A Mouthful of Monsters
How do we share our hurt without making other’s uncomfortable?
I’m not sure i care about anyone else’s comfort anymore.
Thanks for reading <3
A Song For The Road:
I tend to perseverate. In the interest of my own letting go, here is a list of my running thought since our very difficult apartment conversation on Sunday. I wish I could say these things to my roommate, but I already have, and I’m left feeling crazy every single time. I know I am not crazy. I am not asking for too much. Basic communication was all I wanted. This is purely my perspective, and I am currently really fucking upset, so I’m sure some of this is not as deep as it feels, but fuck bro. I’m sick of people who don’t take accountability for their part in harm caused.
You kept saying that the shitty look on your face was “autism.” So I stopped reading it as there was a problem. I started acting like things were fine. I stopped walking on eggshells and just started living my life, settling into my routines. Apparently, I was right the first time. Apparently the face meant that you were uncomfortable in the living room/kitchen. You lied to my face, making me think everything was fine, or you didn’t know yourself well enough to be truthful when it came up in conversation. I was trying to accommodate you, and I did give you grace for “autism” by not bringing it up anymore and shrugging it off when you glared at me, but in reality you were upset.
To hear that you are uncomfortable in our shared spaces really hurts. I was uncomfortable for months, working everyday, coming home to a dirty apartment while you and Derek were both not working for over a month. I kept asking you guys to pick up more, to chip in with the dishes since everyone was eating the food I bought, planned, and cooked. I felt like my mother nagging you both constantly. I hold a lot of resentment from these months.
In February, 555 had our 2nd anniversary event. I asked you week sin advance if you would help us out by running the camera for the event. You said you would get back to me. You never did. You didn’t even come to the event, just showed up for the party and kept asking me when you could leave. I really needed support that night. That is why I asked you both to come. And honestly, I was hoping to offer you more opportunity with film, as we are making a feature film and documentary. You didn’t even want to discuss it with me, so we’ve hired someone else to do our camera work and found him a different assistant.
When we fight, you push and push and push. I am struggling to reconcile because I don’t feel that you have adequately apologized or taken accountability for your part in the ending of our friendship. I promise you, I wasn’t asking your schedule all the time out of control, I’ve been trying to hang out, to spend time with you. But you always have other plans. Any night you aren’t working, you’ve already got something better to do, accepting last minute invites before accepting my invite from days previous. Let me guess, you don’t remember me asking? Yeah, I know. You only remember what I say when I’m screaming it. I can think of at least 10 examples. I can’t make you remember, so you can pretend I’m making it up now “for the point” but I’m not trying to win, Madison. I’m trying to heal and build friendships that are mutually caring in a life that I don’t want to leave. I’m trying to be healthy and on top of my shit - laundry done, dishes washed, vegetables consumed.
I asked about a movie night, you said you’d let me know. That was a month ago. On Thursday, I asked about an apartment paint night for Monday. You said, “Maybe” in a way I knew meant no and then you had a “tummy ache” for the third Monday night in a row. You came home on a Sunday night, a rare Sunday night you weren’t working, with a mutual accquaintance - no notice that you were having a guest over, even though you’ve previously agreed to this very normal roommate term - and immediately went into your room and shut the door, barely even asking how my day was. I was sitting alone in the living room, playing music and putting in the last pieces of my puzzle, alone all night listening to you two laugh behind a closed door, uninvited, unwanted. I’ve been asking to go on the same hike in Glendale since October. You could make a plan ahead of time to hike with your new friend who you want to think you’re cool, but you won’t make a plan ahead of time to hike with me, or anything else for that matter. You stopped letting me know that you were hitting TJ Maxx months ago. You stopped inviting me to join you on errands.
I have had 3 major breakdowns in the last year - Back in February, the night of the event, when I got home and I was still drunk, exhausted from working weeks straight (Sorry I don’t pat you on the back when you complain about not having a day off. That’s been my life for months, dude. I do that all the time. My 6-day a week job is year round, not seasonal.) and yeah, I did lose my shit. I threw a chair at the ground. I told you to leave me alone and you didn’t so I threw the water back at you. I was so hurt that night. I needed you both and you both made me feel like a burden for asking you to show up for me. That isn’t friendship. I should not have acted that way, but I’ve acknowledged this more times than I can count. I’m doing a fucking great job at learning to regulate myself.
