I think you can finally feel that sense of reassurance that you are around the right people after a confrontation.
What a heavy word. Confrontation needn’t even be some distressing battle of anger and nasty insults- it can literally be someone telling someone else how they genuinely feel. That’s confronting.
I’ve always been the one to shy away from confrontation because experience has taught me that others will get angry or defensive and it just leaves your relationship in ruins. So just save the drama, save the relationship, just brush it off and don’t say anything. What an awful lesson to learn. It’s disheartening to me that it took such a long time for the real lesson to actually sink in.
“Perhaps they aren’t your real friends?” A co-worker suggested during a d&m many, MANY years ago. 'Please, of course they are. We always have so much fun together.' I always thought. Was I just needing people though? In denial about what I was accepting? Perhaps I was a little naive?
There seemed to be something I missed. Your relationships shouldn’t only be good during the good times, they should be good enough to overcome the shitty times too.
It's quite a journey discovering who we are. I learnt to let go of that idea that I had to adjust my emotional responses in order to suit others and keep them sticking around. After all, shouldn’t someone still want to stick around after the uncomfortable moment has passed? You know, address it then move on. I'd always thought it but I'd never experienced it.
Finally, someone proved it. It took literally one conversation. One confrontation. One emotional discussion. Just one, to never EVER fear losing someone who gets disgruntled by me disagreeing with them ever again. It took just one person. And I’ll forever be grateful for her. She did something different to the others.
-She didn’t automatically go into defence mode.
-She didn’t dismiss how I felt and try to shut down the conversation.
-She didn’t give me some clap-back reply intended only to make herself feel better.
-She tried to understand.
-The most important of all... She listened.
And my god do I appreciate every bloody fantastic thing about her! Without even realising it she opened my eyes and taught me a lesson so valuable. Why did it take all these years to finally learn?! How do I even repay that? I suppose I could buy her a vegan cronut and do her a face mask, but totally will take any suggestions. After all, this was the first time I felt I could finally say what was on my mind and not end up feeling disgustingly guilty about it. The first time I geared myself up for history to repeat itself, but was completely surprised by the outcome.
If you are upset by something, you can say it. Please say it. Not just because you have every right to, but because if not then you will become the pushover (sorry but I learnt that at school of hard knocks). Your feelings are valid and you deserve people around you who will listen. It's a very lonely world otherwise. Only realising this in my late twenties makes me feel like I've wasted a lot of my time. Say it so you can find the right people, say it so you can be proved that the process doesn't have to become the end of the world. And if it does become the end of the world, it was meant to for a reason, move your pretty self along.
I hope you find that one person, have that one conversation, endure that one confrontation that shows you it really needn’t be that hard.
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