It's funny how sometimes you build walls around yourself automatically without even really noticing. That's what happens most often for me. I won't trust someone just by default, because I'm so used to blocking people out like that. I do that all the time and it doesn't even occur to me until I'm actually looking for it. I am not typically a very trusting person, and even of the few people I do trust more than I would normally, I really don't trust many of them, if any of them, completely. Maybe that's a good thing, or maybe it's not. I'm still figuring that out. How much trust is too much? How much is too little? Who can I trust? But that's somewhat beside the point I'm trying to get at.
So, I build walls of distrust and fear without even thinking about it most of the time. But recently it's been really weird. I can feel myself building walls. I can feel myself wondering if I should trust a person or not. I can feel myself developing this fear that someone will hurt me or abandon me or decide I'm not worth it anymore. I can feel it happening. I've never had that happen before. Where I can tell I'm doing that. Before, it's always just sort of happened. But this is so bizarre. It scares me. I don't want to be afraid, I don't like fear. I don't want to be afraid of people. It makes them so hard to love the way I want to love, because I'm so afraid of that love being wasted. Love takes too much away for it not to be returned.
So I have to stop. And that's hard. It's hard not to be afraid. I'm scared of so many things, really. Spiders. Drowning. Falling. So what do you do? Live on? Give up? Get over it?
Everyone needs to pray for Andy. He's in surgury right now, actually, for his hand. He broke it last night playing football and he'll be out the rest of the season, which really, really sucks. I'm leaving for the hospital right now. Thanks!
Sincerely,
Mara Tenille
The Butterfly Child
You know, I kind of...I struggle with something similar, but in theory (and increasingly in reality) I'm holding a position that works into my anti-cynical philosophy; that while I find it basically impossible to trust anyone completely, that bypassing my natural distrust to force myself to trust them beyond where I'm comfortable, because there is no way to keep from getting hurt badly by the people we love and trust the most. It simply happens, and we'll never be able to escape the need for fellowship, and making the intellectual decision to risk whatever there is I have because if I try not to risk it, I'll get hurt anyway, without the benefit of friends, so it's more worth my time to just swallow hard and smile.
ReplyDeleteI'm far more afraid of hurting people, myself. I know that people will hurt me, and it's happened before, and it's survivable, but I hate to know that I'm a part of why people find it so hard to trust each other. *sigh*
You don't have to get over the things you're afraid of, I don't think, so much as you need to simply force yourself to do what needs done, when it needs to be.
Oh, wow. Yeah, that sucks. I am praying for Andy. Football, despite being about as much fun as you can have on a fall afternoon, really is a pretty ludicrous sport. *chuckle* My friend Patrick broke his arm in practice earlier this month. MAYBE SOMEDAY IN THE MISTY FUTURE, ANDY AND PATRICK WILL BE RETIRED NFL STARS WHO WILL BE INDUCTED TOGETHER INTO THE PRO FOOTBALL HALL OF FAME, AND ALL THEIR FRIENDS WILL GET TO GO TO A FANCY RECEPTION AFTERWARDS!