Tensions

[yvannairie]

I went and added some commentary on a post about communication (as you do) and now I'm sitting here struggling with my brain going "see? Speech is an action, therefore talking about your thoughts qualifies as acting on them"

Which is a really bad rabbit hole to go down when you have OCD and intense intrusive thoughts and a horrible pattern of blaming yourself on shit that was brought about by failures on both sides of the social equation. Because it's true that if people treat me like shit based on the way I talk to them, then that's entirely deserved, but at the same time, me saying "I sometimes think about how bad I am for my friends, how I'm always going to hurt them and how being my friend is an ordeal"... won't make it true, because things cannot be true just because I think them.

I don't know how to square the circle of communication being something you need to consciously do that isn't an action. Not all speech is even equal in this regard, because even I recognise that sometimes saying things that make others feel bad is not the same as being verbally violent with them, and the other way around. With speech, intent matters so much -- with a physical action, it either hurt the target or it didn't, but with speech you always need to consider whether something was intended to inform or to manipulate, whether it was proactive or reactive, whether it was truthful or misinformed, before you can even get to "did it cause harm"?

Comments

[yvannairie]

Interestingly enough, I had a realisation at therapy today that I don't really consider the people I set out to have a fix-em-up attitude to really truly be my friends, because that sense of "people will start resenting you if you try too hard to change them" is so strong. So, if I set out to have a relationship based on "this person is miserable and I want to Do Something about that", I'm a lot more open to that relationship ending and more willing to be quite casual about my own participation in it, as opposed to people I make friends with because I want to spend time and enjoy their company.

It's that second kind of friendship I feel just... keeps fucking failing on me, the type I go into wanting to Be Their Friend, rather than just wanting to have a relationship that is beneficial to that other person, so maybe the problem is that I still don't know my own needs or how to really have them fulfilled, so I end up giving people conflicting information and everything falls apart.

Oh and we also talked about the bad relationship that triggered this all and a lot of it is tangled up in my sense that I'm responsible for my behaviour even if I didn't intend it to turn out the way it did and oh look at that we're back to speech and why it's hard because consequences.

[hellofriendsiminthedark]

Mmm, yeah, that makes sense. My fixer-upper relationship either fall into either "tough love" or "doting, humble caretaker."

I think in general, it always hurts not to get desired affirmation from the people you want it from, although the conflict and negative associations definitely get magnified by neurodivergence and trauma... Not to be like "rejection sensitive dysphoria," but it's definitely a feel.

I'm glad you made some headway in deconstructing how you feel and what you perceive! Even if it seems like going in circles, you're definitely going to make some good headway that will hopefully improve your future interactions.