Insecurity, you annoy me. Go away.

The last few weeks I have come to understand more and more that my fear of losing friends is taking up a little too much space in my brain.

In a previous post I discussed my fear of abandonment, and even how I could feel it taking hold even as I was enjoying my deepening friendship with Coolgirl. She is truly a "kindred spirit," if I can borrow a phrase from Anne of Green Gables. You would never supposed when looking at the two of us, and comparing our life stories and current life situations that we would make such a deep connection. But she really has become one of my most valued friends. We have connected on so many levels. She understands me, and I feel like I have a pretty good understanding of her. I can tell her anything without fear of judgement. Recently I have felt myself panicking more and more that she is, in fact, realizing how terribly flawed I am, and that somehow this will cause her to reassess me and realize that the things she valued about me were in fact based on misconceptions. I felt intense fear, for example, when she expressed annoyance with me for laughing at her when she was angry. She did nothing more than be honest with me, and normally I would have felt contrite, apologized, and been more mindful of her feelings when she is frustrated with something. Instead, I was in tears. It was over the phone, so she didn't know the extent of my reaction, which I am grateful for. No need to let her know quite how crazy I am, right?

I have not been able to find a way to express to her what is going on in my head. On the one hand, I think, she doesn't need to know. I can work through this, and really, it doesn't have so much to do with her, as it has to do with me and my insecurities in regards to holding onto friends. The last thing I want to do is convince another friend I am clingy. On the other hand, I think she might possibly be the safest friend I could ever talk about this with. She has never told me my anxieties are silly. She gets how real anxiety can be, and she helps me see reason. My feelings are safe when I express them to her. So maybe in talking to her about this panic I feel, I can find the key to resolving my issue.

I tend to lean towards talking to her about it. Except that every time I think about talking about it, I realize that this is actually one of my deep dark, ugly feelings. It touches a deep nerve. It is humiliating to admit the desperation I feel about losing friends. She knows about some of the friends I have lost, either through a true end to the friendship or a geographical separation. She even, as before mentioned, knows about my abandonment issues. So this probably wouldn't be a huge revelation. So what am I so scared of telling her? What doesn't she already know? She doesn't know how ugly I sometimes think I am inside. She doesn't know how much I really hate myself sometimes. There are many parts of me that I love. Most of the time. But I feel like there is an ugly part that is scarring my soul, somehow. I'm not sure I can even put into words what it is that is so ugly. But I think I might be convinced, somewhere deep down, that other people can see the scar.

My counselor asked me how old I feel when I have those kinds of thoughts. I think I feel about 12 or 13, which would make sense, since one of my first, deep, meaningful friendships came to an end around that age, after many days of panicky feelings that I was annoying said friend. That particular friendship, she actually was reinforcing those feelings. In fact, often she would become angry out of nowhere. The adult me knows that my friends now don't do those things. But I still panic. I need some outside perspective, and I wonder if Coolgirl could help give it to me. Too bad my tongue becomes paralyzed every time I get the chance to tell her what is going on in my brain. And I'm still not sure I can explain, even after putting it into words here. I'm tired of this. I would like to not stress about this anymore. Can I be done?