it's been said one definition of insanity is to keep doing the same things and trying for different results...like most people here I have been trying to change old patterns but sometimes I am just tempted to try one more time with something.
I wrote to my sister, asked how she is, told her about my piece for the radio station party. Her reply was brief:
Very hectic back at work. Having to work a lot of overtime. Still the week is flying by. Starving so going for dinner - then bed!
Take care
XXXXXXXXXX
It's always the same- never any acknowledgement even that she hears what I say, she just blanks me whenever I have had some creative success!
The stuff on self-sabotage and fear of success is a lot of it talking about our imaginary fears and how big they get, but for my pattern I seem to keep trying and trying to engage people who make it clear 'I don't care'.
I'm not saying my sister totally doesn't care...she has lovely moods sometimes, and can be funny and generous. But in terms of a consistent interested warm friend in my life, she never has had and probably never will have any interest in my achievements or my life. It's not about me, I am sure, yet I can't help myself, periodically I try again and see if she's thawed....see if she likes me now....
At least this time I didn't feel hurt, and I rarely call her now or talk in depth about anything, to maintain a relationship I don't try to do one! Because she's my sister. I would have no interest otherwise in maintaining a facade, but I think where possible it tends to be practical in a family.
What do other people think of that?
But I was walking one day and because it was talking to a stranger I said more than I generally would about a guy I had met ( this is about 3 years ago ) who told me he didn't want to see me any more because he couldn't be faithful to any one woman and he knew it would be a problem for me. She looked at me and said 'when someone is telling you something, believe them!'
But not every person speaks openly what I need to know like that.
And yet- I have a habit of engaging with people who do not or can not care fully.
I was thinking about it, someone else said to me 'why bother trying to make relationships with people who don't want one?'
But my empty cold childhood- I had to try, I was so scared and lonely, I can't tell anyone how empty it was, but I saw that movie 'Trainspotting' once, horrible film, but where the baby dies of neglect and the people are all out of it- that was a lot like my childhood. The adults were heavy drinkers, angry, immature, immoral often...it was very rare I could engage with anyone. And I know that's where this pattern originates, and why it feels like my survival depends on it, because in many ways it did. Sometimes I was hungry. I was left to cry when I was too young to take care of myself; my mother told me proudly that her babies never cried after a few weeks. We were teased and treated as playthings. We were left alone from a very young age. Sometimes it was embarrassing, we didn't have the things we needed for school and our activities were arbitrarily started and stopped. My mother quarelled with everyone, neighbours, family, my father....people would be close visitors one month then stop coming and we never saw them again. You couldn't depend on anything!
The guy at church I attached to last year stopped calling after I told him about my illness. That was maybe bad judgement on my part- and will always be an issue as I get close to anyone, there's so much prejudice against mental illness it doesn't matter how enlightened someone thinks they are, it's almost automatic for most people to switch you right over into a bo marked 'the other'. That's quite scary to me, to be rejected for something I can't even help. It meant I wouldn't accept I had the illness for many years, which of course was counter-productive because then I wasn't dealing with it and some of the acting out behaviours of bipolar can be problematic for others.
But even now it's under control I get two responses: you don't really have a mental illness ( the most common one becasue most people in my life have never seen the consequences of not managing it ) or: I'm politically-correct so I'll treat you as an equal at work and in social settings, but I don't want to have a personal relationship with you any more!
I'm exaggerating, but that is what it feels like, and I have gone back to a place I rarely disclose. I wouldn't tell a date or a relationship unless we were getting married; I have told friends to help them sometimes, but even that usually backfires, even if they clearly have mental health issues themselves it doesn't help them see 'oh it's not such a big deal' but mostly they go further into denial.
Kay Redfield Jamison goes into this a lot in her writing, she's a successful doctor and writer with bipolar, but has met with unbelievable prejudice at times. And there's nothing can be done on a personal level, though in our society people can't automatically discriminate in the workplace etc.
But that feeling of you just lost someone's affection and respect- I can't describe it, though I am getting used to it, and to pretty-much writing off the person who responds that way.
So- how can I remind myself against this strong pattern of wanting to attach and convince my early family to love me- how can I break the subconscious pattern affecting relationships now?
I thought I would develop a checklist to start with:
*initiates contact
*there is back and forth reciprocity
*sometimes does a nice spontaneous thing
*is consistent
*level of affection matches rest of relationship- this can be confusing to people of differing cultures
*shows interest in things important to me, shares what is important to them
What else????
~W
