A Twenty-Something's Adventure in Adulthood

I’m such an ESFJ. Myers-Briggs has me pegged to a tee. Who knew?

I’ve been thinking a lot today about my bottom line in a relationship of personal space. I pull people so close, then distance and push them away out of nowhere. Then I get close again, and then I distance. It’s confusing, has broken up my relationships, and is emotionally taxing on me. I want to understand it.

I’ve placed this expectation on myself my whole life that I need to be perfect, that no one could ever see my flaws. That’s why gaining weight and my hair thinning was/is so hard for me, cause I was wearing my flaws like a cloak of shame for the world to see. My entire life, I’ve had to defend myself to my mother, and who I am, and how I feel, and why I feel the way I do, and she never acknowledged any of that or let me just be who I was. I was never good enough, or I was wrong, or I was selfish, or I was disrespectful and hateful. The list just goes on and on. She refuses to see the world or others any way other than the way she sees it, because it’s too painful for her to live any other way. In some ways, I feel like the pain in her life I have let seep over into mine.

I have never been able to let someone SEE me. To see me as I truly am, with all of my flaws, and know that they will accept me and love me. I have never been given that by my parents- either one. Maybe it was unintentional with my father, but there’s was always an expectation of who I should be, how my success would be measured, what I had to do to be affirmed. There’s an overwhelming fear, almost to paralysis, that if someone sees me for who I truly am, they will hurt me and I will be left broken. I’ve managed this in many different ways my entire life, whether it was using my attractiveness as a power with men, and a way to not let them in on a deeper level, or by completely isolating and hiding, but I’ve never not had an escape. 

Because I’ve always had to defend who I was and my feelings to my mother, I have to be in complete control of everything, to ensure she can’t hurt me or criticize me, and to ensure I fulfill my dad’s expectations and I make him happy. I have slowly been trying to unravel this need to control everything, but it’s still there, and my boyfriend has been amazing and wonderful at being patient with me. 

With us moving in together soon, this demon of me being able to truly be myself with another person is coming up to the surface. He’s the only man in my life, and probably woman, who I’ve ever been able to let “see” me and he hasn’t run or criticized me. I know that he truly loves me, all of me, but there’s still this paralyzing fear there. I can’t hide anymore. I have no escape once we live together. He knows about my need for space, and luckily our house is big enough to where we can spend time apart if we need it, but the “hiding” is still so un healthy. Sometimes I feel damaged, broken, and even hopeless. No matter all of his affirmations, or signs of affection, I never believe that I can truly be myself, that the person I am at my root and in my truest form is worthy of love and is good enough. Even in the moments I am unshowered, face is breaking out, feeling bloated or unattractive, and he tells me I’m beautiful, I just can’t even hear it. 

I don’t ever want to hurt him, and I want to work this out, whatever this fear and hurt is I carry. I know he needs me to be myself, to let him in, and to accept him as well. In the past, I have found the true self of others and I haven’t accepted them or loved them the way they are, and I hate myself for that. I couldn’t get past some of their flaws, or the way they so casually bared their entire soul to me. It felt needy. Why can’t I do that? How could someone do that? Why aren’t they more private and protective of themselves? Am I the crazy one? This feels like too much.

Now here I am, age 23, sitting with this demon, who’s been around since the beginning. Why can’t I just be myself? Why does it have to hurt so bad? Why do I have to hide? Is it okay if I hide, will my boyfriend just allow that to be a part of our relationship? 

Some days, I want him to be more protective over me. I want him to show me that I’m the only one he wants. That he’d do anything for me. That he wants me only for himself and forever and that’s it. I need a man who will want to control me, but doesn’t and just lets me know every once in a while he wants me to himself. That’s the only kind of affirmation I feel like has ever sufficed for me. 

That’s why I like sex to be rough. It’s dominating, it’s controlling, and I can be submissive and not defensive for once. It shows a passion and an unbridled sense of desire for the other person, without the bullshit or the fear. I want to be controlled.

How fucked up is that, like seriously? In what world are people even like that? How can I even ask that? This post is long, but it feels like I needed to write this down to understand it. I still don’t. But I’m getting there.

