Thursday 9 November 2017

Communication.

Communication.
Something so simple for most people, yet so complicated for me. For all the hard work I've done to my mental health over the last few years, my issues with communication are something that no one has ever really been able to fix.

For a long time communication has been used against me. My dad has done it, I choose not to speak about my parents on this blog. My old friends have done it, and every single one of my ex-boyfriends has done it. Whenever there is a small gap in conversation with someone, my brain just goes in to over drive. It doesn't matter who it is, my brain really isn't that fussy. It can be a friend, someone I'm interested in, or even someone I don't know that well.

In the past people have used communication as a way to let me know they think I've done something wrong. If they didn't like something I said, then they wouldn't speak to me for a few days/hours. If I put something on Facebook they didn't like, they'd post a status and start a public conversation with someone else whilst ignoring me. For example, one particularly vile ex decided to just ignore me for days on end, just dropped out mid conversation. Then told me off for trying to get in contact with them during that time, because I was supposed to telepathically know that they were ignoring me because they wanted to break up with me. Eventually the silence ended when they dumped me by text at 1am when they were drunk and told me I was psycho. Another one would make plans with me, then turn their phone off, leaving me sat there ready and waiting to go out until eventually I'd get back in to my pyjamas, take my makeup off and go to bed. Even just friends, I have some that just dropped off the face of the earth, some that just spoke to me to make themselves feel better about their lives. Even still if one my (granted very small) group of friends can't reply for a period of time, I decide that I must have done something that will offend them and I will never hear from them again.

My brain tells me in equal parts that if someone isn't talking to me then they're probably just busy, but also that if they aren't talking to me that I'm never going to hear from them again. I've never known conversation to be so important and so detrimental to someone at the same time.


So yeah. Conversation, especially of the text/phone call/social media kind, is not something that I fare well with. I just can't help it. I wish I knew how to fix it. I bring it up with every counselor I've ever had but nothing anyone tries to do help me manages to penetrate through all the bad memories my brain is storing about the past and these peoples actions. Of course it massively affects me being to form and maintain normal friendships/relationships/bonds with people. It takes a special kind of person to know that I'm not a complete weirdo, that I'm just damaged.