Falling back into the same patterns
Every time I come back to Canada or see people from a previous time in my life, it feels like I revert back to the person I was at that time.
And it fucks with my mind.
I don’t know if it’s just me, but it seems to happen all the time.
It happened when I went back to my dad’s place, the town where I grew up and spent my teenage years. It felt like I was back to my old depressed teenage self.
It’s the same when I am in Quebec City. It’s like I can’t help it. I start complaining about everything and I have that feeling of never being able to make things work properly for me. Exactly how I was feeling when I lived here.
I find it works also with people from my past. I’ll revert to a child when I’m with my parents. Not really, but I do get a very weird child-like feeling, needing some kind of approval from everybody.
I went to see my ex a few days ago. We have stayed friends after spending over 10 years together, and it felt like I had just stepped right back into the same relationship. It felt comfortable of course since this was my life for so long. But I found myself going back to the old me. The one who wasn’t all that confident and repeating similar couple’s situations. Similar jokes, and comments.
This whole reverting back to who I was makes me very uncomfortable. I don’t know if it’s because I do not have the strength to be true to who I am now. But as I said earlier, it’s fucking with my mind.
I feel like I’ve changed, I’ve grown a lot in the last few years. Yet when I come back it’s like none of my experiences happened. Maybe it’s the city, but it’s most likely me who can’t seem to be able to be truly myself. It’s like I’m scared people won’t like and appreciate me anymore, so I revert back to what they seemed to like and appreciate before.
Nobody has been asking me to go back to who I was. They have followed me and most likely have noticed some changes. And since we are still in contact, they must have been okay with it.
So why can’t I be?
I know it’s most likely a confidence thing, and while I might look somewhat confident to people who don’t actually know me, my confidence levels are very low.
It’s better than it used to be, but I am still very much self-conscious when I speak. I’m still very anxious people might judge me. Knowing full well that everybody judges and that it doesn’t change anything to my worth or other people’s worth. But even though I know all of this in my brain, my heart apparently didn’t get the memo yet.
For most of my life, I have felt worthless, and I think that reverting back to my old self is a way to protect myself. It was somewhat working back then, so if I go back, it should stay the same right?
I’m very conscious these are some serious confidence issues I need to work on. But if I’m being honest I don’t really know how to be more confident. I always feel like I could have done better. My life will most likely never be up to my standards even though I can see that I have accomplished a lot more than I thought I ever would.
They usually say the first step towards recovery is to admit that one has a problem. So by seeing that I am reverting back because I’m scared, maybe the next step will be to try to be true to my new self. It works everywhere else, so there’s no reason people from my past wouldn’t be able to accept these changes. And if they don’t, it’s not a reason for me to try to be someone I no longer am.