perception

4/18

I talked to her about how angry I am. Angry that he’s aware he has so much to work through and that our relationship made it obvious. Angry that he gave up so fucking easily. Angry that he’s so okay with losing someone. Angry that he can acknowledge I meant something and was falling in love but still feel so solid in his newly found “truth” of feeling nothing for me.

My therapist told me that anger is good. That it’s going to show me all the ways I was made into something I’m not. The ways I was inadvertently made to be a pawn in someone else’s life. It’ll show me how I wasn’t held, seen, or treated like the full person I am.

I told her about our last exchange—giving each other our stuff. She asked me:

Did he ask how you felt after he was cold?

… No.

Did he ask how you felt about the relationship yesterday?

… No.

Did he ask, “Do you need more clarity from me?”

… No.

And then she asked, “What do you think that tells you about him?”

I said: maybe he’s self-absorbed and doesn’t care.

She agreed. He is so consumed with himself. He is egocentric. People with depression or even social anxiety often have an over-emphasis on self, she said. His negative obsession with his own worth and capacity left me in a position of not being seen, held, or cared for as a full person.

She asked if this had happened before. I told her: yes.

Like in November, when he was so consumed with not getting his laundry and other bullshit done. We were going to a Christmas pop-up market. He picked me up, and he didn’t ask me a single question. I carried the entire emotional weight of the date until I became silent because I just couldn’t do it anymore.

Or the night I was touched by a man at a Christmas party and he had no sense of urgency to come over when I needed it because he was drinking and hanging out with his girl bestie until 2:30 a.m. And when he did eventually come get me he didn’t hug me or offer words of support or ask me questions.

Or when I had a bad mental health day and he offered to come over to hug me goodnight after his hang with J, and then rescinded his offer because I was “laying in bed” and said it “wouldn’t be worth it to come over” because he still had to go home that night.

Through these stories, she said, the neglect and self absorption is starting to come forward for her. And it should for me too.

I said I think he couldn’t fully be there for at times because he’s uncomfortable with his emotions.

We talked about how I just want answers:

Was this relationship even real?

Did he ever care about me?

Is the apathy just a defense against closeness, or did he never actually care?

She said the answers to those questions matter less than why I’m asking them.

Those questions tell her—and me—that I’ve been making my truth dependent on his answers.

She offered a different perspective. Perhaps I’m asking those questions because this person failed to make his care and feelings obvious. I’m asking because the relationship—and how he handled me—was so irresponsible and confusing that I’ve been left with no clarity. That in itself is the answer.

He isn’t capable of giving honest answers to these questions.

So she asked me:

What are your answers?

Did he care? Was it real?

The truth: he cared in his own limited capacity.

His care reflected his emotional capacity.

And if it didn’t end like this, I would’ve had to realize eventually what his capacity for care really was. I was never going to be the person who changed that.

The relationship was real for me because I have the capacity to grow and be emotionally deep.

It was as real for him as he can be real with himself—which isn’t very much.

He can’t sustain vulnerability. He never could.

A relationship is only as real as it is reciprocated.

My experience was real because my capacity to love and hold deep emotions is very real.

We then talked about the belittling I experienced with my mom and how this plays a role in my emotions. How it created this complicated relationship with my own emotions—shame, embarrassment, and deep distrust in their validity. How that leads me to self-sacrifice and self-silencing. How I’m willing to excuse others for not meeting my emotional needs.

How I then compulsively overshare with friends—(which, let’s be honest, I do literally every fucking time I have an emotion).

And how, in romantic relationships, I center in on the other person. I make their perception the ground for my reality. I lose myself. I become disempowered.

Especially when the person—like my ex—is confusing and emotionally irresponsible.

But I’m not going to stay there.

This is where I start to get real with myself.

To stop waiting for someone else’s perception to validate my own.

To let my anger guide me—not to bitterness—but to the boundaries I didn’t know I needed.

To let the love I gave be proof of what I’m capable of, even if it wasn’t reciprocated

To come back to myself