#dismissive avoidance

[sunnyanddumb98]

DISMISSIVE AVOIDANT

No hidden talents I could monetize,

Plant a smile, a chord's a rhyme,

Drawing my dream, everyone else's sins,

Their thoughts and their hopes, no one's above,

Being a friend with someone so cold.

And I, I put myself out there,

And I try to act like I care,

But how could you befriend someone,

Whose friends are only stories to tell?

I ask myself daily, browser research,

Filled with tutorials of how to behave,

Performance emotion, charisma on command,

How could I ever be kind?

I swear my intentions are good,

And I would never wish for you to be blue.

But it's true, your melancholy's dead,

Careers are stagnant, no place where to hide,

Suicidal texts at nights, all those hateful feelings,

I'd rather for you to avoid, are paying my bills.

When everyone dreams, I write down sins,

Starting with this, everyone I meet,

Utilitarian subject of my deepest fears,

All your stories, your lovers, and your thoughts,

Speak up facts of memories that I'd rather avoid.

And I, I put myself out there,

And I try to act like I care,

But how could you befriend someone,

Whose friends are only stories to tell?

No hidden talents I could monetize,

Plant a smile, a chord's a rhyme,

Drawing my dream, everyone else's sins,

Their thoughts and their hopes, no one's above,

Being a friend with someone so cold.

[pivot2thrive]

A year and a life change

A year ago, to the day, I’d finished an incredibly stressful time at work with a good friend who simply couldn’t pass the baton, be a decent team player, and who fumbled multiple projects that required me to pick up the pieces. In my typical Captain Saveahoe fashion (work derivation), I held onto him to try to figure out ways that could work because he was, after all, my friend. We decided to part ways a year ago to the day after a long conversation which ended with him not taking responsibility for his fumbles on his work, his inability to work as a team and his blaming of others for most all these issues. Letting go of him was one of the toughest things I’ve ever had to do. I think I walked six miles to try to cool off after the event.

Later that night, I was supposed to have a date with a friend that I’d opened up to the previous Sunday. I was looking forward to it because I envisioned a conversation about how tough the day had been. She flaked on me citing some other obligations with friends and with that I spun into a fight, flight freeze shame spiral of epic proportions. Here I was “not good enough” yet again, at least in my own mind, and this is when the falling apart took hold. In retrospect, the behavior was nothing new but somehow I’d imbued so much meaning given the events of the day and the previous “I like you and am interested” divulsion. If only I would have had thicker skin around the rejection of women that I cared about…

…well that has been the gift I’ve received for this past year. That and the understanding why my relationship picker has been so skewed.

I joke with people that 2010 was the year of dealing with my daddy issues and 2016 was the year of dealing with my mommy issues…ultimately coming to a place of peace about both and now to an even deeper trauma releasing and cathartic relationship with mom given the work done.

I have had a tendency of picking relationships with others based on who I saw that they could become much more than who I saw them to be at the time. This happened in work and in love. As a result, I’ve found myself Captain Saveahoeing in to cover the sins of others as I tried to be with them / work with them / so they could emerge to be a better version of themselves. In love, this has meant I pick the pretty Dismissive Avoidant projects (borderline covert introvert narcissists if I’m using big fancy psychological words) who say the right Jesus things like “feed the poor” but who simply cannot take another person’s emotional neediness (what kind of a reformed call girl or escort could be effective if she couldn’t shut off her emotions, right?) I fall for the familiarity of their candor (and their fake boobs) but when I, on occasion, become emotionally needy, I get a Heisman-like stiff arm and the rejection sends me back into the unresolved trauma of my life…like my perception of the mom who couldn’t or wouldn’t handle my neediness as a kid and who wouldn’t go to bat for me…I was simply not good enough and not worth the effort.

Sparing the gory details and a veritable shit ton of work on myself, I understand and have gained some awareness about this. I’ve had the difficult conversations with my mom about said awareness (without blaming as she had to deal with what she had to deal with) and we’ve grown much closer. In fact, I sense her working on herself in ways I’ve not heard her before.

In work, we are picking people based on their effectiveness now, not completely on who said person can become. I’ve joked that I’m not Captain Trainahoe these days either. I have a picture up of my kids in strategic areas of my office to remind me of the trade offs I need to be conscious of relative to them. They are children and they need the voice of a loving parent guiding them through their states of emotional neediness, among other things, as they develop so they can learn to cope with life as they find that life isn’t always the easiest.

This past year has been the gift of epic proportions as I’ve been able to see much more clearly the role dismissive avoidance has played in shaping my life…and it no longer has to. I’m not Jesus and it’s not my role to save anyone. It’s my job to help my kids get a healthy internal narrative about themselves that will help them be their best versions of themselves into the future. I pray it won’t take them as long as it did me to figure this out for themselves. I also hope their mother figures out her side in this for their sake…because the correlation between dismissive avoidance and narcissism with parenting styles doesn’t correlate to kids that thrive.