The idea of family has been a struggle for me all my life. From when I was growing up around my birth family, to those people I called friends, partners, wives, even people I worked with, were essentially my experience of family. I've seen the way other people’s families work, and it seems like, well, there's many variations of what can be considered family.
When finding myself with people who are connected to other people, they became like family for a while. Spontaneous experiences of connection which are felt as family because I'm not creating it, not insisting on it, not deciding things. I'm just experiencing what I find and then something supportive and collaborative came out of it.
I look after my family. I care about my family. I help my family; that's what family means to me. The family are my tribe, my clan.
All those people I once experienced as family are not in my life now, for one reason or another. Relationships come and go, and I suppose friendships do as well. I used to imagine that once I found somebody I got on with, even if I didn't see them often, they always remained my friend. We liked being around each other and circumstances don't always make it possible, and sometimes long periods go by. Life happens; people get married or move to a different part of the country or even the world, and even though we can keep in touch easily, I still find that I naturally let go of keeping people in my thoughts; out of sight out of mind I suppose. Other things are focusing me in the present and as those people are not in my present, it's like they don't technically exist, until they do again. If I have something to say to someone, or I receive a message from them, then immediately I'm connected to them in the present and away we go.
The fact that we tolerate people who are called ‘family’ just because we are related to them but don't get on or even like and generally avoid, yet sometimes can't help but see at family gatherings, is just something many go through, but they're 'family so we put up with it. I've never understood that.
I only want to be around people I want to be around. I only want people to be around me who want to be around me, so when we get together, we connect, we click, we understand why we like to share things, can be open, speak honestly, talk about who we are, and listen to who the other person is, and we are interested in what we do and what we've done and how we think and what we say. To me, that's family, because to listen to somebody, to speak truthfully, makes me feel close to them; it's an intimacy thing and which for me creates that family feeling. It's not just that we happen to be related.
In fact, my experience of the ones I'm related to, was always as if, well, I’m part of this so-called group of people, but they're not my family. They have no idea who I am and I can't understand who they are, even though it's typical behaviour for their world, but it isn't my world, and I don't know how to bridge the gap.
I experienced so much of being peripheral while growing up. And yet I often feel that something is missing when I don't have people in my life, even if I always let the wrong ones go. I keep swinging like a pendulum; first completely immersing myself in an experience of family, only to find that it either blows up or I blow it up in order to experience a reality alone again; one extreme to the other.
And when I feel myself coming back to a more balanced way, I realise that I need a combination of both. I need something in the middle. I need the feeling of solitude and aloneness, while having people that I absolutely love having in my life. I just don't know how to have that. I generally end up in the solitude camp where it's less complicated. I feel like I'm more authentic when I'm alone, even though I'm not expressing that authenticity around anybody.
In any given moment I can feel like I’m performing, like I’m a kind of character and not a whole self, and I can feel the missing bits are there even though I can't express them. I need time to reveal myself, so that there is nothing interfering with my expression, because for me, because I spend so little time around people, I can't seem to avoid the masking protection mechanism I've deployed all my life, and yet without it I wouldn't be able to integrate easily at all. I don't know how to describe it. I can interfere with what’s taking place rather than allow what's taking place to take place.
So in order not to let that happen, aspects of my character have to be suppressed or hidden and because they're not on show, they effectively don't exist, and all it needs is a number of experiences with people where they aren't revealed, making it almost impossible to then reveal more of me in a future moment.
It feels incongruous with what was there before, and of course, if I'm not free to be myself, talk about myself, then I am not myself, and that's not going to work. I don't know if anyone is really ever truly themselves, but that's how I feel I have to be. I have to be real and it doesn't matter who it's with, whether I know them or not. I should be able to be who I am. And the more I know who I am the easier it is for me to be who I am.
The issue has been, and still is... I don't know who I am. I only know how I am in different situations. If I've been that way before that's how I'm going to be next time, even if I don't necessarily feel like that, it's almost like that part of me is the most appropriate expression in connection with who you are, so I can't just appear to be someone else. You have a sense of me now, a familiarity, a label, a box to put me in; it just makes it easier to understand - this bloke is so and so, they like this, they like that, they do this, they talk about these things.
