Thinking things through

Somebody told me recently that I need to take responsibility for my own actions. In the context of the conversation we were having at the time, I was quite confused by this so have been pondering it long and hard over the last few days and have come to realise a number of things. Firstly, the inability to accept responsibility for actions and behaviour is often a result of insecurity and these days I am the first to admit to being insecure. I realised this a number of years ago and it made a big difference in my life, but doing something about it is a very slow process. I have mostly overcome my insecurities about my body so now it’s the rest of me that is getting some attention… the more difficult aspects. I tried to overcome my fear of taking on more responsibility at work, but it was more difficult than I first thought and I fell at the first attempt. Still, I’ve picked myself up and, eighteen months down the line, am ready to think about trying again. Slow I know but one step at a time, right?

In my primary relationship, I have had a lot of help over the last decade with admitting to things, accepting responsibility and generally not avoiding anything. This has been amazingly useful and I am still learning every day. It’s quite difficult for this old dog to learn new tricks you see, but it may just be possible in time. Frustrating though it is for all involved, rest assured it is very much appreciated!

However, the main aspect of insecure-me that I still have a lot of difficulty with, is using words to explain how I am feeling. I had always kept things bottled up in the past and worked through emotional trauma pretty much on my own, which doesn’t usually require words. Now that I have willingly entered into an open and honest version of non-monogamy, I have a need to explain myself to others and it’s proving to be far more difficult than I thought it would be when times are rough. I have always appeared to most people as having a reasonably good grasp of the English language but I find it really rather difficult to understand my own feelings sometimes, let alone explain them to other people, so I think this is where this particular problem has occurred. Rather than referring to the conversation we were having, I realised that the comment I mentioned at the start of this post was referring to the email that, in part, sparked the conversation. In trying to explain something that I still don’t entirely understand myself, and trying to explain in a matter-of-fact way, I had made it appear that I was blaming someone else for my feelings and actions. As a result of that, plus a whole string of badly worded and misjudged emails and tweets, I have ended up causing even more hurt than I was trying to avoid.

For someone who is quite sensitive, to appear to be insensitive involves quite a spectacular fuck up and I'm still not entirely sure how I managed it. Sadly, there is no way to explain now as I will no doubt continue to make things worse if I try. Therefore, I plan to use my time wisely and think. Everything would work out a lot better if I'd just think a bit more before letting it out. Let's hope time heals.