and it becomes a crisis.
In college I had two best friends who hated each other, and would hurt me over my friendship with the other. What made things worse was when hanging out with either had to become a secret or a lie to the other person. It tore me apart a lot, and in retrospect I wish I had stopped being friends with either of them because of the pain they caused me but also the pain I caused them from not leaving.
P had a crush on me but I didn't return feelings. So he said he hated S and that if I ever slept with S he wouldn't be friends with me anymore. One time I admitted that I slept with S and P made me write a ten page letter apologizing and begging to be friends still.
S would use me for sex and then purposefully try and make me late for things with P or get in the way to piss him off because she knew he had a crush on me. She'd throw fits and drink until she'd have to go to the hospital over me, and blamed me for everything.
Things sucked, and I wasted three years at college bouncing between the two and hiding things from both of them when I wish I spent more time with the people I actually cared about, and who actually cared about me.
It's been a decade after I graduated and I still follow this same pattern. I meet someone. I'm all about them, infatuated. I want to spend all my time with them. I become aware of this and suddenly my heart sinks and I worry.
"Is this wrong?"
"What if I'm going too fast?"
"Are they going to just dip after this initial contact?"
"Am I?"
"What if someone who doesn't like them hates me for liking them?"
And then I'm back in college, treating my feelings for someone like a secret, treating my time with them like something to hide, until I care only about myself and not about them, because I'm so afraid of how I'll be seen for liking someone.
I grow attached easily, I get in these head spaces where I think someone is the best person in the world, it happens so easily and I'm aware of this, so I feel shameful for it. It's like ... someone could see me and feel I'm not only foolish but dangerous and untrustworthy. But in hiding my feelings and prioritizing my fears of being judged, I become foolish, dangerous, and untrustworthy.
I've been doing this for a decade. I like someone, and then as soon as someone else doesn't like that person, or someone might judge me or hate me over my connection, I freeze up. I shut down instead of treating myself... treating my feelings as maybe something to accept. Maybe they are... shaped weird. Maybe my feelings can exist if I make sure to look at it the right way.
I don't know. Right now I don't feel I'm capable of existing with my feelings when I feel scared for having them, because then I just feel shame for the people I love. I don't want to treat anyone with shame. I don't want to treat myself with shame.