Sometimes I Wonder How

Someone told me something that stuck with me.
I told him about an experience I had.

What he said was this: "Nobody owes us our desired outcome."
And there's a bunch of stuff I need to be focusing on, 
not just these "desired outcomes."

I started talking to someone again
and I'm to make a list about things to pick his brain about.

It's not just about the questions, it's about how they are asked.

It's like a dysfunctional person asking a functional person
how to become functional.

I can't even think of what to ask him.

He's the one who gave me so many things to think about.
And I need to remember the things from the group I did.
About BPD. Those skills. 
I had many chances to practice those,
but in the moment, my mind goes back
to all the old sh*t that never worked for me.

I don't know, but it's like some trigger or tripwire. 
But it is up to me to unlearn a bunch of sh*t.
A bunch of extremely dysfunctional shit.

And just blaming sh*t on other sh*t
is not taking responsibility for it.

Can't blame sh*t on my mental illness. 
I can't just go around saying "I am this way because I have BPD."
I am this way because I've been this way for a long time
and I can't just flip the switch because it doesn't work that way. 
It takes conscious effort to make changes.
And make those changes last. 

Like retraining the brain...
But effort needs to be put into the retraining.
Lots of effort, but the right kind of effort.

Like it's not just the things being done,
it's the way they are being done. 

I often forget that in the moment. 
I often forget a lot of things in the moment. 

That's why I need some time alone, for a long while. 
Not just to create, but to contemplate, and recreate etc. 
Think about why I became the way I've been
and slowly become someone else.
Another version of me. 

People can change. 
Sometimes they need better influences in their lives. 

Sometimes they have to have something sting to want to change. 
A lot of the things I've been dealt, some blows. 
Anyway, someone had pointed out that 
we play a part in our own suffering. 
Until we see it and understand it, 
we're just going to keep doing it. 

Like people have to learn how to stop
doing things they already know how to do, 
but aren't good or decent scripts. 

But we also don't know how another person's mind works. 
Only they do. 

Which is scary, but also interesting at the same time. 

Pretty sure most of you know what loops I've been running on. 
Seen patterns in my frames of mind. 

When something's on my mind for a long time, 
there's something I'm not seeing about it. 
Because there are so many aspects of it, 
that I'm not covering, somehow. 

Certain things that don't cross my mind. 
And have crossed other people's minds. 
So it's cool when you meet someone
who has so much more knowledge 
and who knows how to put me in my place
without tearing me down. 

It always made me feel way beneath him, 
but I knew he was doing it to correct me. 
And I've stood corrected many times. 

Even embarrassed, and felt stupid, 
like I've had a lot to learn. 
And have a lot to learn... 

But did it in a way that is extremely tactful.
He asked me the right kind of questions
that I had to answer for myself. 
He wanted me to answer it for myself.
Not for him. 
To him, it didn't matter.
For me, it does.

And people who ask you the right questions
that they know you have to ask yourself, 
are the ones who are actually trying to teach you.

And sometimes I do that on here...
It has helped a lot.

It was a connection I needed, at that time.
Came back to show me and teach me more.

It ended and almost ended a few times.
And I was afraid that it was for good.
I saved a place for him to come back, if he wanted to.
Knowing that if he didn't, I just hoped that he was happy.
Even if he and I never spoke again.

And even with this big heartbreak, recently...
I have to learn to forgive and let people be people.
Like my friend told me:
"Others do not owe us our desired outcome."

Just needed cooperation, consideration....
I didn't get what I needed, but wasn't fostering it, either.

Like there are ways to command without demanding.
And I haven't exactly mastered any of that.
I just know that these ways exist.
How it works and how to work it...
Are not my areas of expertise.

Anyway, it was a glimpse of what healthy looks like. 

But as I said, it's like a dysfunctional person
asking a functional person how to be functional. 

There was some video I was watching 
and the guy was saying that there's like 60% dysfunctional people.
20% are emotionally unavailable. 
20% of people are actually functional and healthy. 

20%! That's a minority. 
Speaking of minority... 
I didn't vote during our latest election, 
and I don't know who won. 

I'm expecting that the Liberals won again, 
but Conservatives get their wins, too.

I should have voted, for NDP.

Anyway, I look back into the past 
and I keep seeing my mistakes. 
Learning from my mistakes, yes. 

It sucks, to have to learn by screwing up everything. 

Like a meme I saw:
"Why do you insist on taking the hard road?"
"Why do you assume I see two roads?"

I just feel like burying myself in "work."
"Studying" not to keep myself "busy"
but kind of to get my mind off certain things. 

Things that I'm trying not to take personally. 
Because they say more about others than about me. 

Someone said to me about making a good impression. 
I guess others were under the impression 
that I was a type of way, because somehow I gave that impression. 

It wasn't the impression I was trying to give, but I seem to have. 
Because that is the impression they got and had of me. 

But I was under a different impression. 

Anyway, it went south quickly. 
Pretty much all I can say about that. 

I could say more. 
That it was one of the biggest shocks, 
and most painful things I have ever gone through. 
Still going through the shock wave of emotions. 

It was pretty unexpected...
Expect the unexpected.

Been going through the gauntlet the last 4 years or so.
Sometimes I wonder how I'm still alive....

When people are holding a lot of pain...
They call it strength, 
but the strength is letting the pain go.

That's what I've needed to do.
To feel it for a while, but let it go.

To not let it haunt me for the rest of my life.
But the pain I've caused, haunts me.
Makes me wish I hadn't caused that pain. 
And I don't know why I did it.
I wasn't thinking about the bigger picture. 

When we're young and stupid....
We make so many mistakes....

Nobody is perfect. Nobody.