I am Not a True Friend - Day 118

I am not and never have been a good or "true" friend. The first section of this post is some writing I did this morning. Following is some other writing I did a few weeks ago that is relevant. So if you are reading along and do not want to read all of it, you can stop easily at the break. It's a little jumbled but that's okay. All of this has actually stemmed from some conversations I have had with someone on facebook, where I have seen myself in that person, or, more accurately, have seen myself in my perceptions of that person as a mirror of myself, and as such have learned about myself as "a friend" and how I am, or am not, a "true friend" to myself or others.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to have expectations of who "my friends" should be rather than accepting them for exactly who they are, no matter what that looks like. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to accept people in my life as they are, instead expecting them to be a certain way, and then getting mad at them (myself) when they are not that way.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take full absolute responsibility for myself, instead projecting some of that responsibility onto my friends with expectations of who they are or should be to or around me, expecting them also to take responsibility for me in ways that only I can do for myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want credit of being a good friend when I am not in fact a good friend to anyone, not even myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want "credit" for being a "good friend" before I give another credit for also being a "good friend." I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to turn friendship into a competition wherein only one person can be right and the other is wrong. I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to focus on and try to tally up all of the "wrongs" of another, of "my friend," without ever looking at myself in self honesty to see who I have been, to take responsibility for myself as my actions and words toward another, and also responsibility for myself within my reactions, anger, emotions, etc.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to always be looking out side myself, outside myself for support, and outside myself for blame.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to look to myself to support myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to look to myself to see how I am actually to blame, at fault, responsible for the person I am and why.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to give up on and end friendships when it comes to the point that I must either face myself or run away.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I can run away from myself, not realizing I am always here with myself, I follow myself everywhere.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to stop and support myself when I see that I need support, to listen to myself and take care of myself and understand myself and then assist and support myself to change and be self responsible, to prevent myself from encountering the same self abuses again.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be my own abuser, one from whom I cannot escape.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to fully see, realize, and understand how I am the constant variable in all that I encounter, and so all that I encounter is me, and so when friendships continue to fail, I have to look at myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to see this but not to real-ize it, to not put it into practice, to continue to resist looking at myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to wish that present dramas and points would just dissipate and go away without my having to look at myself as these points.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to resist doing the work and thus resist assisting and supporting myself, within this abandoning myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not care about myself, because here I do not help myself when I need help.


I have more writing to do on friendship. Much more to learn about friendship. And it starts with me, and being a friend to myself. I need to pick back up where I left off before I started work this week. There is much more still to write.

I saw these posts about friendship redefined recommended. I haven't read them yet but I'll share them here in case anyone else is interested:
Here is day 59 and the series goes through day 69 - Maya's Journey to Life



----

The following was written a few weeks ago and was sort of the foundational writing for what I wrote above:



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I can / must be saved by another's support or care or friendship.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be desperate for friendship, not realizing that my desperation can only be resolved from within and as myself (not another, not friendship).

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to doubt myself so much that I believe I need another to tell me who I am, or that I am okay.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become fixated on the idea/concept of "friend," believing that if I have a "friend" then I will be okay.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand the transient nature of friendships wherein I cannot really establish a person as "my friend" and then expect this to always be the case as if like, "okay, I have a friend, I'm good, I'm safe, I'm okay, and I don't have to worry anymore or ever again."

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that a band-aid can heal an internal wound.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to victimize myself within my mind and then live this out through my communication, wherein I purposely come across to others as pathetic, helpless, confused, lost, and incapable, hoping that another will take pity upon me and rescue me from myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe that I am a victim within this world within life, believing even that I can be and am a true "victim" to myself, believing thus myself to be like an unchangeable problem, believing "there is something wrong with me," something that is immutably unchangeably wrong with me, and I didn't put it there, or even if I did, no one can change it, I simply must be rescued /saved / comforted by another.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be desperate for another to accept me to tell me I am okay, rather than instead learning to accept myself. I forgive myself that I have not accepted or allowed myself to accept and embrace myself.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see, realize, and understand that no other person can give me what I need, because only I can give this to myself, and I am the one who created the need in the first place.



