Aftershocks: A fucked up childhood

Ok, it could have been a LOT worse. My childhood had some rough spots, but all in all it wasn't that bad. I'm going to rant about it a bit now, so I had to place this disclaimer at the start.

I'm big on self-revelation. I try very hard to know myself, because I feel like without that I'll never be able to make myself into the person I want to be. That's just one of my things. When something pops up that surprises the hell out of me about myself I immediately start looking for the WHY. Where did this trait come from, or this pattern of behavior, etc.?

Today in the car I had this odd moment where I realized that some of my people issues - my loner style, my difficulty being a good friend sometimes, my tendency to forgive others but never myself, my intense need for my own space that's often followed by a desire for lots of company, etc. etc. - stem from a childhood where my friends were either adults (and therefore not real friends to me), or imaginary. I used to have hours-long conversations with my teddy bear. I knew he wasn't real, but he was the only friend I had for a long time. My first dog was my very best friend through my youngest years, until she was killed by a car. I have never loved a dog that way again, I don't think I can. My world felt like it fell apart that day. My mom and teachers said I cried silently and didn't speak for days until my mom finally put a puppy in my arms that looked just like my old dog. But I still never loved that second dog the same, and I remember that I didn't. I never had a model of a good friendship, I never had a model of a good relationship, I only knew that everything in my world was affected by me somehow.

My mom had serious anger issues, she was a self-proclaimed rage-a-holic. I regularly was berated for things I had no control over. If mom came home in a bad mood, she was going to yell at me for something, she'd make up a reason if one didn't exist. And she was MEAN about it, she would say the things you aren't EVER supposed to say. She and I lived alone together for a lot of my youth, and I only learned to distance myself from her anger and that it was directionless after I moved out for the first time. She's fire, and to this day I'm ice. I fight with distance, and coldness, I regularly do not defend myself in a fight because I don't want to hear those horrible things people become capable of saying in anger.....

So, what do those things add up to? Today it means that while I feel bad that I was not always the kind of fiercely loyal friend I would like to be, I think I have discovered why. (I now am fiercely loyal and a good friend to my nearest and dearest too, I just wasn't always.) I didn't understand how to disagree properly with someone you care about for years, I had no idea how to debate, I had no idea how to be a friend. I didn't even know that true friendship happens usually, yes it takes work, but you sort of know when you meet or talk to people if you click or not. You can't create a truly close friendship from nothing, you have to actually like a person first - what a concept! I have tried much too hard to make friendships happen in my past, and guess what? It always leads to drama! Because we never end up sticking by one another. If you don't make natural friends, then it's not going to work. That was the lesson this year. It was hard to learn though, and I am clearly still fighting blaming myself for that. I blame myself for these friendships ending in drama and whatnot because I tried to force myself to like someone more than I did naturally. I don't blame the other person, even if they didn't tell me they weren't really feeling it either.... I have had them turn and blame it on me and I accept it, flat out, and apologize for it, and walk away as if it really was all my fault. I can't seem to stop myself from believing that it is. It feels like I SHOULD have figured out how to be a good friend much sooner, as if being one should have been natural (even when I tried to force a connection with someone that didn't exist). Ugh. I have enough guilt already.