I came across this post on facebook, an image (I’m not even sure if that classifies as a meme) that just says:
I’m highly attracted to someone who has been through things in life. I don’t want someone who is always rainbows and butterflies. Is it strange that I am comforted by the darkness in someone?
It got me thinking. I am indeed sort of attracted to people who have a dark history and/or a dark side, whatever it may be, and people who are always happy kind of creep me out. I’ve always known this, though, so it’s nothing new. If anything, it was nice to see it show up on my feed because it’s a reminder that I’m not alone in my weirdness, and lately that alone is definitely a welcome thing.
The question however is: why? Why do I feel immediately close to someone who has lived through struggles? Until recently, I had never admitted to myself that perhaps I just wish someone were as miserable as me; and that still makes me feel horrible, by the way. But I guess hiding it doesn’t help anyone, so there it is again. Maybe this attraction to fellow strugglers is just another way of saying the same thing, in a slightly less selfish way because it’s about them, rather than me.
Note that, once again, this is not about love or romantic relationships. One of the very few “guy friends” I had also struggled through his own things, and that is actually what got us to be friends. There’s just that kind of connection between people who have or have had issues. Maybe it’s part selfishness: hey, I’m not as alone, as miserable, as ridiculous as I thought I was. Or maybe it’s the desire to help, though the line between generosity and selfishness can be thin: if I know that helping you makes me feel better, am I being self-centered? Still, there’s a connection.
Lately I’ve been following a facebook group about victims of abuse by sociopaths and narcissists. Even though many of the posts by others are heartbreaking, as one may imagine, the environment is very positive and supportive. I never posted there myself (I don’t feel my experiences are “worth” it; that’s a whole new can of worms, I know) but I’ve occasionally commented on other things, and I’ve had replies. That alone was helpful, especially when they were indeed supporting comments to things that took a lot of effort to write and put out there, such as my fear of driving issue.
In my life I’ve always been in touch with someone who had issues; perhaps it was a way of working on my own issues, who knows? Yet lately I haven’t, or rather, as I said in other posts, it feels like everyone’s sort of trying to find a way while I’m still locked in. The odd thing is that coming to the realization that perhaps I “used” other people’s issues to feel less alone doesn’t make me feel guilty. After all I wasn’t the one to cause their problems and I’ve always tried to help others. What it does, instead, is make me feel useless now, actually both useless and hopeless. Useless because I can’t help anyone, and hopeless because I feel like nobody will ever need me again, since everyone seems to be doing better on their own.