Carried Away

Have you ever missed having something you never had (or in my case, don't remember having?) Sometimes you can feel something deeply and get carried away by the emotion that goes along with it, even if it doesn't make sense to have that emotion since it's the vague memory of a memory. Just the impression that there is a memory there can haunt a person.

The ones that I've been dealing with are anger and sadness.  I'm angry because there is one person in my life that keeps saying things that aren't true. I know they aren't true because they are the exact opposite of what everyone else is saying. This person claims to know me really well because we've known each other for years, but that same person keeps saying things like "you are acting exactly the same way you always did" when everyone else in my life is telling me I'm acting like I did before this person came into my life.  This person causing so much anger and sadness is, I believe, a pathological liar. I honestly think he believes everything he is saying, but I don't believe anything he says.

That's not to say I didn't try to get along with this person. I tried to be friends. I wanted his perspective on my life no matter how painful it was for me to hear difficult truths.  I extended the hand of friendship and this person spit on it, but I have no choice but to allow him into my life due to other people I love with my whole heart and will not give up.

As for this person "knowing" me and seeing me act like I "always did", what I think he sees are reactions and idiosyncrasies that I had when we first met that he effectively stamped out of my personality over several years. These are things he has convinced himself I developed because of him, rather than things I had learned to suppress when he was around and was learning to assert again as his control of me lessened over the last few years before my disappearance.  These are things that made me who I was when I was a teenager and make me a better stronger person now, after forgetting the years of being with him.

So, why is it so easy to believe the bad stuff and forget the good things people say to me? Why is it that when he opens his mouth, or more often sends me an e-mail, that I almost believe everything he says for a moment and my brain ignores what every other person that knows anything about me says? He says I'm unfeeling and only care what I look like in public eyes. My friends say I am happier, stronger, more caring about the people in my lives, and less interested in protecting him, and therefor myself, from the judgmental eyes of the world.  But when he says what he says, my brain kinda folds in on itself and I hurt in a place in my heart I didn't know existed until I had to be back in contact with him directly again.

So, is the vague hint of a memory of my time with him so powerful that it can control me?  Am I really that weak, to let something I don't even remember influence how I behave today? Not on a moment by moment basis, but whenever I have to deal with him which is bad enough. I hate the way I feel around him, like I don't count, like I'm scum, like I really don't matter only he does. The more I remember, the stronger it gets, and the harder it is to push away from me after any dealings with him.

I had hoped I was strong enough to push these things aside if they started to come up, but I'm not as strong as I thought I was. He is convinced he never did anything to abuse me, but these reactions (fear, self-hating, believing what he says no matter how unrealistic it is) are proof to me that it did happen.

Maybe I am stronger than I think, though. The feelings only last a few moments, then they pass into anger at him for treating myself and probably others that I love that way and sadness that anyone would have to live their life in the bitterness and rejection he feels.  I don't hate him to the core of my being because I feel too sorry for him to feel that way. I'm ready to know what he did to me to make me so lacking in self-esteem when I have anything to do with him, but my brain still won't grasp it. He is practically wiped from my mind. There are some early memories of meeting him and little things like songs he liked, but that's it. Even memories that should involve him skip around him like my brain doesn't want to acknowledge his existence in my life.

So, now what? Just keep waiting for my mind to admit he's in there somewhere? Try hypnotherapy? See if I can find a way to convince him to be psychologically evaluated so I can stop reacting in fear because he gets treatment for his emotional/psychological problems?

I don't know. And I cry just thinking about it, so I'm done for now.

Update: Wow!! This really turned into quite the rant and I never finished the original train of thought. Well, the fact is, I miss understanding why I react the way I react. Noone seems to know the whole story, except one person whose point of view I don't trust as far as I can spit.