There are, recently, many times when I've wanted to just say "Fuck people" and remove everybody else from my life with the press of a button. This want, this desire is not so much something arising from a need for satisfaction, but rather from desperation: most people who I let get close to my heart these days actively seek out ways to hurt me.
After they have satisfied themselves that I am sufficiently hurt, I am abandoned, no longer of any use to them.
There is a dangerous cycle building around these hurts and rejections: not only do I suffer from the original hurt being caused, but with such hurt and subsequent abandonment, I close myself off more and more. After all, nobody - and that includes me - wants to live through hurt. Nobody wants to be confronted, time and again, with such emotional pain.
The only way I can decipher to avoid this pain is to make certain that nobody can get close to me. Only by keeping people at arm's length am I able to insure that I won't be hurt.
When I finally do drop my guard - because nobody can stay on guard against all that is human forever - and let somebody in, I bring a healthy dose of fear to the relationship. This fear, which I attempt to live through, precludes the enjoyment of a normal relationship, a normal relationship. I might drop my guard, but I never drop my guard fully, and in attempting to preserve my inner self, again, I act in a way to poison the friendship, the relationship.
It has become a vicious circle of sorts: I am hurt by many others. I shut down, and refuse to let others get close. That small percentage with whom I risk myself either repay my trust by hurting me, or I manage to keep them at arm's length, not really enjoying a relationship of any type, but rather struggling through something out of a deeply felt need.
Knowing this does not help to fix this. As long as I live, I live the life of a trapped, caged, rabid animal.
