emotional bonsai
Nov. 29th, 2004 02:55 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
mountain_laureldo i exist when nobody's looking? part of me is afraid i don't, i think. it's why i posted so often to talk.bizarre and why i now post so much to livejournal. look at me! i'm here! don't forget about me! here i am!
it was only when![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
naomi_traveller told me so a few months ago that i realized -- i've become an actual recluse. i avoid social situations. i spend every minute i can at home alone. i go to the same stores, the same restaurants, clinging desperately to the familiar and safe. on my own initiative, i rarely try anything new. god only knows what dangers might lurk in the depths of a seemingly innocent little bistro. i don't like my apartment filthy, but as long as it is, i have an excuse not to let anyone in. this may in some way be a metaphor for my current mental state.
what am i so afraid of? rejection. humiliation. pain. pure and simple. maybe i'll be dressed wrong and they'll throw me out. maybe i'll stumble into a private party and be humiliated. maybe i'll try to talk to someone cute and they'll blow me off. maybe i'll think i've made a friend and they'll betray me. maybe i'll stand in the wrong line and the world will come to a catastrophic end. maybe i'll fall in love and -- god, i can't even think about the swirling mass of horrifying what-ifs there. what if they turn out to be married? what if they're only in it for the sex? what if they're another passive-aggressive control freak, or a borderline sociopath, or a drunk, or they hit me? what if they're a spineless parasite or a condescending autocrat or the sort of lazy-ass lover who wants me to be on top all the time because he can't be arsed to put in the effort otherwise?
and god, what happens if they're into me and i'm not into them? the last couple of times that happened, i got stalked. what if they intrude on my space and i'm too cowardly to tell them to back off? what if i end up feeling obligated to rub their greasy zit-covered back because i was too much of a wimp to tell them to stop rubbing mine? what if they hang out down on the corner all the time so they know when i leave in the morning and come back in the evening? what if they call me 20 times a day and just breathe into the phone?
the world is fraught with danger. best to stay home and keep to myself. people have, on the whole, been more trouble than they were worth for me, barring a few wonderful exceptions.
i'm supposed to be going out and meeting new people and doing new things. it's therapy. it's good for me. eventually, i hope i'll build enough trust to make real friends, have real relationships, feel comfortable in my skin and in the world.
even thinking about it scares me shitless.
i'd just like to take this moment to say a rousing "FUCK YOU" to the people who made me what i am today: emotional bonsai, stunted and trained and starved for space, constantly having my new green shoots pinched off, being viewed as an oddity by those around me.
it was only when
naomi_traveller told me so a few months ago that i realized -- i've become an actual recluse. i avoid social situations. i spend every minute i can at home alone. i go to the same stores, the same restaurants, clinging desperately to the familiar and safe. on my own initiative, i rarely try anything new. god only knows what dangers might lurk in the depths of a seemingly innocent little bistro. i don't like my apartment filthy, but as long as it is, i have an excuse not to let anyone in. this may in some way be a metaphor for my current mental state.what am i so afraid of? rejection. humiliation. pain. pure and simple. maybe i'll be dressed wrong and they'll throw me out. maybe i'll stumble into a private party and be humiliated. maybe i'll try to talk to someone cute and they'll blow me off. maybe i'll think i've made a friend and they'll betray me. maybe i'll stand in the wrong line and the world will come to a catastrophic end. maybe i'll fall in love and -- god, i can't even think about the swirling mass of horrifying what-ifs there. what if they turn out to be married? what if they're only in it for the sex? what if they're another passive-aggressive control freak, or a borderline sociopath, or a drunk, or they hit me? what if they're a spineless parasite or a condescending autocrat or the sort of lazy-ass lover who wants me to be on top all the time because he can't be arsed to put in the effort otherwise?
and god, what happens if they're into me and i'm not into them? the last couple of times that happened, i got stalked. what if they intrude on my space and i'm too cowardly to tell them to back off? what if i end up feeling obligated to rub their greasy zit-covered back because i was too much of a wimp to tell them to stop rubbing mine? what if they hang out down on the corner all the time so they know when i leave in the morning and come back in the evening? what if they call me 20 times a day and just breathe into the phone?
the world is fraught with danger. best to stay home and keep to myself. people have, on the whole, been more trouble than they were worth for me, barring a few wonderful exceptions.
i'm supposed to be going out and meeting new people and doing new things. it's therapy. it's good for me. eventually, i hope i'll build enough trust to make real friends, have real relationships, feel comfortable in my skin and in the world.
even thinking about it scares me shitless.
i'd just like to take this moment to say a rousing "FUCK YOU" to the people who made me what i am today: emotional bonsai, stunted and trained and starved for space, constantly having my new green shoots pinched off, being viewed as an oddity by those around me.
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no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 12:12 pm (UTC)As the tears scald and start,
You will love your crooked neighbor
With your crooked heart.
You're pretty amazing, Miss. At least, I think so.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 12:27 pm (UTC)Like a gnarled and stunted tree,
Bearing harshly of my youth
Puckered fruit that sears the mouth:
If I make of my drawn boughs
An inhospitable house,
Out of which I never pry
Towards the water and the sky,
Under which I stand and hide
And hear the day go by outside;
It is that a wind too strong
Bent my back when I was young,
It is that I fear the rain
Lest it blister me again.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 12:12 pm (UTC)I mean, i've always thought bonsai was amazing.
you're pretty amazing, yourself.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 12:20 pm (UTC)no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 01:47 pm (UTC)Well, I do now. (It's what's on the inside that counts, after all...)
It probably helps that I'm not exactly built of toothpicks and wax either.
Sorry to break it to you, but you *are* both amazing and beautiful.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 12:50 pm (UTC)But the world didn't come to a catastrophic end, so I think you should mark that one down in the success column.
no subject
Date: 2004-11-29 01:03 pm (UTC)i do think, though, that i owe much of the credit to the abovementioned borogove hospitality! and it did help to be seated with friendly, congenial people who didn't insist upon huddling together to speak only to those they already knew, as so often seems to happen these days. it's hard, in such situations, to remember that those people are probably nervous too, rather than assuming they're whispering together about how grotesque i am and formulating an escape plan should i dare to approach them.