C: Cousin has not sent a text message to me since Friday
T: She should want to talk to me more – she owes me
F: Entitled
A: Keep checking her fb to see when she was last online, wonder what else she’s doing that’s more important than me, I imagine what she’s doing, I feel feelings of hatred toward her, I send her another text to get her to respond
R: ???

Now – the thought “she owes me” is a bit of a curious one. I am allowing myself to stay very curious about it instead of judging it as “I shouldn’t be thinking that, I’m weird.” I have an internal feeling that I can only describe as being owed…it feels like a gripping or a grasping, like she has taken something from me and not given me credit. Alright – I definitely have thoughts that say “this is weird” haha. I don’t know what this feeling is called – maybe entitled? It feels like a fierce entitlement, like something has been stolen from me and she can never repay me back.

There’s some childhood history here, where I felt like I really protected her from a lot of stuff that went on in our family. She was always the baby and the favourite one, and I feel like I shielded her from a lot of things and endured a lot more trauma than she did. And there is part of me that feels like the sacrifice and experience I went through was SO much worse than hers, and she can never repay me. I guess what I want is for her to KNOW it. She’s focused on her own (minor, in my opinion) traumas, when really I want her to understand what I did for her and to be grateful. If she were, I’d be the most important thing to her and she would have texted me since Friday.

Okay. This is interesting to see this on paper. I’m not totally sure I knew this before. But, I guess it makes SENSE that I feel entitled to her recognition, gratitude and appreciation when I think the thought “I sacrifice so much for her and she can never repay me.” This is just a thought, it’s optional, and I have chosen to think it for a long time. There is no problem, I am not a bad person, it is simply a thought I keep thinking.

I need to stay in the model a bit longer, but it is interesting to see that my manual for her is that she should put me on a pedestal, she should admire me, she should look up to and respect me, and she should be reliant on me for her happiness and sense of wholeness (woah….thats FASCINATING), she should NEED ME. That’s it. She should need me to be happy. That’s the manual I have written for her. I see that I have created a prison for myself in my mind. Also, as an interesting aside, I think this is my own internalized narcissism, something that my dad and uncle (her dad) had a lot of.

Okay, and if she did put me on this pedestal and respected me and needed me for her happiness, how would I get to feel? Well. I’d get to feel powerful. I’d feel totally in control of my desire to be loved and needed. In the middle of my chaotic childhood where there was very unpredictable and chaotic patterns of love and withdrawal, it makes a TON of sense I’d be looking for some power and control.

This might be one of the most profound realizations I’ve had in my life.

C cousin hasn’t texted me since Friday
T She has her own life now
F Hate / Abandoned
A I think things like “I’m finished” with her, I withdraw, I get cold and short with her, I judge her and then blame her
R I create more distance from the person I actually want connection with

Open to any thoughts or feedback on where to go from here.