So if you're with somebody who can be different, who finds it difficult to maintain the same form of expression, because he doesn't really know what that expression should be, any expression of the idea of me is only an idea that isn't actually true. I've just done my best in this moment. I will need to be somebody. It feels very limiting.
I’ve not met many people who handle me well, and I've only come across a few people that I really like to be around who don't make me feel uncomfortable, and who appreciate the creative freedom in who we are. They're not hiding anything. I don't have to be anything. They are who they are and they do it the way they do it. I don't have the same freedom because I'm too aware that whatever is being perceived is only a reflection of their own level of perception, and it is not my intention to be perceived that way.
Often I think I'm being real or having a good attempt at it, only to realise I've been perceived completely differently. I can understand how that comes to be, but there is nothing I can do about it. There’s no way to point it out. I can't try to explain how I’m ‘supposed’ to be perceived. Imagine trying to explain to somebody…oh you thought I was someone else…it's not possible to explain it.
We would have to spend ages identifying and agreeing on our definitions and our understanding of certain words, certain concepts, our experiences of people, which gives us the feeling of knowing each other. But different experiences produce different states of knowing, and we have to reveal those so that we can compare and recognise inconsistencies that could create misunderstanding.
All this can be done, but it would need a lot of time and willingness to do, and I suppose you could say that the people who have the most opportunity to do that are our partners, our best friends, people who live together, who have decided to make a life together, if they're the right people for each other, they can do that, it just takes time and would probably indicate a good match.
I'm never around long enough to allow that to take place. I experience a powerful condensed version in the beginning, which seems to be enough to create the idea that we can do this, and then something gets in the way so that it doesn't actually continue into what would be a ‘good match’.
I'm trying to understand why, and I think I'm closer to understanding, but also I accept that I might not be. It may be the only way to really do so is through relationship, which I don't have. So everything remains a theory. That's why I want to share this because it might trigger something in you to respond in a way that fills a gap for me; it's happened before and I really appreciate it. Something I hadn't thought about. It needs somebody else to do that.
It is possible to realise quite a lot through reflection but at the end of the day it's really only in relationship that I get to see how things actually work in real life, and even if not all relationships are meant to be forever, I always learn a lot about myself.
When finding myself with people who are connected to other people, they became like family for a while. Spontaneous experiences of connection which are felt as family because I'm not creating it, not insisting on it, not deciding things. I'm just experiencing what I find and then something supportive and collaborative came out of it.
I look after my family. I care about my family. I help my family; that's what family means to me. The family are my tribe, my clan.
All those people I once experienced as family are not in my life now, for one reason or another. Relationships come and go, and I suppose friendships do as well. I used to imagine that once I found somebody I got on with, even if I didn't see them often, they always remained my friend. We liked being around each other and circumstances don't always make it possible, and sometimes long periods go by. Life happens; people get married or move to a different part of the country or even the world, and even though we can keep in touch easily, I still find that I naturally let go of keeping people in my thoughts; out of sight out of mind I suppose. Other things are focusing me in the present and as those people are not in my present, it's like they don't technically exist, until they do again. If I have something to say to someone, or I receive a message from them, then immediately I'm connected to them in the present and away we go.
The fact that we tolerate people who are called ‘family’ just because we are related to them but don't get on or even like and generally avoid, yet sometimes can't help but see at family gatherings, is just something many go through, but they're 'family so we put up with it. I've never understood that.
I only want to be around people I want to be around. I only want people to be around me who want to be around me, so when we get together, we connect, we click, we understand why we like to share things, can be open, speak honestly, talk about who we are, and listen to who the other person is, and we are interested in what we do and what we've done and how we think and what we say. To me, that's family, because to listen to somebody, to speak truthfully, makes me feel close to them; it's an intimacy thing and which for me creates that family feeling. It's not just that we happen to be related.
In fact, my experience of the ones I'm related to, was always as if, well, I’m part of this so-called group of people, but they're not my family. They have no idea who I am and I can't understand who they are, even though it's typical behaviour for their world, but it isn't my world, and I don't know how to bridge the gap.
