Being scared of losing someone you love makes you do stupid things. The near constant self-doubt, the endless torment of thinking the next time they look at you they will realise how incredibly unworthy you are of them. When everything feels too good to be real, you wait for the pinch that will wake you up.
I know these fears are the conditioning from past relationships, but it doesn’t make them easier to override. I try and take compliments at face value, his love for what it is, but part of me always wonders when the bomb will drop, and it will all be over.
It’s a shitty way to live and worse for him. He’s frustrated by my frequent attempts to self-sabotage, my regular reminders that he will get sick of me soon and the way I talk down about myself. I hate that I make him feel this way and I hate that despite him repeatedly asking me to stop, I continue.
How to explain to someone unless they too have experienced the paralysing confusion of gaslighting how it feels to not trust your own feelings. How it feels to doubt your every action because past boyfriends uncoupled your sanity so well. How to describe the collapse of your confidence when other men you thought loved you turned your recollections into fantasies.
I despise this weakness I have and probably the only way to overcome it is to let someone like him love me as he says he does. I want to, oh so fucking desperately I want to, but I’m clutching so tight to the precipice it hurts to let go. The sudden rush of blood into the extremities of my fingers, turning my knuckles from white to soft pink, will be a rush of bitter adrenaline.
Do I trust him to catch me if I let go or should I just trust myself to land on solid ground?
butshewasfierce.com 
Leave a comment