Things I can’t say
My relationship is in a rough spot. It’s affecting my daughter. And me. I don’t know how to voice this feeling. I don’t want it to be like this. I want to fix it. I’m scared of speaking up, but I did it anyway this morning. It went pretty much how I expected. We have next steps. We’re going to work on things. Except I already work on things. So it’s not just the relationship. We’re in such different places. I don’t know where this is going.
I think I need to feel needed, which is why I’m so quick to offer my ear to everyone at work, and to my daughter at home. I feel more like a therapist lately than a manager or a leader or a mom. Is that what leadership and parenting us is? Feeling needed gives me the greatest sense of value and worth right now. I don’t know who I am if I’m not the one who listens or rationalizes or helps process emotions. I’ve gotten better at not needing to “fix” everything (OK fine, not everything, see bullet one), but I’m still very much in “human giver syndrome” mode. My role is to give to others, often to the detriment of my own well-being.
I took a laxative two weeks ago. No, that’s not the whole truth. I took two laxatives. That’s when I knew I was entering into some slippery disordered eating territory again. (For context, I used to take six, so two was like…”I know this is wrong, but if I can’t stop myself, at least I can temper it.”) That episode is partially why I can’t trust myself to get back on the bike yet. I haven’t gone down any other dangerous paths, though. I’ve been able to practice self-compassion and coach myself out of this getting worse. I mean, I had toast with breakfast this morning. TWO PIECES. So there.
I made a poor character judgement about someone that’s affecting other people I care about. I care about this person, too, though. I’m going to have to do something hard next week to hopefully correct the situation. But someone will get hurt in the process. That might be one of the things I’m most scared of. Hurting other people. Letting them down. It always feels like it’s my fault, even when I know logically there’s so much more to it than that. I cognitively understand Glennon Doyle’s amazing quote:
Every time you're given a choice between disappointing someone else and disappointing yourself, your duty is to disappoint that someone else. Your job throughout your entire life, is to disappoint as many people as it takes to avoid disappointing yourself.
But shit. How do you do when the act of disappointing someone else, in itself, also feels like disappointing yourself, because you hold yourself to the impossible standard of never disappointing anyone?
I probably need to start seeing a therapist regularly again. But just the thought of having to start over and explain everything from the beginning to someone new is exhausting. I really, really don’t want to.
This website and this blog have connected me, in really powerful and meaningful ways, to more people than I have ever felt connected to. But I also still feel so damn lonely.