Not like old times, eh?

I’m in the living room nervously waiting for a call from a old friend.

A catch-up call. We hadn’t spoken in over a year. So we found time in our diaries to talk. This is the kind of friend I’d catch up with once every few years. She’s a good person, she has recently has become a new mother; she’s a reserved soft-spoken person.

In the past, whenever we’d speak, and whoever I would speak to, I would either completely withhold or soften the truth about what I was going through. Not getting the response and warmth I expected hurt me more than keeping it in.

So I’d say things like, “Yeah, I was struggling during university” in a softened way. When the truth is, during university, I was on survival mode the entire time.

But today, for the last nine months, I’ve been going to therapy. But what I’ve learnt, and am still learning, is that therapy is about realising the truth of what you’ve been through, and being true to those around you.

So in this conversation with her with this friend, I was honest.

Instead of saying, “Yeah, I had a challenging upbringing,”

I went for it.

I said: “I was a child of an abusive home. That my mother was the kind of person who wouldn’t take a bullet for her children – she’d save herself. She’d leave them behind. And then somehow make it their fault. Make them feel like they failed to save her.“

I could tell the weight of what I was saying to the friend was getting too much for her. So she pivoted to the kind of questions that seemed harmless.

She asked, “So, how are your siblings?”

I answered: “I don’t have a great relationship with them. Things are swept under the rug, and we were raised to be against each other. That’s what happens when you grow up in an abusive household.”

I could tell the phone call was getting too tense for her.

Then came the topic of my second wedding event – which she attended.

This time, I couldn’t bring myself to say how much it hurt – that people wouldn’t come, because they were in alliance with my parents. And the few who did – the ten people that showed up – it hurt even more how quickly they left. How they disappeared the moment they were done eating. How it all felt like I did not matter. I had spent months planning it. Years dreaming it. So much of our money and energy poured into it.

I had this image in my head of being surrounded by people who cared about me. Because that’s all I ever wanted: to be cared for. Build memories that would last a lifetime. And when they left, it showed me something. That I do not matter to people.

So instead, which was soft for her
“That entire day I was in survival mode. I still can’t bring myself look at the pictures.”

I didn’t mention how people left early. That part stayed hidden. Because I knew it’d directly affect her, and make her feel guilty.

She responded, uncomfortably: “But I had a nice day that day.”

I said: “I’m glad you did” I replied.

The call ended in discomfort. It felt like she was slowly backing away from me – away from the heaviness – until she disappeared into the thin air.
And yeah, I dropped a lot of heavy stuff on her for a catch-up call after a year, for someone I don’t speak to regularly.

And it hurt.
Her reaction hurt me.
It felt like I was being abandoned all over again.
But this time, I was showing up as myself.

And what surprised me,
is that I didn’t sever the relationship.
Instead I wrote this post.

And what it made me realise is: I am changing.

I am no longer the person who completely withholds the truth.
And I’m getting less afraid of people leaving because of it.

It’s small, but I am changing…