I am on a roll, another blog in less than a week; and another one that really needed to get out of my head. This one is potentially one of the hardest ones that I have birthed, but my CBT sessions are making me think more about how I react to events around me. The time is right…
So this one is about relationships, and I use that in the loosest sense of the word. Relationships such as romantic relationships, family relationships, work relationships, and friendships. They’re all coming under that banner because I need to blur the lines on this one for my own sense of safety.
Many of you will know that I had two abusive marriages, but this blog is not about them. This is about the relationships where you think you’re being supported, but, in fact, the very opposite is happening. You’re slowly being taken down brick by brick.
Relationships are tricky things. They can have the power to make us believe we can take on the world, or they can destroy the very fabric of who we are. Right now, I am lucky in that I have some amazing people in my life who absolutely make me believe the former, but it’s not always been that way.
In the past few years, I’ve come to realise that some of the people who I thought had been the best things in my life, were in fact the ones that were keeping me keeping me ill, for want of a better word.
In the immortal words of Sanatarium (from THE best Metallica album ever – and yes I will argue this fact!)
Build my fear of what’s out there
Cannot breathe the open air
Whisper things into my brain
Assuring me that I’m insane
Shall we start?
The first example is one that I am sure that we’ve all had in our lives to some extent. That person who checks in with the well meaning ‘Are you ok?” But is it really that well meaning? Or do they just ask with no intention of listening to your reply?
What makes this one harder is you know that they know that you’re anything but OK, but they still carry on regardless of how hard their life is blah blah blah.
The issue I have with this, and this is about how I live my life, is that I would never dream of doing that. I would always put the other person first. Which has been the topic of my therapy this week. How often do we put other people first, but at what cost? This is why this one hurts because it’s the antithesis of everything that I believe in.
My next example is a slight move on from that. In that this person lets you say how you feel, so you get to vent your spleen and hope to feel heard and understood. But… With this one, the sting in the tale is that what you’ve experienced is nothing at the side of what they’ve had! Oh no, they’ve had it bigger, better, worse, harder – you name it.
Classic narcissism, perhaps, but it’s sometimes more subtle. It’s only when you step back from the conversation that you see their stories are not about making you feel better, no, they are all about showing them in the most wonderful light possible. It was never about caring for you. It is always about them and how great they are.
The final one is perhaps the one that hurts the most. This person makes you feel like they are on your side, you can share your innermost thoughts and feelings; and they respond as you would expect. You feel safe and nurtured in this relationship. But little do you know that they are actually using you. It’s so subtle that even the most astute of us cannot see it when we’re in the eye of the storm.
The only reason you know is that at some point things snap.
The relationship breaks down, and you see what they’ve actually been doing. In some cases, they have been gaslighting you, perhaps even alienating people on your behalf! To the point that you end up isolated from people you care about.
You walk away from this one a shell of who you were. You feel stupid, used and unsure of actually what is real or fake.
The common factor with all three of these is that somewhere inside you, your gut is telling you that there is something wrong. But we’ve all been told that we should not see the bad in others. We are taught to think instead of feel.
I promise you, 99 times out of 100 your gut always knows, and perhaps that is why these kinds of relationships hurt the most. It’s because we’re fighting ourselves. After all, deep down we know something is wrong.
I have had all three of these, in various different guises across all my adult life. And I realise getting this out there in the open makes me sound gullible and perhaps even stupid. But there is an added sting in my tail.
I have had mental health issues all my adult life, and now I am slowly accepting that a lot of that could be related to ADHD.
Being someone who is potentially neurodivergent makes navigating relationships harder. I say potentially because, at the moment, I have no intention of putting myself through the hell that is getting an official diagnosis. I have enough going on thank you!
But back to the point… I bare my soul to anyone who will listen, not because I want to share sometimes, but because I want to let you see that I am like you. I don’t have it all together, despite being able to mask the shit out of life.
I also want you to like me, because a big bit of ADHD is RSD, which means that we feel rejection even more than most. I spoke a little bit more about that here… Maybe one day I’ll try and unravel it all – because the feelings are something else!
Needless to say, I am getting better at listening to my gut, and seeing who is real and who is fake.
My final thought is that if you’ve experienced these things, please don’t feel bad. This was never about you. these people come into your life and do these things to make themselves feel better. You are not unloveable, unworthy of friendships or relationships, anything but. You’re probably some of the best people out there…
I know because I am now friends with so many of you!
Not Middle Aged 