The second freak out was my birthday. I wanted to camp for a night. I suggested Joshua Tree because you had been trying to find an excuse to go since before I moved here last year. I figured, two birds, one stone, great! I did some quick math, made us a quick budget, and figured about $200 total, we’d be set to go. What I didn’t realize is that I was supposed to pay the whole $200. It’s great that it costs $70 to fill your tank, but how many tanks does it take to get there and back? I sent you $65 right off the bat, and once I got paid (while on the trip) I was going to send you more. You bought grocery items I didn’t ask for and then reacted like I was stealing from you when I asked about finances around the fire. “[The $65] is already spent, Ally.” With the “Austism” look that isn’t an austism look, but an actual “I am upset about something” look. I knew the $65 was gone, I was always going to send more when my paycheck cleared and we were back out of the deadzone. And, tbh, I thought we were going to split the cost since you wanted to go just as much as I did, and it was my fucking birthday. On top of all that, there was a huge lack of communication about our evening activity, which again, I know I reacted extremely poorly. I had an expectation of how my birthday would go, and none of it happened. I wanted 24 hours in the wilderness, but you had to get ice cream and check your phone. I never push back when you want something because otherwise it becomes a fight. Just like you wanted to stay at Disney the whole day, I wanted to have no cell service for 24 hours. I asked you what you wanted to see at Joshua Tree and you said “there isn’t stuff to see and do like that.” So I downloaded the app and planned the whole trip from the passenger seat. And don’t even get me going on the driving. Derek has a license, he could’ve driven if you’d asked, but you didn’t. I apologized for this night too. I soul searched, I realized that when my reality doesn’t match my expectation, I have an extremely hard time holding the disappointment. That should never have been put on you two, but I really need you to both continue working on timely communication, so I don’t spend my whole birthday thinking we are going to do something, only to find out I’m the only one that wants to and nobody else ever wanted to, they just never said until the second it was time to do it.
The third meltdown was as I got off the plane from Maine. I hadn’t seen you in a week. I got a text at 9am, saying “I’m leaving home in 10 min.” I got touchy, because I had been awake for 24 hours, on a red-eye flight, after a double wedding weekend, seeing my whole family, Derek’s whole family, and having no break for 5 days. I was so tired. I was grumpy. I was hangry. I was nauseous. When I told you to forget it, I thought you were still at home. You started trying to call me, but I was actively walking off the plane with all my carry-ons and a herd of people behind me who were just as grumpy, hangry, and tired. I wanted to apologize for the way it came across, for the misunderstanding, but the second you puled up in the car, you had the same look on your face. I started trying to apologize and you just doubled down on me telling me how rude i was, as I was actively trying to apologize for coming across as rude. It was never my intent. This is why i don’t like having conversations over text. You always assume I meant the worst, when I’m just trying to be honest, even when it hurts and is hard. You brought up that I didn’t send you enough money for gas to pick us up - $100, $45 for nespresso, $30 each way to the airport, I thought it was enough. (Let’s forget about the months I bought the nespresso and you never paid me for half, or all the months I paid the Water/Power by myself, $200/month, because you never went in and paid your half.) You never gave me a number, in fact, originally, you told me you couldn’t drive us at all until the day before we left when you suddenly changed your mind. You told me in the car, as I was trying to apologize, I was taking advantage of your parents, that I took $1,000 from them. So yeah, I snapped. I freaked out. You threw the theatre tickets at me, even though I told you I could only afford one, and when we missed the show, YOU DECIDED not to get a refund even though i got all the info for you.
In fact, that day, Father’s Day, you came home from your show and wanted to tell us how you felt, but you didn’t want to give us an opportunity to respond. You verbatim said, “I don’t want to have a conversation about it.” If you had, you would know that I tired to leave work early that day, I only had an hour to get from work in Burbank to Hollywood at 5pm. We paid for an uber and everything to try to make it on time, but we were late by 5min and they gave our seats away. I apologized to you in a text as we heading home. I’m sorry that after working 3 double days in a row, I didn’t want to stand on the sunny Hollywood sidewalk in 90 degree weather, already on one of the shittiest days of the year for me, feeling extra, extra shit because I knew you’d be upset and wouldn’t let it go, and having wasted money I really didn’t have, trying to not let you down. All to let you down anyway. So yeah, I’m not sorry i didn’t stand their waiting for you. I told you congratulations at home because I put myself first now, and I know that’s new for you in our relationship for 15 years. But I can not self abandon myself to keep you comfortable anymore. Its been too may years of that with all of my friends and it sucks and I’m done. I am my #1 now. My needs come first for me. I will always make them known and it isn’t my fault if you don’t do the same.
Your dad keeps telling me not to feel guilty, but then you turn around and are upset that I accepted their help. You find a way to throw every “nice” thing you do for me back in my face. You never asked me for gas money for picking me up on Tuesday nights, (how much gas money do I give you for 4-6miles round trip? and how much do I give you when we drive together from home to our hared work and back to our shared home? I asked you over a month ago, and you never gave me an answer. Just another “I’ll have to think about that and get back to you.”), and for the record, every time Derek asked you to get me, was against my will. I told him to stop asking you because you always had that look on your face, like I was a massive inconvenience for you. And the money he accepted for the Uber that day at the airport, I had just finished telling him that he better not under any circumstance, accept money from you. I was so fucking mad at him that he did. I tried to send you more and you just sent it back, so you wouldn’t even let me make it right. I can’t enjoy a night out, knowing that your dad is going to have to make up for it when I’m short the $100 in rent. And I definitely can’t accept that when you make me feel bad about it on purpose when it’s convenient for you to win an argument. Because in the same breath, you’ll talk about the ONE TIME you said I didn’t owe your dad, as if that cancels out all the other comments and micro aggressions that told me I did owe him and that you felt I was taking advantage when I ended up short on rent.
