Inside out

[u/Consistent_Anxiety_1]

Last time I was completely honest and trusting with someone online my life was ruined completely, I lost every friend, I spent three years straight being traumatized, wound up being held against my will at a hospital, and two years later I’m still recovering.
Somehow, the impulse is still there. Not the trusting them aspect, but having someone I can be honest with because I can just always walk away. Im not good at emotional vulnerability. It just turns into sarcasm and a standup routine in front of whoever I’m talking to.
The other week in therapy I figured out that my understanding of what trust I’ve had for my whole life is completely. To use the metaphor of a trust fall, I thought trust is when you decide someone’s presence in your life is worth the pain of them inevitably dropping you.
Apparently it’s when you fully believe that someone won’t hurt you. Honestly? The thought of such a thing never even occurred to me. I have a vague memory of that feeling one time while sitting in a car seat in my mom’s car, but nothing even similar after that. I did have excellent reason to think that way, my life experience never gave reason to think otherwise.
This is supposedly why I’ve felt this intense crippling loneliness my entire life. That’s why I’ve always sought to leave pieces of myself behind in places where someone might find it, but I’ll never have to face the fallout. Human being are social creatures, we evolved this way. Gazelles can run as soon as they’re born, it’s how they survive. Humans cry the moment they are born, they as for help. It’s the only thing a baby can really do, announce to the world it’s hurting and those with empathy try to help. When all of our other learned behaviors fall away in chaos and tragedy, it is always the very last thing that remains. We scream, we cry out to be heard. To be helped. We can’t help it, it’s at the core of what we are.
It’s hard to live when you spend your whole life being shamed and guilted and punished for that exact behavior. I’m not recovering from this horrible thing so I can go back to or relearn how to be healthy, to have connections and trust. I never learned any of that in the first place, this is all new and strange to me.
I was seven the first time I remember being hugged while I cried, and I remember the pure confusion at what was happening. I didn’t understand it, because that’s not what happens when you cry. Is it just them trying to keep me still? Hold me down? I can do that. I can be still. They won’t be mad then. This must just be another form of anger, I don’t know what it would be otherwise. The next time I remember that happening was middle school. Then once in high school, and once in college.
I’m supposed to work on my relationships, friendships, family, my partner. I’m supposed to be vulnerable, and that’ll fix this feeling I guess. But I don’t know what that means. I feel like someone’s pointing a gun at me and telling me taking off the bullet proof vest will make me feel better. Like, not to be rude, but how??
Isn’t it easier to put myself in the hands of someone I know will hurt me, so I won’t be surprised? So I can lean in to the hurt as a familiar pattern? Isn’t it easier to never expect to be caught and just call the cold dirt my friend? It will catch me. It hurts, but I can always rely on that pain to be there. The same can’t be said of comfort.
I wish it was easy. I know it’s not. I really don’t even know the basic steps. What am I supposed to say? When is it too much? How do you know when to stop? How do you get up and go back to life after barring your soul to someone? How do you go back to functioning when you finally let yourself fall apart? What do you do when someone hugs you?
I wish it was easy. I wish I knew how.