Fear

Now Playing: I'm Not Calling You a Liar by Florence + The Machine (I'm not calling you a liar, just don't lie to me)

My mother always told me that a strong woman is a woman who walks away, and that you'll never lose a man if he's afraid he'll lose you.

And as usual, I'm the good daughter who never listens to her mother.

The power play that I was presented by the daughters of suffragettes was that women only get power by learning what keeps a man in and withholding it to get what you want, even if that may actually kill you in the process. Seriously. If you withdraw anything that leads to pleasure, well, it's your loss too. They didn't tell me that before I became a coquette.

I'm afraid of losing friends. I'm afraid of things slipping through my fingers if I dare to get a tighter grip. I'm afraid that I'll lose everything I gained by turning a blind eye, by letting things pass, by giving out far too many 'second chances'. I'm afraid that if I stand my ground people will walk away. Horrible, weird, irrational, paranoid fears like that.

I know most of my relationships with people are based on that. That the intensity, the outlet, the release, the brief moments, come at a price. Everything is a twisted web of lies and half truths and the sad knowledge that someone is eventually going to get hurt. And that someone is probably going to be me.

I was driven by curiosity, and completely seduced by the opportunity to be myself after being suppressed for so long. I saw innocence as a vulnerability but I didn't realize that losing your innocence is an even greater one. I've done nothing that I regret, I refuse to live with regrets. But now I want out and I'm not brave enough to. I'll miss it too much. I hate the thought of saying goodbye. I did it once and it didn't last very long and I know exactly why.

I'm lied to so often that it's become so easy for me to pick it out and to deal with it. But sometimes you know someone is lying to you, but you just can't bear the thought. You don't want to think so badly of them, and even questioning them feels like an accusation you don't want to make. That's why I pretend everything's okay. Sometimes I'd rather hear lies than face the truth.

I hate inconsistency and yet I spend far too much time around the most inconsistent people I have ever met. One second we're barely on first-name basis, the next minute we're best friends, then the semantics change and I don't know what the hell we are, and I'm pretending to be fine with it when I can't stand not being on the same page as someone. Sometimes I feel like we understood each other so much better when we barely knew each other at all. People who hate you are so easy to read, which is why I was a perfectly competent bitch. You can read their minds just by looking at their faces. But the people who love you, or the people you love...they're impossible to read. You'd believe them if they said 'I'd never hurt you' if they had a gun to your head.

I'm so afraid of the influence people have over me. I don't let many people in, because it's a mind fuck for both parties. But the people I do let in - I don't have many vague acquaintances or moderate friends. I don't do anything halfway. The people close to me have my heart and body and soul. I'd do anything for them, and they mean the world to me. It doesn't matter how badly they treat me or how much they hurt me, I always look out for them, and I'm always a shoulder to cry on. And although I get so much strength from empathy and altruism and being the good guy for a change, I'm so afraid of the influence people have over me, especially when I know I don't have half that kind of power over them.

But this will be the last I speak of it. I've always been rather bad at handling my own affairs, but this is something I have to do on my own. I have nobody to talk to, nobody I can talk to who won't get impatient with me, or worse, judge me. It's rather sad when you realize that you'd listen to anything and everything and nobody will really return the favour - but that's just how my life's been, recently; I'd do anything for people and they'll do next to nothing for me in return. It's just the same as being alone, which is what I fear the most. I'm so afraid and I can't tell anyone, there are no words to describe it, and no-one with any answers to the thousands of questions swarming around my head.

I'm afraid of everything. I'm afraid of pain, I'm afraid of the dark, I'm afraid of being alone, I'm afraid of losing, I'm afraid of letting go. And I don't have anything or anyone to help me conquer this fear.