I guess a bit of self compassion
Hey me, it is currently dark outside as I sit in the backyard of my childhood home typing this. Today was kinda rough, but to be fair the last few weeks have also been pretty bad. I know I talked a lot earlier today, but I guess I started to feel my mood dipping as it gets later towards night. I guess I don’t know what I wanted to talk about, but I just wanted to say something.
I’m glad I’ve started doing CBT frequently, as that’s helped me a lot. I’ve also been doing several different affirmations and other techniques to try to work on other issues I have, but those take a lot more time and don’t show results nearly as fast. I still feel kind of depressed, which is unfortunate as earlier today I thought I had broken out of that depression.
I guess I might do a bit more CBT, as I feel still kind of sad for some reason, I guess while waiting for a friend to respond to some messages. I guess I might also quickly delve into that just to put it into writing: With a friend, we worked out a system where I can spam them with whatever I want on Discord, where there is no urgency to respond to the messages, and they aren’t really important. If I need to get their attention, or if I want a response then I send them a text. This works out, as I get to spam them with all the stuff I want to without them feeling overwhelmed or pressured to respond – while still having a method of asking important things that I want to be addressed. A bit ago I was feeling upset and using the fact that they respond slowly to my messages as evidence that they do not care for me, when I realized that ultimately this was what I explicitly told them.
Honestly, that ones on me – but it still did feel “right” to get hurt by that. But even if I logically can think about how this is fully reasonable and has no indication of anything bad, the fact that it’s 10:35 p.m. and that she hasn’t responded to my Discord messages yet. I guess ultimately I still have a lot of issues to work on, including ones about this – so I’m going to take some steps in the right direction and CBT this bad boy:
Situation: A close friend is not responding to Discord messages (which we agreed is fine to not immediately respond to).
Thoughts: She is upset at me, and ghosting me. She doesn’t want to interact with me anymore, as I’ve been overly clingy and I’ve ruined this relationship. She will slowly and progressively distance herself from me until we do not interact anymore, or she will fully ghost me as Christine did.
Feelings: More insecure, like I need to reach out for MORE reassurance, feel like she hates me or doesn’t want to interact with me again.
Behavior: This leads to a self-fulfilling prophecy, as I will isolate myself away from her and other friends more, while also reaching out to her solely for reassurance on my own insecure thoughts. This ends up with the worst of both worlds, as I stop being a good friend or someone who people want to interact with, while not making anything better for myself. I will also lose a friendship I value dearly.
Now for a better view:
Thoughts: She is respecting and utilizing the mutualistic agreement we came upon. She may not always want to text or have the time to get into a conversation, and she may value properly talking about the things I bring up rather than just quickly acknowledging them in passing. She also probably has this in a ritual or habit, where at the end of the day when she is done she goes through and texts back to the Discord messages. (She also has been good about responding to text messages!)
Feelings: I feel content. I don’t feel insecure about our friendship, and I feel like she values me as a close friend. I don’t feel the need to ask her for assurance on this, as I feel secure about the system we have going on, and that it works for BOTH of us.
Behavior: I am more lighthearted, fun, and secure overall. I do not ruin this friendship over something irrational, and I am able to stop this before I ruin this friendship. I am able to interact with them about good things while not needing to constantly ask them for reassurance or support. Friendship is saved, and healthy!
Honestly, I feel like a huge weight has been lifted off my chest – as in the past I have ruined a close friendship by doing exactly this and I wasn’t even aware that I did. I even had someone relay her sentiment about this, and I for some reason was not able to see it until now. Unfortunately, that ship has sailed too far to take accountability for it, but I can at least focus on stopping this toxic trait of mine now. I WILL CHANGE. Proud of you Big <3