It’s funny; you would’ve thought with all my therapy and introspection and noisy, unrelenting psychoblather about myself in these last years, I would’ve picked up on this before now. But nope. Finally hit me tonight.

It doesn’t matter how many people love me and give me so much of their time and patience and attention and unconditional (perhaps delusional) encouragement and how many people have done so over the course of my life that have outnumbered those who haven’t, if I am rejected by someone I thought was a friend without any closing discourse or response to my humble attempts at communication, I go into Ultimate HolyCrap Meltdown Mode. It doesn’t matter if this person/these people (it’s plural at the moment) are people that I’ve known for my whole life or less than a year, or if they’re people I’d keep on my Top 10 List of Friends, being rejected and dismissed without the consideration/respect for an explanation (even when I’m practically begging for it), I just straight-up lose my shit, reminiscent of the aching nights of self-loathing agony I endured in high school.

Without any adherence to the Four Agreements I tend to strongly believe in and desire to live within, I immediately/automatically turn inward and start tearing things apart. I begin to question my entire self-worth, what I’m doing with my life, what kind of person I am, why people bother with me in the first place. There is the old, almost-forgotten impulse to drive sharp objects into my forearms and thighs, the desire to randomly contact every person who ever rejected me in the last 20 years and demand answers, a barrage of memories to reiterate that feeling of impact when the realization of rejection first hits, the compulsion to contact any person I feel I might have wronged in the slightest and beg forgiveness for being such a shitty, horrible person in general and thank them for taking time out of their significant lives to pay attention to me, and that great, ever-present urge to drink or medicate myself until I can’t feel the powerlessness anymore.

Whoa.

Aaahhhm, I’ve still got some shit to deal with, apparently. Luckily, this all comes right after my physiological problems have been beaten back for a while and I’m actually in a level-headed spot for the most part. So this eruption of emotions comes at a time when my mental state is relatively stable, thus alerting me to the fact that it must be some sort of trigger. And, while it sucks a good deal, it’s definitely beneficial to be able to recognize these things, although, again, I can’t believe it’s taken me so long. Maybe I just needed all the exterior bullshit stripped away before I could deal with this one major quirk as it is singled out.

No, I know I have a shitload of people who care about me (and who bother to read me as I continue to ramble about being a neurotic nutjob) and I know I have a solid base of at least 10 friends whom I could call at any moment, after any length of time without speaking and say, “I NEED you,” and that person would be right there with me – no questions asked. I know that I have people I’ve tricked into believing that I am intelligent and capable and one of them even thought I was pretty enough to sign some papers saying he’d live with me and give me kisses every day for the rest of our lives. I know I’ve been blessed with scores of people who believe in me and don’t give up on me just because I’m a bit “off” and tend to screw up from time to time. (In fact, I just reunited with an old friend with whom I’ve had an on-and-off/kind of roller-coaster-y friendship with – due to our varied insanities/personal lives – who still finds me “amazing and intelligent” after having not spoken in two years and is okay with me just diving right back in where I left off.) I’m surrounded by so many wonderful people that it’s baffling, actually, but, should I lose one or two, my entire sense of self and my belief that I’m capable of maintaining a decent friendship are both shaken to the core and I am left with nothing short of the inherent knowledge that I am worthless and unlovable.

Instead of, you know, considering that their reactions might not have anything to do with me at all (like a sane person.)

I mean, mourning the loss of a friendship is one thing, but being immediately driven to attempting self-destruction because of someone else’s inability to rationally discuss a relationship-ending problem with a friend like an adult? That’s a bit extreme, isn’t it? I should probably have that looked at…

So, yeah, right now I’m hurting a lot. And I’m confused and vulnerable and fighting the temptation to just shut up and hermit myself away forever, in fear that everyone else in my life will eventually figure out what these recent rejectors must’ve and leave, too. And I’m scared that, because I don’t understand why I was rejected and why I wasn’t respected enough to be given an answer, I’m doing something wrong in my relationships that’s going to continue. And I’m probably crying too much.

But I also learned something about myself that’s apparently pretty fucking huge and may explain a great deal of my actions in the last 15 years. So I’m gonna be one of those obnoxious ever-self-discovering-types and thank the Universe for this learning experience, just like those doe-eyed optimists I always want to punch in the face. I’m grateful for the opportunity to realize that I have an unnatural reaction to human conflict/dynamic and now I have the ability to fix it… even though it’s probably going to suck, ’cause most therapy does.

Wooooo. Lemons to lemonade and stuff.

But, for now, I’m going to sit here and be confused and try to distract myself with funny videos of cats and fight the urge to send my first boyfriend yet another email about why he broke up with me in 1997. At least there’s no Ben & Jerry’s in the house; I’d hate to be an all-encompassing cliche.