I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to seek out maximum attention from others, to see just how far I can go to get attention from others, to really push the envelope in terms of my behavior in terms of seeking attention from others, within this all the while believing that others will not give me attention, not changing this belief when they do, and then confirming this belief when they finally relent and stop giving me attention because I have exhausted them with my relentless attention seeking.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not even really look at myself when I do this, but instead keep my "eye on the prize" as the goal of receiving that attention, so always pushing forward, pushing the envelope, pushing my behavior to the maximum in order to see just how far I can push another person into giving me attention, just how much can I beg and plead and repeat my insatiable need for attention before they finally give up and "abandon" me.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself therefore to place myself and others in a lose-lose situation, where no one can win, I cannot win because I am never satisfied by the attention another gives me, and I refuse to give myself attention/support, and another can never win because I am never satisfied by the attention given to me, and I blame them when they finally stop giving me attention, or I blame them for not giving me enough attention, or not giving me the right attention.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become reactive within seeing this in another, wanting to say to them, "you are never satisfied!" because this is how I perceive them, when in reality it is how I have been myself, and I do not know the internal experience of this other person -- I am projecting myself, so here now I turn to face myself within this.




I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see myself within my behavior or to put myself in another's shoes to see myself through another's eyes as how my behavior is presenting who I am, so who I am to this other person, not realizing that in seeking attention or support and refusing to give it to myself, I am making it impossible for another person to really give me appropriate attention or practical support.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to see realize and understand the ways in which I have behaved that have put another in a position of feeling like they have to help me because I am sort of giving them an emotional ultimatum, appealing to their sympathy or compassion, appealing thus to their humanity, taking from them a raw and vulnerable part of them that wishes to help and aid others, without really seeing the raw and vulnerable parts of myself, and also realizing what is really given to me in these gifts of attention and support.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to manipulate others using the same tactics by which I sometimes feel manipulated by others, because it is easy for me to allow myself to feel sympathetic and also obligated to "help" another by giving them attention because I "feel bad for them" so I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to try to manipulate other people into feeling "bad" for me so that they will sympathize with me and give me attention.





I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get hung up sometimes on wondering if various people are my "friend" or wondering if they think of me as a "friend," can I call them "my friend"?

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to want to have friends as a way to feel better about myself and feel like I am "okay" because I have "friends" and so therefore people "like" me so I must be okay.

I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to be my own friend, but to actually betray myself by seeking friendship outside myself.




I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be repelled by a person who exhibits / displays qualities that are all too familiar because I have seen them in the past and present within myself.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to become reactive within myself toward this person.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to waver and stall and feel like / believe that I do not know what to say to this person or do for this person to assist and support them to see themselves, and so I do not do or say anything.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to meet a difficult question, and answer it with "I don't know," rather than actually investigating for myself and answering in self honesty what is the real answer.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to believe I will mess something up if I am not "ready" or "in a position" to assist and support another through a point, not realizing that I can still communicate with another and be honest about my position, and limit my interaction to only that for which I can take responsibility in self honesty.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to fear limitation within communication, where I fear that I will get "roped in" through sympathy for another person, that I will get "sucked in" as a codependent participant in another's drama and suffering.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself thus to keep my hands out of the situation altogether, not trusting myself to move myself within each breath within self honest consideration of each moment and each movement.

I forgive myself therefore for accepting and allowing myself to resist communication with another because I fear that I will mess it up, or because I believe that "I don't know" how to assist and support that person within self honesty within my current position in my own process.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to not know how to set up boundaries or draw lines that are self-supportive, but that I often compromise myself in an effort to "support" another, but if I am not standing clear, how can I support another to stand clear? We will both fall.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to feel compelled to "help" another person who appears to be in pain or emotional turmoil, because I feel sympathetic, like they are "pulling at my heart strings," because I have memories of what it is / was like for me to exist in emotional turmoil.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to be swayed by my memories of my own emotions and my own feeling lost and helpless and hopeless but to disregard my memories as my lived experience of what it has meant to learn to support myself and how this has been the real solution for me.


I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself to get "sucked in" to conversations with this person in such a way where I neglect myself and my responsibilities and my schedule instead continually coming back to the conversation because I feel obligated to or I think it won't take long or am otherwise simply allowing myself to be distracted by it. I forgive myself for not accepting or allowing myself to take responsibility for myself within this in each moment in terms of setting boundaries for myself and agreeing with myself as to how much time I will put into a conversation such as this, and then directing myself within those boundaries of that agreement so that I am not neglecting myself as the other things I have to do.

I forgive myself for accepting and allowing myself first to make the choice to engage in conversation but then to not follow through with seeing myself in self honesty in each moment in each point in communication but instead sometimes communicating impulsively so that I end up saying things that perhaps I shouldn't have or wouldn't have if I had not been moving myself emotionally within reaction.