I have never needed people to show up for me the way I have started to ask for. I was way more functional before I started to acknowledge my mental health struggles, before I acknowledged that doing it all on my own was too fucking hard. And the second I started placing boundaries and asking for help, the people around me left me alone, let me down.
Derek and I are working through it, but that’s because we have conversations about it, constantly. I have only ever asked for basic communication - Taking a long shower or you’re gonna need the bathroom for a minute? Check in with everyone real quick. Having a guest over in the middle of the night while we are all asleep? Send the single emoji we agreed upon. You’re feeling uncomfortable int eh space? Well fucking say something bro. The only reason I’m spending so much time in the living room is because you told me I was isolating too much back in Feb/March, so I’ve been making a conscious effort to be more present. Apparently, that isn’t what you actually wanted, because the more I try to show up, the more your pull away. The more I try to find time with you, the more you think I’m prying and needing to know “when you take a shit.” I thought we were friends man. But this last year has shown me that we aren’t. If you are too scared of me to talk to me, then there is nothing left to do except go our separate ways. It isn’t fair to say that you love me and you don’t resent me when you haven’t made time for me in months, despite my asking, when you are too scared to have a conversation, I don’t know what the problem is, so how can I work to change things? And frankly, at what point do you have change to meet me? Why am I always the one calling the meeting, making the group chat, asking for updates, asking for communication, apologizing for losing my cool even though I’ve been asking for the same basic shit for months and you keep agreeing you will and then you just don’t.
I’ve never held an unmet expectation or unexpected guest against you, just a polite and gentle, “Can we get back to using the chat to notify us please?” “Can you please wash the dishes that you DO use?” “Can we get in the habit of hitting the cheaper grocery store once a week?” “If you aren’t willing to help clean up after a group meal, then stop eating when I cook.” But none of these things happen unless I make sure they do.
Derek told me one day that you had asked about going to the storage unit the next day. He told me you made plan to go while I was at work to bring back the camping stuff. I got home at 2pm, and none of it had moved. The same can be said for a ton of grocery trips, bottle returns, apartment plans that only I cared about.
If you do read this, I doubt you’ll get this far. I’m sure you think everything you’ve done is completely justified, but I’m calling bullshit. I shouldn’t have to ask you to do the things we agreed upon on Day 1. I shouldn’t have to ask repeatedly for the same basic communication. I shouldn’t wake up in the night to a man I don’t like, who treats you like shit, in my bathroom without warning. I shouldn’t feel bad for cooking dinner every night, it’s not my fault you don’t cook and its not my fault you don’t eat. I do. Every day. So I’m going to be in the kitchen. I’m sorry my repeatedly asking for you guys to wipe up your crumbs when you are done was such a fucking problem.
I know snapping and losing my absolute shit was never the solution to these problems. In those moments, I was done with solutions, I was tired of trying to communicate with bricks, and I just wanted to be seen in the pain I was feeling. To be acknowledged for all the hard shit I do every day. To be given grace for a bitchy text after a long trip, or to be told from the out-set that hey, neither of us want to eat a chocolate square, if you do, you’ll be the only one tonight. To be told, hey, this specific thing you do makes me uncomfortable, can you work on that thing?
I think though, the problem isn’t actually me. I think I am a mirror. The act of the conversation is too uncomfortable to even start for these two. That’s why even though we agreed on a regularly scheduled, weeky or bi-weekly meeting, 3 different times as an apartment, they only happen when I force them to and nobody else ever prompts them. They just start hiding in their rooms and piling resentments.
I don’t know how to end this. I suppose the point I’m trying to get my brain to understand, is that it doesn’t matter how much I hash out what happened. I know my freaking out was unacceptable, but I also know I did everything I could to keep myself from hitting that point, and the people around me just didn’t even try to meet me where I was at. They just told me to be less, to need less, to figure it out myself, I’m asking for too much.
heard girl. heard.
You tell me to stop comparing you to my ex, but I feel the same kind of crazy that I felt at the end of our relationship as I do now. Like, I’ve worked so hard to make every change, and the goal posts just keep moving, and I wasn’t even told about half of them.
I resent being told that the whole last year has revolved around my mental health. I have been actively working on it, really fucking diligently. Writing, regularly meals, working out, mediating, a solid and regular routine, actually spending time with friends. I have tried to bring things up before they drive me to rage, and the only times I have actually lost it completely are the times when I was pushed past my limit. When it felt that we had passed the point of mutual fucking up and you were making everything my fault, rather than taking any accountability for your lack of communication or the hurt that you caused me.
Something felt sad about these leaves at the time. Maybe I was projecting. They seem fine now.
c'est la vie.
