I’m realizing lately how difficult it is, at least for me, to tell the difference between apologizing/negotiating relationship terms vs. begging someone to be in your life. There is a nuance there. One that I assume is difficult for dismissives to grasp, or even want to partake of exploring.

I’ve always been someone to simply remove myself if I felt I wasn’t “celebrated.” My rigidness here has actually gained me an amazing, solid group of friends who enjoy me and I enjoy them. But this is a very fine-tuned behavior in me… any sense of poor enthusiasm gets people axed. I’m not going to beg people to be into me, or to want to be around me.

Recently I’ve had a situation where a very close friend decided we needed to see less of each other. (Spoiler, definitely due to my dismissive tendencies). Turns out I’ve been hurting her and she can’t take much of it anymore. She expressed she didn’t not want me to be in her life, but that we should see less of each other so that she didn’t have to feel hurt anymore.

That switch clicked in my brain and I immediately was like “ok bye.” I won’t beg you to want to be around me. I don’t need someone around if they won’t stay on their own, under all circumstances. You know that heaviness that hits, the feeling of burden to intake someone else’s emotions… the exhaustion. “Ok, bye.”

But as time went on I realized I really missed this person. Every time I thought of telling her that, I hit that same wall of exhaustion. The wall of feeling like feeling is tiring. The wall of feeling like I would be begging, or trying to convince someone to be in my life.

But I got to thinking… there is a nuance in all of this, a grey area… expressing your feelings, telling someone who has expressed you’ve hurt them that you miss their presence and admit you’ve hurt them because you’ve chosen not to feel…that’s not begging. Being willing to feel and communicate better, and letting that person know that… it’s not begging.

I suppose it’s connection. Vulnerability. Negotiating relationship terms. A pathway to security.

I avoid because I don’t have the correct bandwidth, or tools, to deal with unknown emotional outcomes. Whether they’re someone else’s array of emotions, or emotions that could come from my own expressions.

I sent her a letter email, a long one. Expressing my thoughts, fears, and desires. I feel strange. I feel exposed. And it’s not so much her response that I fear, it’s rather my reaction to her response. It’s an unknown. A blank. I can’t prepare because I don’t know what I’m preparing for. “Ok. Bye” has always let me avoid this internal chaos.