If only

"You are a selfish, self-centered person," you told me.

I think it was during the few months I lived with you after college, probably around the time Grandma died. You went off your meds then, and life with you became even harder.

After taking another diagnostic test in another book about emotional abuse, I remembered what you'd said. I learned from the test that feeling selfish for having needs, struggling to say no, and running away from success are all signs that I have emotional abuse in my past. 

In my past and also in the present. I anxiously await your response to my email, in which I told you I can't take your ridicule of me anymore. I keep telling myself it shouldn't matter so much to me what you think of me. I keep trying to stuff the almost overwhelming anxiety, to no avail.

It doesn't matter what you think. It doesn't matter that you don't think you abused me, that you think my current feelings of being hurt are unwarranted.

So I repeat my therapist's words over and over: It doesn't matter what anyone else thinks. It matters how I felt, how I feel. I want to believe her and not you, I want to know that I can trust myself, that I'm not fabricating awful stories about you just for my own pleasure.

I assert to you and to the world that I am not making up how horrible you make me feel.

I have not concocted tales of your manipulation and abuse just so I can say bad things about you. I've always wanted to love you and to be loved by you, and I never meant to cause you trouble.

I never mean to cause anyone trouble - although, today at a store I tried to return the shoes you bought me, and I was kind of rude to the cashier, who said I could only get store credit with a gift receipt. I didn't mean to be rude; I was just so anxious about having to tell you that I couldn't return the shoes, having to acknowledge that you'd bought me something, having to ask you for the real receipt.

I don't like asking you for things, and I don't like receiving your gifts - even though I benefit from them. Every time I hear myself thanking you, I hear you mocking me for thanking you. I also feel guilty when you are generous to me with things and money, and I think it's because of a deep-seated wish that you would be emotionally generous to me instead.

If only.

If only you didn't have a personality disorder or whatever it is that you have. If only I could reason with you. If only every interaction with you didn't leave me depressed and on the brink of serious suicidal ideation. If only I could get you out of my head.

If only I could move on.

The trouble is, you're not all bad. You are the most well-meaning person I know - completely mistaken at the most important times, but still earnest in your endeavors to show you care. Except when your emotions get the better of you, except when you feel that I am shutting you out.

Why won't you just let me shut you out and get on with your life? Why can't you accept civil interactions? Why do you demand emotional closeness with me?

If only I didn't care about you.