Sunday, December 19, 2010

Daddy Issues

This was a week filled with amazing times with my friends but also much sadness and of course, illness. Thanks to one of my best friends and now certified genius, Jackie Brafford, my on and off misery for the last 6 years of my life has been pinpointed. Let me start at the beginning...

When I was 12 years old, my father committed suicide. It made me angry more than anything. Since that day, every male I have been close to in my life (whether on a friendship basis or other) has been the victim of my self-destruction. The closer I get to a man, the more psychotic I become. It started as a minor problem in junior high and high school and didn't become a full blow disaster until the Fall of 2004 when I met the indie music loving and floppy haired Jesse Strunk while on exchange in England. I was attracted to him but we were also friends which lasted long beyond England. We would speak every day and had a lot in common. Eventually, I stopped liking him and just thought of him as a friend but despite that I became easily jealous, obsessive and made myself crazy. I also made his life hell occasionally because of my need to fight and pout and demand attention. I ended up starting therapy again for the first time in years as a result. Sadly, along that same time, I met Kyle Miller who would be the bane of my existence for the next 5 years. Despite him being gay, I fell in love. We became best friends very quickly. Like with Jesse, I put unreasonable expectations on him, pouted, demanded attention, got angry and jealous over stupid things and basically became a basket case. This led to  me trying to kill myself one night and on another, ending up in the hospital in fear of my own sanity. We didn't speak for two years after I moved to Boise but in 2009, we reconnected and became foolishly close again. Though I no longer had romantic feelings for him and my craziness never got to 2006 levels, I often repeated the same mistakes that caused me to lose him and myself in the process.

Fast forward to July 2010 when I started working for an attractive man who I quickly bonded with over frat boy talk and drunken nights. I again put unreasonable demands on him, got jealous, easily hurt and angry and thought more of our friendship than it was. I did all of this to a lesser extent to my two male coworkers, fighting with them on a weekly basis. What does this have to do with my father? On the surface, maybe nothing but think about this...I never get this way with my female friends, even the ones I am very close to. I don't get jealous, I don't get angry easily, I respect them and treat them well. The end result is: I cannot get close to a man, in any way. A lot of it has to do with unrequited romantic feelings but even when those aren't involved or long past, I still morph into this succubus on crack. I end up pushing them away before they have a chance to leave me...like my dad did. He left me and I am terrified for any man to do that to me again. So I become insane. It's not conscious; it's a literal gut reaction. I have lost a few very important people in my life that I cared about deeply as friends and it's my fault. Yes, I wasn't always treated right by them and I am glad in some ways that I don't have them in my life but losing them has always been my fault. I cannot trust a man. I have unreasonable expectations and demands. I want them to love me (as friends) as much as I love them. No man has ever loved me like my father has. I was the world to him, both my mother and I knew it. I guess I want to be the world to some other man whether I am a best friend or a significant other.

I have a lot of work to do. I want to end this. I want healthy relationships with men. I want to treat them like I do my family and my girlfriends, with respect and kindness. No set expectations going in, no jealousy, no demanding attention. My age of wrath has caused a lot of heartache and trouble for both me and those men. Some of them deserved it, yes I know, but I ask myself would any of this have happened if I didn't have this automatic tendency to treat every man as if he would leave me.

Why am I realizing this now? This week I said something unbearably awful to someone I love dearly. Flashback to two years ago and I said something equally awful to another man I cared about. I have never said anything of this caliber to any of my girlfriends or family, no matter how angry I have been. I of course didn't mean these terrible things but the fact that I even thought to say them fills me with great shame. My dear friend Jackie has helped me realize this pattern, one I have been either denying or avoiding for years.

The biggest fear I have is losing someone. Whether it is my death or apathy, it doesn't matter, the end result is the same. I have lost them forever. And it's always my fault.

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