Prisons...

“There are no prisons so confining than those of which we are unaware”. James Hollis

Of course none of us would not know we were in prison, right?

Um, well, the actual prison perhaps, but those metaphorical prisons, those fuckers are deft and invisible a great deal of the time.

And I am not sure about you, but relationships have been the most confining prisons of all, most especially when I was totally unaware.

In thinking and discussing relationships these days, it feels like an incomplete conversation if you do not mention attachment theory.  So much happens in our adult relationships because of all the skewed shit that happens to us as children.  Too little affection and contact, we become anxious attachers.  Too much and we become avoidant.  And then the dance begins because I rarely find that we are all or nothing.  For me, and many others I know, it is a combination of both.

I myself am an anxious/avoidant.  You distance yourself from me and I will work my ass off to get close to you.  But you attempt to move in on me, I am mostly likely going to run for the hills.  Too much intense feeling and I am outta there.  Unless, of course, you dribble it out to me in tiny, unplanned and unpredictable dribs and drabs, then I will be loyal to you until the end of time.  FUCKED UP!  

I KNOW!

I don’t want to be this way.  I just am.  And I am working on it.  I mean, like daily.  I know this about myself, and for a long time, this was a prison I was unaware I was in.  Secure attachment was something of which I knew nothing.  I just engaged in relationships over and over again where either you or I was avoidant and then the other person just assumed their default position.  And round and round we’d go until whichever one of us was most avoidant would take off never to be heard from again.

My last relationship really put me through the wringer.  And exactly because I could never predict when I was going to be adored, wanted and loved and when I was going to be dismissed, ignored or chastised.  They all came in equal and unpredictable measure.  And I was hooked.  Repeatedly.  To my own detriment.

But it was this two year cycle of close then distant flinging that caused me to become aware of the prison I had created for myself.  The guy was immaterial. It was me who was faulty.  

It came to me on an evening walk with the dog one night.  I finally saw that the only reason I was so intermittently elated and miserable was because I was attempting to resolve this age old dilemma of how much intimacy I could withstand.  So I found the perfect person to dole it out in sporadic, unpredictable moments, and I was like a rat hooked to the lever, just waiting for that delicious intermittent reinforcer to come along.

And I didn’t see that for a very long time.  This was not love or a relationship, this was a psychological experiment that I failed to realize I signed up for...and once I saw it, I couldn’t unsee it.   

Now I would like to say that this realization changed everything and as soon as I realized I had locked myself up in a prison of my own making, I walked around those fucking bars to a new freedom.  But that would be a lie.  Despite KNOWING I had locked myself down and away, I still maintained a certain level of unawareness about why I was where I was.

Fucked up, I KNOW!

But then, after a few more rounds in the ring of feeling absolutely worthless and shitty, I saw the futility of my relating strategy and I endeavored to begin to make some changes.

I am not cured of making prisons for myself out of relationships and from a strictly recovery standpoint, I would probably be better off if I approached all future relationships with a strong and ardent commitment to abstention...but I am not going to do that.  I want a relationship.  I want a better relationship.  I am not completely sure how to go about that, but I do know that I have to at least try. I may never get there, but If I don't try, I never will.  

As usual, I am not in the results business...I am just in charge of footwork.  And the first thing I must see is this tendency of mine to make relational prisons for myself (and others) and then endeavor NOT to do it again.

And as James Hollis has said repeatedly the best thing one can do for any relationship in which you engage, work on yourself and then find a partner who has also done similar work and you will find yourself in a much more fun and loving relationship.  Not a fucking prison from which you make repeated, yet failed, escape attempts.

I know that if I do my own work, then I will be arrived at a place where this intermittent reinforcing avoidant person is no longer attractive to me.  And that is the first step.  I do my work to change me, and then everyone that I pull towards me can and will be different.  But so long as I keep being the me I currently am, I am gonna attract and be attracted to the same fucking bullshit over and over again.

I do not want to spend the rest of my life being avoidant if you are sweet and kind, and being anxious when you are a prick with poor communication skills and a love of as much distance as you can lay between us.  I want something better. 

But first, I have to become better myself.  And I do not know how long that will take.  I know that the way I am is long standing and change resistant.  I have built a life on top of my attachment styles and they are pretty ground in there by now.  But I believe we can all change, if we are willing to be honest about who we are and how we really show up. In fact, this is the only way to be if you are ever going to really free yourself from the prisons of your own making.

And when you think about it, I mean, how fucking stupid is it for you to lock yourself up in a prison that makes you feel like shit, hate yourself and the other person as well?  Wouldn’t it just be easier to just sit that one out?  Just let that one walk on by...

I can’t change my default settings, but I can change my wiring.  I can work on my own distress tolerance to allow for someone who actually cares and wants to be there to stay in my life long enough to reveal themselves.  And I can side step the old familiar shtick of attempting to get love from a stone in running shoes.

It is my life and I get to decide to change anytime I want to.  It is totally, 100% up to me.  And mostly, the thing that I must withstand for forward progress, is my own internal homeostasis that tells me I should run but that I ignore.  Exchanging intellect and intuition for delusion and confusion, one more fucking time.

I am not sure if I will ever get there...a relationship that is both loving, supportive and secure.  But I am gonna fucking try my best.

And as usual, you will be the first to hear all about it.  I may never get “there” but I believe that I have found the key to this particular prison of my own making, and I have tied that fucker to a chain around my neck, so I don’t lose it next time...

So that at least on this relational front, I can never, ever say again...still.  Fuck.