On Intimacy, Feeling Unlovable and Avoidants

You know one of those conversations where you’re sitting in an small cramped balcony with someone on a random moonlit night and having a drag of the giggle bush, the devil’s lettuce, the jazz cabbage (I won’t be more specific than that; for legal reasons) but yeah just talking about life and shi. Literally everything under the sun. If I have to say, it’d probably go down in the top 3 deep ass conversations I ever had in my life.

But yeah I remember this specific part of the conversation where we were talking about emotional intimacy and all and it really hit me. This log is basically a reconstructed version of that convo (from what of it I could remember at least):

“Ok so the thing I’ve lately learned about myself, and you have pointed it out too lately that:

when I think I could like someone, and I’m not sure how the relationship would or could fit into my life (or even whether I want that/what I want with them)

... I can be TREMENDOUSLY FUCKING AVOIDANT”

“Yeah I never understood why you were acting like that. I was really confused cause on the one end you...”

“No yeah that’s a pattern I’ve realised at this point. It’s like when I tend to start getting close to someone; and as soon as it start to become something “real”, there is a thing that starts clicking in my head that ok I have to care and be responsible for her now... and I remember from my past relationship with mom; what it feels like to have someone close to me, and see them be hurt and how painful it is. So to not have to go through anything painful like that again I used to withdraw. I subconsciously start trying to care less in a way?”

“But then I’d say it is not because you care too less, it's bc you care too much that sometimes it's just painful. And that’s understandable no?”

“I mean yeah ig; that’s a way to put it. Idk I feel like during the early years with my mom going through all that I felt like I had to do something about it and I feel like I never measured up for what I was supposed to do to help her. And I hated that I feeling that whenever I come from school she was anything but happy and since I couldn't do anything about it, I withdrew, to put distance between myself and that. That's how I created a boundary so that I can deal with my own life.”

“Pretend you don’t care when you care so much...?”

“Well... that’s.... yeah.
But the problem is that it still carries on in me. I wish it didn’t. Even now, it’s like I flee bc I don't know how to get close without instantly feeling the burden of caretaking and responsibility if that makes sense.”

“Yeah that does”

“And I think it’s not just that, there’s multiple thought processes going in my mind when all this is happening”

“Like what?”

“Ok so over the last time I was dating someone this summer; and at that time it was probably the closest I'd ever gotten to getting in a serious relationship with someone.

I remember that time I was realising I might actually be falling for her. And I was driving back to my place and thinking “Frankly, I can’t do this. There’s too much feeling here, and I’ll get pulled under by this feeling. My life will change too much. I’ll loose my compass, my purpose. I’ve worked too hard for my freedom, too hard for my life, too hard to get where I am, to have things that a lot of people around me take for granted. I don’t wanna risk loosing this, it... and you know what the darkest thought I had is?”

“What?”

“There was this lil voice inside me that said 'I don’t even care if I end up terribly, terribly alone at the end of it all'. And that scared me very much that a part of me would think that way. So very much. Cause I also don’t wanna die someday, alone, cold and scared, changing a light bulb in some damp dingy basement too you know.”

“That’s a scary dichotomy within yourself to have to deal with. But atleast you’re conscious about all of this.”

“Yeah ig lately since I started going to therapy I have been concious to the extent I know about it, I know when it’s happening, and I’m thinking down that spiral. But still I don’t know how to “fix” it completely you know? I wish I could. Like just flip a switch and it’s gone.”

“Only if life were as easy as flipping a switch Kay...”

“Only if...”

“It’s scary thing though, opening up to someone. Cause there’s always that part of “what if...” ifykwim”

“Exactly. Cause when I think about what is that feeling about that makes me start to withdraw in a relationship is when I start to feel, as you said it, scared.”

“But scared of exactly what exactly tho?”

“Scared of being seen for all my ridiculous ugliness, being seen as a idiotic mess who doesn't have a f'ing clue what he's doing, and is uninteresting and boring for a lot of the time actually, afraid of being seen as weak n vulnerable n unsure n uncertain of himself. Just afraid of being seen...”

“Being seen as a normal human being you mean?”

“Damn you’re good. Gosh you pscyh minors are... just know the exact right words to say, don’t you? But yeah ig yeah that makes sense, scared of being seen as a normal human being. I dunno, I think ever since as a kid I sorta feel a bit unlovable yk.”

“Unlovable?! But why?”

“Like I remember I was writing in my journal one day as a kid, and I was feeling that feeling and I remember writing:

‘And yet, there are people who love me...’

And I remember how hard that was for me to write... so fucking hard. I deleted it the first time I wrote it because I was scared of saying it, as if those people themselves would walk through the walls of this room where I’m sitting and say no, we don’t and then disappear. I deleted it the second time, too. And the third.

But I think, as I’ve been growing I am realising, there are people who love me. People willing to walk slow with me as I amble with a cane. People willing to try to run with me across a state. People willing to wait when I am late. People who send me things to read. People who read the things I write. People whose time I’ve wasted. People who ask me how I am, even still, even still...

And there are so many people I love. Even tho I might now show or say it enough to some of them, to some I pretend the opposite (immature ik), but I still cherish every single one of them. Just the very fact that they exist.”

“Yep yep yep. Like at the end of the day, the people who are meant for you are going to meet you on the other side. You're going to build a new comfort zone around the things that actually move you forward. Instead of being liked, you're going to be loved. Instead of being understood, you're going to be seen.

And just like you feel about other people, the same goes for you too yk... you are loved just for being who you are, just for existing. You don’t have to do anything to earn it. Your shortcomings, your lack of self-esteem, physical perfection, or social and economic success—none of that matters. No one can take this love away from you, and it will always be here.”

“I need to hear that . Thank you . I need to turn this convo into a blog or have it written down somewhere to look at it again and again... I mean gosh that’s such a beautiful way you put it. This is such an intellectual ass deep ass convo we’re having rn, even if it’s the w*** talking for the most part but damn. This the fucking shit I be missing out on? Gosh, this is feeling like a years worth of therapy... like where tf is this shit even coming from? and...”

Fin.