ive been wondering for a while if its true of myself that i want to save others and be saved. i find myself gravitating romantically toward people who are mentally unstable. people who have a desire for goodness, health, and flourishing, but are swimming upstream. maybe it makes me feel good to have been on that side and to feel in some ways im out on the other. maybe it boosts my ego to assume i have something invaluable to a good life, something that comes naturally to me, a way of being that at its best is bright and at its worst is “precious.”
its always after a breakup with a really lovely person that i find myself gravitating towards these people whom maybe i feel like i can “save.” almost like proving to them i have something new and joyful and good will prove to myself ill survive losing the good relationship i just had. like i dont need it anyways. like i have something invincible and its my own and im in control of it and i can give and take it away at will and in abundance. maybe im scared of someone seeing this just as it is. that im someone who has something good but also very human and i have very human flaws and very human needs. im not
it feels good to me to connect with people who are in a fog. not always like im pulling them out, although i think i definitely do try whether for better or worse, but like i can see them and they can see me and its so real in that moment and perhaps everything before has been a facade. i think this has very direct lines to childhood. growing up in youthgroup we were taught we had this light that everyone needs. its not that we’re better (although we were somehow still predestined?) and its on us to dedicate our lives toward spreading that necessary light. and if you were gifted, all the more power and all the more responsibility you’d have to moving people emotionally and bringing them out of the superficial into the real.
i had this huge breakthrough before i moved to new york. i had been living at home for 2 years post-college and was feeling some kind of stuck-ness. this turned into a clockwork fear of my whole family and community dying, being raptured, and me being left behind. Its like the period of time before saying goodbye to a long distance lover-the buildup is worse than the actual thing. i had become so afraid of being alone that i mistook it for horrible loneliness. once i got to new york and felt really alone, it hasn’t been so bad. i mean i guess my lineup of 5 first hinge dates a week for the past 3 weeks might beg to differ, but thats real time coping, not avoidant fear.
i guess i have this thing where i gravitate toward people i want to save right after break ups because it feels immediately like we can see each other. and maybe im not actually being seen and validated by them, but i knwo what they’re feeling, so i let myself believe there a mutual understanding. and i want them to accept me and choose me back to badly because then i wont be alone in the scariest feelings i can feel. as long as i can keep up and be just healthier enough to pull us through and be the “goodness,” then i might be scared but ill never be alone in it.