Hello Everyone,
Today I have learned fully and truly to let go of a withering, unhelpful relationship. I'm rationally classifying this as a "win," but the hurt of a deep loss of someone important to my formative years lingers on. I'm trying to be patient with that mourning process.
***POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING***
I lost a sibling four years ago, and it shook up my whole family (dysfunctional family at that) dynamic off it's hinges, and me many steps toward recovering from something I didn't realize how deeply I struggled with. (CPTSD)
Slowly but surely, as each and every one of my relationships before the date of my brother's untimely passing, I have noticed the unhealthy nature of these existing one-way relationships. I was only comfortable giving and never taking, so I did not make very good friends, in retrospect. Today, I let go of the very last one.
One by one, I recognized in all of my past relationships that I was not being treated as equally as I felt my worth deserved. This is a sad and somewhat lonely process, and lots of my identity comes into question... But at the same time, it's a testament to gaining self-worth little by little. I just wasn't willing to let go of the final person, because I felt like I was letting a former me die.
I struggle with finding this a good thing all the time amidst the deep sense of loss I experience. I worried that I was responding in a way I'd regret to everyone I ever knew. I just changed so much. I will never be the same again, and that makes me sad. But I also feel a lot of shame. Realizing that this person was who I'd call my biggest, most influential friend... my dearest friend... the one above all friends who treated me the best I'd ever had in my formative years... it really eats up at my self-esteem to finally recognize that not even she is not a kind enough friend for me. It's a mix of loss and of self-disappointment, embarrassment, humiliation- these are all just the words at the tip of my tongue. I vacillate between degrees of worthiness, worthlessness, sadness, pride, calm, rejection, hurt, anger, defiance, and ever so deeply so quietly and fleeting I'll find a degree of peace somewhere in it. But the tears come charging in quickly as these emotions go.
I was going to post this in my journal, but I wondered if more people might see similarities in this... losing friends on the road to self-discovery.
Thanks, friends,
-HV
Today I have learned fully and truly to let go of a withering, unhelpful relationship. I'm rationally classifying this as a "win," but the hurt of a deep loss of someone important to my formative years lingers on. I'm trying to be patient with that mourning process.
***POSSIBLE TRIGGER WARNING***
I lost a sibling four years ago, and it shook up my whole family (dysfunctional family at that) dynamic off it's hinges, and me many steps toward recovering from something I didn't realize how deeply I struggled with. (CPTSD)
Slowly but surely, as each and every one of my relationships before the date of my brother's untimely passing, I have noticed the unhealthy nature of these existing one-way relationships. I was only comfortable giving and never taking, so I did not make very good friends, in retrospect. Today, I let go of the very last one.
One by one, I recognized in all of my past relationships that I was not being treated as equally as I felt my worth deserved. This is a sad and somewhat lonely process, and lots of my identity comes into question... But at the same time, it's a testament to gaining self-worth little by little. I just wasn't willing to let go of the final person, because I felt like I was letting a former me die.
I struggle with finding this a good thing all the time amidst the deep sense of loss I experience. I worried that I was responding in a way I'd regret to everyone I ever knew. I just changed so much. I will never be the same again, and that makes me sad. But I also feel a lot of shame. Realizing that this person was who I'd call my biggest, most influential friend... my dearest friend... the one above all friends who treated me the best I'd ever had in my formative years... it really eats up at my self-esteem to finally recognize that not even she is not a kind enough friend for me. It's a mix of loss and of self-disappointment, embarrassment, humiliation- these are all just the words at the tip of my tongue. I vacillate between degrees of worthiness, worthlessness, sadness, pride, calm, rejection, hurt, anger, defiance, and ever so deeply so quietly and fleeting I'll find a degree of peace somewhere in it. But the tears come charging in quickly as these emotions go.
I was going to post this in my journal, but I wondered if more people might see similarities in this... losing friends on the road to self-discovery.
Thanks, friends,
-HV