Caveat: This blog post is obviously inspired by my feelings for Elle, but it's not really about her. I'm using they/them, because it could be about any one of my current, previous or future romantic partners. It's just general pondering on my own mental gremlins.
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The downside of being in love with someone, is that I want to see them all the time. I need them, all the time. That's just how NRE (new relationship energy) works.. But my time is limited, my obligations (willing obligations!) to my family are many. So balancing it all becomes tricky. And when I have available time, and my love can't / won't (which is also valid!) spend time with me, I feel adrift. Like a boat cut loose from its mooring.
What I'm trying to accept, is that my feelings are my responsibility. Mine alone. I can't demand someone's time, just because I want it. Loving them and being loved in return, doesn't give me the right to demand anything. The fact that I feel discomfort when I'm alone, isn't anyone else's responsibility but mine. I need to sit with that discomfort. Own it. Deal with it. Because it's my responsibility to fix me, no anyone else's. However, internalizing this lesson is hard. It's all a work in progress.
I think this feeling of loneliness is linked to trauma from bullying; Feeling left out, feeling alone, watching everyone else having fun with each other. Knowing I couldn't join them. Now as an adult, I don't feel this way in purely sexual relationships (there's always more fish in the sea). I'm very slightly triggered by friends having fun without me, but not strongly at all. It's mainly romantic relationships that make me struggle with these feelings, especially new romantic relationships.
In a new relationship, you're trying to figure out how each other work, and how to work together as a couple. There are no routines, nothing can be taken for granted. So when they need more alone time than I do, when they have obligations that get in the way of us spending time together, or when they simply don't want to spend half their fucking week hanging out with me... I get uncertain. I worry they don't feel the same way as I do, worry that they'll find me clingy, needy. Worry I'm too much... And I feel alone. I feel like they're not choosing me. And sometimes that's true. They aren't. They shouldn't have to. My feelings are my responsibility.
I was batting around, in my head, whether this is jealousy, or envy, but I don't think it's either of them. I'm not jealous of some hypothetical third party "stealing" my partner from me. What they're doing when they're not with me, is pretty irrelevant for my own feelings of insecurity. They could be fucking someone else, or they could be watching tv alone, to me that's completely irrelevant. The point is that I wasn't chosen, not the activity they've chosen to do in stead. I don't feel it's a competition.
Nor am I envious that they're having a good time without me. In fact, I'm glad they're having a good time without me. I want them to have a good time. Regardless of whether I'm with them or not.
I think it's just my own insecurity, coupled with trauma. I don't handle being alone very well. Alone with my own thoughts.
Is this really a defense against dysphoria? Some old "robot" trying to keep me from thinking too much, feeling too much, being too present..? Or I might realize I'm trans..? Is that it?
Or is it just trauma, and blaming it on dysphoria is an easy way out?
Regardless, it's my mind, so it's my responsibility.
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