I’m beginning to feel like I might actually be in love for the very first time. I’ve had strong feelings before for others and assumed it was love, but nothing comes close to the relationship I have with my boyfriend. As I always say, MFT and becoming a therapist has changed me for the better in so many ways and made me a better person, bu I’m also such a different “me” than I was in my past relationships. It’s new, it’s mature, it’s unselfish, and it’s so passionate.

I have new struggles as a new “me” I’ve never had before, but they are welcome for giving me this new love that I have never experienced. I am so free, so secure, so magnetized with my boyfriend. He’s really the center of my world, and it’s a world that’s so big and full of opportunity. He touches every part of my life. He’s there when I need him, he gives me space when I am feeling closed in, he loves so much, he gives so much, and even when he doesn’t understand he’s understanding and hungry to learn. He is safe and stable, and also unpredictable and exciting. He lets me be whoever I am, even if I don’t know that person fully myself yet.

Although I admit to being totally wrapped up in him and often closed off the the outside world at times, we know how to spend time apart and enjoy time with others without the other as well. I see him constantly growing and changing, and become the best parts of himself, although the darker parts I love and accept. It feels so new after only 6 months, but feels so much deeper and more real than any other relationship I’ve had, even the ones that have spanned longer.

I guess there is no timeline for love, and no prescribed span of time that two people need to achieve that kind of connection. I always surprise myself, and this is no exception. I just can’t wait to move in together, to be together in a very physical and real sense, and to have each other as partners in a life that’s new and all our own. I’m feeling wonderful.

Today I went to the local farmer’s market and Co-Op in Syracuse. Here’s a breakdown of what I bought and spent.

Farmer’s Market:

-3 Green Bell Peppers for $1

-Basket of Strawberries, Basket of Broccoli Heads, Basket of Carrots $5

Syracuse Real Food Co-Op:

-One Dozen Large Brown Farm Eggs 

-Frozen Grass Fed Ground Beef

-One Frozen Evol Burrito

-Bag of Bulk Cous Cous

Total: $14

Total groceries for one week: $20

Usual week worth of groceries: $35-40

Eating local, and buying fresh organic groceries is totally doable, if you go to the right places. Also, the produce I got tastes AMAZING, and I’m sure the beef and eggs will be as well.

I’m taking on a new task.

With two internships, grad school classes, a boyfriend, a dog, and very little time off, I’ve been using my leisure time in really boring and sometimes stupid ways (watching television, eating gratuitously, drinking alcohol, crafting projects for my new house, selling Scentsy and improving my business, etc.). While all those are thing I enjoy on some level, they aren’t all very productive and don’t help me to feel recharged a lot of the time. The Scentsy thing is important, brings in money, and helps me to connect to others in a different way than therapeutically. I like that, but it does also add a level of stress in my already chaotic life. My new internship is at a trauma-based site that is a comprehensive domestic and sexual violence shelter, so that is a heavy thing as well.

Today I really wanted to disengage after 8 hours of trauma training, and found myself kinda stuck with what I can do. I wanted to do something that challenges me and works on something I have always wanted to improve about myself, but also gets my creative juices flowing and lets me unwind. One thing that stuck out was cooking. Not in a spirit of shameless self-promotion, I consider myself to be fairly good at cooking, and am constantly getting better and trying new things in that arena. One thing I have, however, always SUCKED at in the cooking arena is baking. I am impatient, not careful, don’t measure things, and often deviate from recipes. Pretty much a recipe for disaster in terms of baking. I also don’t like sweets very much. Luckily, I have a boyfriend with a sweet tooth, and also a group of 30 people I see every day who are always hungry. So I decided, why not take up baking in your spare time? In the most “Julie & Julia” sense, I wanted to try to bake different cupcake recipes, and work towards mastering some baking skills, while trying my hand at something new and different. Cupcakes are a challenge because not only do they require almost scientific measuring and ingredient use, they are also very artistic and require a level of care and attention to detail.  Both of which I currently lack.

Who knows, maybe this will even help me to be more patient with clients? And have a better appreciation for skilled work like baking, and artistic expression. I may still be terrible at baking by the end of this, but it’s some kind of outlet, and cooking has always allowed me to relax and feel recharged, so here’s hoping.