Theory on y I am scared of relationships....

Here's my theory:

I don't like rejection. Actually, that's the epitome of an understatement. This came up in a couple classes I attended at MTKF this past weekend; the idea that to be rejected by your tribe is to die. And I would take it a step further, in that for me, it often feels like if I am rejected I will die. By the bartender, by the waitress, by the child in the store, my mother, your brother, my boss, anyfuckingbody can kill me with rejection. Which is why I either don't let you close enough to risk me getting rejected, or I push you away early enough to protect myself. Or I find something, some small, truly insignificant thing, by which I can claim and convince myself that any relationship beyond friendship and occasionally encounters of more-than-friends would surely fail. Weather this is the way you roll the toothpaste tube or the way you stack dishes in the drying rack, or the way you don't hold me tight enough.

Fucking E-PI-PHO-NY. Bitches.

Because I'm strong. Because I'm independent. Because I'm a hard working girl. Because shit ain't free. Because it's aftercare for a reason; it comes after something. Because I have to do something to deserve it.

I've made jokes about being in this for the aftercare before. But I never thought about how much truth there was to it. Potential truth. Because I was raised to be strong, to be independent, to take care of myself, to do things on my own. Because she was weak and he was non existent. Because when I had questions, they went unanswered. Because when I lowered the wall I got fucking trampled; All without my noticing. All without my consent. Because I wasn't given a choice, and didn't even know one existed for me. Because had I known there was such thing as individual freedom and that I was an individual that should be able to stand on her own. Without use of his arm, or her elbow, or the stuffy from childhood, or the chair from the table, or the blanket behind which to hide.

Care, on the other hand, care and kindness and niceties and love and gentleness just for the sake of loving and experiencing...that, I don't know how to deal with. Because hardwired into the full acceptance and sharing of such requires a level of openness and vulnerability that I simply am not able to handle right now, but am starting to with the help of someone.....I don't like thinking and knowing that you may leave. That whatever I did to make you happy initially may have worn off and that you may one day wake up and realize that I am, in fact, not enough to keep you happy. Because care for the sake of love and companionship and simply for care's sake implies a never-ending quality. That it will forever and forallways be as it is now. Which, more often than not, is farther from the truth than me describing the amazing steak I had for dinner.