One night a few weeks ago, while watching OITNB, I got hit by such a big wave of grief that my heart instantly dropped to my feet and I could feel myself go pale. Simply put, I was triggered.
I know that phrase is very popular right now and has been over-hyped. I also know many people who roll their eyes when they see or hear it. And I get it. I’ve done that too.
But this scene in the show was so emotional and so very close to what I had just gone through. To protect the privacy of my beloved GG, I won't post the details, but I'll just say this: Season 7, Episode 10, the scene where Nikki goes to visit Reznikov ("Red") in the medical unit to hear her diagnosis. It was just about word-for-word... and it was just too much, too soon.
That night, I had restless sleep with many nightmares... Even asleep, my body is most comfortable when it's freaking out and making the worst of things.
The next day I found myself thinking how I hadn't talked to my grandparents since the day of the funeral. At first I wasn't sure why, but then I got it... I knew they were grieving and I didn't want to put my grief on top of theirs. My grandma lost her mom. I didn't want her also being sad that I had suffered a loss too. I felt like my grief was less valuable than hers, so it would be wrong for me to share it with her. I didn't want to burden her with trying to make me feel better. I also felt very guilty for feeling that way.
I tend to be someone who lets everyone unload on me... I take their feelings, their emotions, and their problems and I put them on my back. I'm really good at it, and it's both a blessing and a curse. It would be easier if I would also lighten my load, but I don't... I don't want to burden people with my problems. For some reason, I have never been comfortable sharing my problems one on one with people - a main reason that this blog even exists... I've always thought that my burdens and my baggage would be too much for someone (re: anyone) to help me with and that it made me weak that I couldn't handle it on my own. That left me not only drowning in my own problems, but putting everything I had into solving everyone else's problems. But at the end of the day, I didn't have the energy to fix myself after fixing everyone else, and because I never asked for help, people weren't there to help me. I was always alone with my problems.
I've never expected people to put as much into our relationships as I do. I guess I've always thought that because my burden is bigger, that I have to give more to balance it out. I'm so afraid of people leaving me that I let them love me wrong. I don't stand up for myself, I don't set boundaries, and I don't set clear expectations of how I want to be treated and what I will and won't stand for. But that's not how relationships work and I think it's pretty much why I've been going through all of these changes in my relationships lately. All of a sudden, I started to see my own worth. All of a sudden, I thought that I have a lot of great qualities and that people are lucky to have me as a friend. Once I expected more from people, they started to show me who they were. I didn't listen at first... I let them twist things and convince me that I had done something wrong. Maybe they needed me to be who I was before for the relationship to work, but I don't want to be that person anymore. I'm not that person anymore.
I have baggage. If you're not here to help me carry it, then please excuse yourself. There's not room in my life for you anymore.