I experienced so much of being peripheral while growing up. And yet I often feel that something is missing when I don't have people in my life, even if I always let the wrong ones go. I keep swinging like a pendulum; first completely immersing myself in an experience of family, only to find that it either blows up or I blow it up in order to experience a reality alone again; one extreme to the other.
And when I feel myself coming back to a more balanced way, I realise that I need a combination of both. I need something in the middle. I need the feeling of solitude and aloneness, while having people that I absolutely love having in my life. I just don't know how to have that. I generally end up in the solitude camp where it's less complicated. I feel like I'm more authentic when I'm alone, even though I'm not expressing that authenticity around anybody.
In any given moment I can feel like I’m performing, like I’m a kind of character and not a whole self, and I can feel the missing bits are there even though I can't express them. I need time to reveal myself, so that there is nothing interfering with my expression, because for me, because I spend so little time around people, I can't seem to avoid the masking protection mechanism I've deployed all my life, and yet without it I wouldn't be able to integrate easily at all. I don't know how to describe it. I can interfere with what’s taking place rather than allow what's taking place to take place.
So in order not to let that happen, aspects of my character have to be suppressed or hidden and because they're not on show, they effectively don't exist, and all it needs is a number of experiences with people where they aren't revealed, making it almost impossible to then reveal more of me in a future moment.
It feels incongruous with what was there before, and of course, if I'm not free to be myself, talk about myself, then I am not myself, and that's not going to work. I don't know if anyone is really ever truly themselves, but that's how I feel I have to be. I have to be real and it doesn't matter who it's with, whether I know them or not. I should be able to be who I am. And the more I know who I am the easier it is for me to be who I am.
The issue has been, and still is... I don't know who I am. I only know how I am in different situations. If I've been that way before that's how I'm going to be next time, even if I don't necessarily feel like that, it's almost like that part of me is the most appropriate expression in connection with who you are, so I can't just appear to be someone else. You have a sense of me now, a familiarity, a label, a box to put me in; it just makes it easier to understand - this bloke is so and so, they like this, they like that, they do this, they talk about these things.
So if you're with somebody who can be different, who finds it difficult to maintain the same form of expression, because he doesn't really know what that expression should be, any expression of the idea of me is only an idea that isn't actually true. I've just done my best in this moment. I will need to be somebody. It feels very limiting.
I’ve not met many people who handle me well, and I've only come across a few people that I really like to be around who don't make me feel uncomfortable, and who appreciate the creative freedom in who we are. They're not hiding anything. I don't have to be anything. They are who they are and they do it the way they do it. I don't have the same freedom because I'm too aware that whatever is being perceived is only a reflection of their own level of perception, and it is not my intention to be perceived that way.
Often I think I'm being real or having a good attempt at it, only to realise I've been perceived completely differently. I can understand how that comes to be, but there is nothing I can do about it. There’s no way to point it out. I can't try to explain how I’m ‘supposed’ to be perceived. Imagine trying to explain to somebody…oh you thought I was someone else…it's not possible to explain it.
We would have to spend ages identifying and agreeing on our definitions and our understanding of certain words, certain concepts, our experiences of people, which gives us the feeling of knowing each other. But different experiences produce different states of knowing, and we have to reveal those so that we can compare and recognise inconsistencies that could create misunderstanding.
All this can be done, but it would need a lot of time and willingness to do, and I suppose you could say that the people who have the most opportunity to do that are our partners, our best friends, people who live together, who have decided to make a life together, if they're the right people for each other, they can do that, it just takes time and would probably indicate a good match.
I'm never around long enough to allow that to take place. I experience a powerful condensed version in the beginning, which seems to be enough to create the idea that we can do this, and then something gets in the way so that it doesn't actually continue into what would be a ‘good match’.
I'm trying to understand why, and I think I'm closer to understanding, but also I accept that I might not be. It may be the only way to really do so is through relationship, which I don't have. So everything remains a theory. That's why I want to share this because it might trigger something in you to respond in a way that fills a gap for me; it's happened before and I really appreciate it. Something I hadn't thought about. It needs somebody else to do that.
It is possible to realise quite a lot through reflection but at the end of the day it's really only in relationship that I get to see how things actually work in real life, and even if not all relationships are meant to be forever, I always learn a lot about myself.
