're hollering at someone else who hollers back and you throw confetti in the air and make coffee and sit down at the kitchen table and say "Oh My God I KNOW!" And then you can laugh about it and feel better until the next wave breaks and you lean forward and shriek "But do you KNOW?!" and they are right there shrieking back "I completely do."
See...that's friendship. Waiting for the other person to respond...that's not friendship. That's loneliness.
Occasionally I meet new people who, because I'm absolutely comfortable with myself, feel comfortable telling me "You're a little intense" or something to that effect. It's awesome. I really AM. I'm a little intense. I'm so glad you see me for who I am and if you're into it let's go shrieking into the sunset 100 miles an hour. I'm so glad you noticed.
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Dear Monster -
It took me a while to learn to be just another person in the room. I didn't have to prove I was special because I was already special, as was everybody in the room. I also learned there was something to be said for everybody spontaneously speaking roughly the same amount. I had to clock myself to learn this.
I still can occasionally, out of the blue, be an asshole. Just blurt out some crazy shit. When I'm stressed. But there's lots of time when I'm stressed now I don't have to be an asshole.
It's not just when I'm with people. The old mind can just start running, talking trash, going in circles repeating things. Nothing new. No inspiriation. I know inspiration, how it can pop into a quiet mind. Though sometimes when the flood gates open all kinds of great things pour out. But then I can think that it's because the flood gates are open. Uhn-uhn.
I'm a recovering alcoholic. I've learned something about letting go. When the old mind gets going I say to myself, "Let go." Quietly. It's a practice. I have to practice it, like learning a new lick. Because maybe the next minute the mind'll get going again and I'll have to say "Let go" again. Patiently. Repeat as necessary. Quiet myself down. They say about horses that sometimes you have to gentle them. Sometimes I have to gentle myself.
At a session I was at at a conference someone asked the couples therapist who was presenting, "What do you do when one of them talks too much and the other is too quiet?" She answered, "The talkative one needs to talk less."
Best -
(More, for free: search "Rabid Fanatic" +"Monty Johnston")
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Monster, Me
Boy I needed this letter and the responses today. First let me say I've learned to be alone - learned it by doing it for more years than a person should tolerate. Because the neediness oozes out my pores even if I'm not saying or doing anything. Just sitting there. It comes through in e-mails about other things. In a tone in my voice when I'm talking about whatever. It comes through, apparently, in the profound silence as I walk down the street or sit alone at a cafe with my book.
I've worn out a husband and alienated friends. I've allowed assholes into my life simply because they saw a needy person who'd put up with their shit in exchange for acceptance and company and knew exactly what to say to get me to let them in.
So I withdrew, knowing I was an overwhelming presence and being sick of being beaten up for it for so long.
I made a friend at work. He (like the rest) had been warned: Stay away from her, she's crazy! But he says that made me interesting in a cubie-sea of boring normalcy. But at the moment I was most comfortable in my alone-ness, his acceptance touched that needy monster, and well, stupid me, I fell for him. He has hurt me quite badly (won't go into the details but it involved taking advantage of monster, me).
So I fumble around asking the universe for answers, and there it is again. In therapist language and the language of new age-y friends and the language of people who haven't got a fucking clue who I am, turns out it's the Monster! See, as long as the Monster is part of me, the wounded needy angry love-starved Monster, I will be alone.
I've been sitting here the past couple weeks wondering whether my Monster is really that much scarier and uglier than anyone else's monster - I mean, I see some really fucked up mean and ignorant people who have lovers and spouses. Can I be this beautiful intelligent creative funny woman yet be so ruined by something invisible, an energy borne of pain and isolation and confusion and need, that I don't deserve companionship and love?
So it's not only me? That's a comfort. Not as much comfort as one person on the planet joining my team over here and enjoying life with me. But some.