reflections on relationships with anxiety.
I have a lot of baggage. The kind that has led me to therapy weekly and meditation daily. It has shaped me and changed me in both good and bad ways, but has certainly left its fingerprints on my soul as well. It comes with me everywhere, and it is not something that I can just put aside, although I pretend that I can. I hide it away the best I can, and when I can’t, I run away from everyone. I hide in the darkness and come out when I know that I have the demons under control.
Or, at least I did. This was my main way to keep “the issues” away in order to maintain my relationships, because I was sure that if anyone got too close, I would ruin it and it would be the end.
Then, you walked in. You said that you wanted to know me. You wanted to know all of me, the good and bad. You wouldn’t let me run away when things got hard. You wouldn’t let me hide alone in the dark, but would join me in silence. You asked me questions about myself and genuinely wanted to know—and you didn’t turn away from us when you heard. Instead, you took my hands and said, “I love you.” You are perfect, and it scares me. Having you close is the most comfort that I have ever felt, but the fear of you leaving after letting you in is blinding.
But do you want to know what is even scarier? I have realized that turning us away from my emotions, my troubles and my fears hurts us more than sharing them. The one tool I had to make all my relationships stable is now the mechanism that hurts us the most. It pulls us apart in a way that it has never done with anyone else before. You are not just a friend, you are my person, and holding emotions in and hiding them hurts you. It makes you question that I trust you and if I want the love that you are offering me. You begin to question us, which is the exact reason that I am hiding this from you in the first place.
So I feel stuck between the fear of not letting go enough and the fear of letting go too much. Stuck between my favorite coping mechanism and the reality of what that does to us. I am scared all the time that one day I will mess this all up. That my baggage will keep us from the beautiful life and relationship that we have been building together brick by brick. That one day the home that we have diligently made will turn into ashes as my flames overtake our world. I am petrified because you are everything.
You have loved me harder than any other person has. You love the bad more than the good because you know that it needs a little extra comfort. You love the way it has made me stronger and more outspoken. You love that it makes me tenderhearted. You love that I cry over everything. You just love me. For me. For all of me. So even though I am terrified to ruin us, deep down there is a little voice that tells me “you can’t.”