doesn't play nice with others
once upon a time, it was said about me;
"she has an incredibly strong sense of justice, of wrong and right... she just struggles to apply this to anyone other than herself."
i've been trying to outrun this ever since, I think.
it wasn't said with vehemence. hell, i doubt my mother wanted to say it at all. alas that we live in a deficit-focused society, and the only way to get diagnosed with anything is to prove you are somehow A Problem first.
strangely, i don't know if anyone has ever called me 'selfish' to my face, despite that i wear it almost-proudly as one of my notable traits. Selfishness has always been an important tool to me. It means standing up and saying "hey fuckers, I'm important right now. listen to me, and give me what I want."
this is an important skill to have. this is a tool that can be used to create space for others who would otherwise have none. this is how i can insist that my opinion matters when i am trying to reassure or advocate or defuse. this is how i get what i need to be strong enough to keep doing these things, better and further.
but its easy to fuck it up. its easy to go too far.
when i was 18, i used to play overwatch with a group of friends. one of them was my best friend; perhaps the first person i was in any kind of love with.
except... over time, i stopped being invited. i didnt really notice at first; it was part of my routine so i just showed up anyway. but then the excuses started. the team is already full. we dont have time to play tonight. or just... confusing silence.
eventually i asked my best friend what the fuck was going on.
"the gang doesn't want you around anymore. people don't enjoy playing with you, you're too... chaotic."
and thus, they were also the first person over whom i experienced any kind of heartbreak. someone i trusted implicitly to have my back, hadn't.
so i learned not to trust, and i've been trying to outrun that ever since too.
that was 7 years ago, and to date that's remained my longest-lasting friendship. ever since then, i feel like i've been scuttling between people like a sodden little creature fleeing sinking ship after sinking ship. I just cant stop myself from chewing holes in the hull, it seems. I've gotten a taste for it.
it's always fascinated me to see people who've maintained friendships over the course of years and years, for entire lifetimes. it fascinates me in the way that creating music or enjoying marshmellows or studying at university fascinates me.
they are real things. people have done them. i suspect my life would be improved if i did them too, or at least made more interesting. hypothetically, they are not unobtainable. I even understand how they come about, in concept.
I don't think i'll ever get to experience them though, because something about my nature won't permit it.
i recognise my bias in all these things. there's a lot that's been weighing on me recently, a discontentment with the way i navigate and experience relationships.
wouldnt u know that recognising bias isn't actually enough to solve for it.
where's the line? what's the solution? is this discontent real, or imagined?
am i letting myself feel necessary emotions, or am i spiralling for the sake of it?
do i actually have a problem with others, or do i have a problem with my own reactions?
is a feeling valid just because its felt? how the fuck do you decide what to engage with and what to disregard?
i dont think i can trust my perceptions. i dont think i've ever been able to.
sometimes i wonder if i'd be able to get along with myself, if i met my metaphorical twin. i strongly suspect i'd be quickly tired by her under-the-surface nihilism, and her needyness, and her obsession with imperfection.
what do you do when you can't even show empathy for your own feelings, though?
i think i'll spend my whole life just trying to outrun things. the perpetual search for a home that's only ever been a vague concept.
I didn't want to be here, and now that I'm here i find i don't want to go back. but neither do i want to stay. i need to keep running and running and running.
and like any machine that's been running too long, im starting to accumulate errors. manufacturing faults that become apparent with wear. random bitflips bringing about states that don't fit the model.
something crucial snapped a little while ago i think, and we've been running the damage control ever since, trying to salvage the inevitable slide into total failure.
but i'd really like to stop running. i suspect the imminent meltdown is going to come as a relief.
i shouldn't post this. but what the fuck.
🖤