![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
on friends
Apr. 7th, 2023 09:41 am“You can’t love others until you first love yourself” is a common enough saying; I hear it a lot. There are times I say it to myself. Yet, I do not always love myself. Seldom, in fact. This saying always felt a bit hollow. It rang like a platitude oft repeated, but not understood.
Over the past few months I have grappled with the question of “who am I?” . This question directed my navigation of my inner conflict between what I want and the infamous “Tyranny of shoulds”. Unfortunate, yet necessary. A part of me questioned whether I had been genuine in my relationships. Had I really wanted to be there for my friends or was I merely acting in accordance to my “shoulds”. Was I really the one who stayed up invested in conversations? Were my suggestions and care directed at them genuine? Or perhaps just a hallucination brought on by the dictates of my neurosis. Was I acting out of real care and interest or were they just all actions borne out of a fear or rejection and distrust?
30+ years of negative thinking has trained me in being a harsh critic and a harsher judge of myself. That part of me loved this conflict. It meant numerous opportunities to give myself the harsh and brutal truth. And how could I disagree? It was the “truth” after all.
Turns out, the truth is complicated. And this part of me just enjoys the brutal and harsh aspects over the truth. Basically, I was an asshole to myself. I would never speak to anyone the way I spoke to myself. I spent my life ignoring the good aspects of myself. Events and actions occurred in my life that were good, but the comparing/ judging voice would put it down. Why was it a surprise to me to think that my actions were not genuine? I have little compassion to myself, and speak to myself harshly; it was natural that I expected others to see me the same way. And if they did not, well it was because they just did not know me well enough yet. Yet.
No matter how good a friendship got, it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped. Of course, then they would see me for who I really am.
Now, I see where this thinking came from. It is a sort of protective shell that had a purpose growing up. Being able to perceive all the “shoulds” and attending to them in a chaotic household gave me a feeling of agency. It controlled the drama. Sure I was a scapegoat at times, but it brought some control. There was a purpose for it at one point. It just was not the most well thought out strategy. The body only cares to survive from one moment to the next, future-sight is a duty for the mind. Of Course the mind is not fully developed as a child so it does what it can.
I want to hate this part of me. But I cannot. I should not. Because it was borne out of a child’s struggle to survive. Yes, it no longer serves me. But it may have been how I survived some very hard moments. I think this is what is means to be compassionate to yourself. It is a new practice. Does it really matter if my concerns and time spent with friends came out of a fear that they’d reject me otherwise? Yes, a little. But I still did it. I should feel grateful that I was able to do that. Feel compassion to myself that needed to adopt those strategies so I could have friends. Gratitude for doing so not fully understanding and not being resentful or dirty to others. If I acted in the ways that were modeled to me at home, I would have no social circle.
Everyday I force myself to think a little more about the harder moments of my life. I feel sad but grateful. Not just to myself, but also to others who knew me and stuck around. This time, not under the guise of how I saw myself, but from the actions that they saw. They were not blind, they saw the struggles. But because I did not feel compassion to myself, I expected their compassion to be inauthentic too. I assumed they were saying it out of an obligation; just “being nice”. And when I reproached or did not accept their help. Acts that resulted from me thinking “I am not good enough for people to want to be around me” was in instead being understood as “ I don’t trust you” “you will betray me”. It treated their genuine care as insincere. Because that is how I saw myself.
Looking back, of course, it is different. There are some friendships I pushed away too far. I was unable to deal with genuine care. And friendships wither in the absence of vulnerability and care for each other. Perhaps this is what is meant by one’s inability to love others until you love yourself. In Eric Barker’s Plays well with others, he mentions that when talking about friends the same parts of your brain light up when talking about yourself. In more than one instance, he alludes to friends being effectively an extension of yourself. Good friends. So then, maybe the truth is not that you cannot love others until you first love yourself because loving others is loving yourself.
Over the past few months I have grappled with the question of “who am I?” . This question directed my navigation of my inner conflict between what I want and the infamous “Tyranny of shoulds”. Unfortunate, yet necessary. A part of me questioned whether I had been genuine in my relationships. Had I really wanted to be there for my friends or was I merely acting in accordance to my “shoulds”. Was I really the one who stayed up invested in conversations? Were my suggestions and care directed at them genuine? Or perhaps just a hallucination brought on by the dictates of my neurosis. Was I acting out of real care and interest or were they just all actions borne out of a fear or rejection and distrust?
30+ years of negative thinking has trained me in being a harsh critic and a harsher judge of myself. That part of me loved this conflict. It meant numerous opportunities to give myself the harsh and brutal truth. And how could I disagree? It was the “truth” after all.
Turns out, the truth is complicated. And this part of me just enjoys the brutal and harsh aspects over the truth. Basically, I was an asshole to myself. I would never speak to anyone the way I spoke to myself. I spent my life ignoring the good aspects of myself. Events and actions occurred in my life that were good, but the comparing/ judging voice would put it down. Why was it a surprise to me to think that my actions were not genuine? I have little compassion to myself, and speak to myself harshly; it was natural that I expected others to see me the same way. And if they did not, well it was because they just did not know me well enough yet. Yet.
No matter how good a friendship got, it was only a matter of time until the other shoe dropped. Of course, then they would see me for who I really am.
Now, I see where this thinking came from. It is a sort of protective shell that had a purpose growing up. Being able to perceive all the “shoulds” and attending to them in a chaotic household gave me a feeling of agency. It controlled the drama. Sure I was a scapegoat at times, but it brought some control. There was a purpose for it at one point. It just was not the most well thought out strategy. The body only cares to survive from one moment to the next, future-sight is a duty for the mind. Of Course the mind is not fully developed as a child so it does what it can.
I want to hate this part of me. But I cannot. I should not. Because it was borne out of a child’s struggle to survive. Yes, it no longer serves me. But it may have been how I survived some very hard moments. I think this is what is means to be compassionate to yourself. It is a new practice. Does it really matter if my concerns and time spent with friends came out of a fear that they’d reject me otherwise? Yes, a little. But I still did it. I should feel grateful that I was able to do that. Feel compassion to myself that needed to adopt those strategies so I could have friends. Gratitude for doing so not fully understanding and not being resentful or dirty to others. If I acted in the ways that were modeled to me at home, I would have no social circle.
Everyday I force myself to think a little more about the harder moments of my life. I feel sad but grateful. Not just to myself, but also to others who knew me and stuck around. This time, not under the guise of how I saw myself, but from the actions that they saw. They were not blind, they saw the struggles. But because I did not feel compassion to myself, I expected their compassion to be inauthentic too. I assumed they were saying it out of an obligation; just “being nice”. And when I reproached or did not accept their help. Acts that resulted from me thinking “I am not good enough for people to want to be around me” was in instead being understood as “ I don’t trust you” “you will betray me”. It treated their genuine care as insincere. Because that is how I saw myself.
Looking back, of course, it is different. There are some friendships I pushed away too far. I was unable to deal with genuine care. And friendships wither in the absence of vulnerability and care for each other. Perhaps this is what is meant by one’s inability to love others until you love yourself. In Eric Barker’s Plays well with others, he mentions that when talking about friends the same parts of your brain light up when talking about yourself. In more than one instance, he alludes to friends being effectively an extension of yourself. Good friends. So then, maybe the truth is not that you cannot love others until you first love yourself because loving others is loving yourself.
