All of my therapists have told me: “Maya, you’re too controlling.” Soon after I stopped going because of… well duh. I already knew that! Shouldn’t you be telling me something I don’t know? These sessions shouldn’t be going like this every time. Didn’t they go to school for this? Get to the meat!
Tell me how wanting my friends to be my friends in a specific way is controlling. Or how not speaking to people to protect myself from negative perceptions of me is controlling! Or how my constant anxiety over what is going to happen in the future is controlling! Maybe my insistence on keeping dense conversation is the reason why they haven’t drawn these conclusions. But come on, don’t let me manipulate you! You’re the one that went to school. You’re letting me be controlling.
But anyway, how could I let go of control? Or the better question to ask right now is: “why would I?”
I want the people I’m romantically interested in to think that my problems are not as big as their problem. Especially when my problems aren’t as big as their problems. And to do that, I cannot let the conversation ever be about me. That, of course, results in them not knowing much about me. But hey! It’s a small price to pay to be able to control their perception.
I have a specific face for my relationships with my friends (each friend), my family, perfect strangers, etc. All of them require a tight leash so I can maintain the version that all of these people know and like.
I was talking to my friends one day and we were assigning Powerpuff Girls. I always thought some days I was Bubbles and most days I was Buttercup. They gave me Blossom. BLOSSOM! I was shocked! How is my image of myself so different than how these girls see me?
Huh. Different faces.
My friend Amirah told me she thought I was Buttercup. Different friends get different faces.
There is a version of myself that no one knows. She is all of the people I am with others, something softer than the rest. To protect her from judgment and rejection, I puppeteer the masks around her. If it sounds like I’m overthinking this, it is because I am.
As of late, this charade has become more difficult to maintain. Maybe it’s due to age, but I’ve been more sensitive to the relationships these masks have created. Probing people for secrets and becoming a shoulder to cry on to mimic intimacy has backfired (shocker!).
It is painful to know and not to be known. The mask is doing exactly what it’s supposed to do — blocking the people I’m close with from becoming close to me. So when I’m telling the truth and showing skin, it’s not met with warmth because I’ve never been known to need it.
Go figure.
There is no place of comfort — no home in a friend. It was just barely an accident that things turned out this way. Alternatively, new relationships are harder to make because I’m tired. DO I need a mask for this too? I don’t think they are interested in knowing me as myself, but as the mysterious girl, or the artsy girl, or the chill girl.
And if I say the wrong thing, I lose my sparkle. I have the choice to either maintain these pony tricks or just let the relationship go. I have been letting them go more and more.
Behind the mask, I’ve wanted to jump out of my skin and new people who meet me notice this more and more. The awkward girl who always says the wrong thing. That’s the mask most molded by the skin because it was made by accident. IT was made in the blind spot of me being controlling.
Now I’ve lost interest in relationships that I cannot control. What can I do? Is the reason to let go of control that I’m losing it anyway? If I went back to therapy and they told me and they told me that I was controlling, my response would still beL “duh.”
But I might stay to listen because I want to be better. I don’t want to fall short of a whole personality of connection or true love. I want to feel like I deserve all of these things.
