Self-Heartbreak

I have this really bad habit of holding in my feelings when they're about other people. A worse habit is falling in love with people who actually don't know I exist.

I can be deeply in love with and desperately pining for somebody on the inside, but the way I end up expressing that is by running away, and avoiding any and all interpersonal contact with that person until the feeling hopefully wears off.

However, by myself, without them around, my mind ends up creating complex dream scenarios where the subject and I are together, in a healthy, happy relationship, and they are in love with me just as much as I am in love with them.

This method helps me bypass harsh realities. It's a coping mechanism to avoid heartbreak at the hands of this person. Because I know that I am capable of feeling and showing an astronomical amount of love, and it's possible that it can push someone away.

My love doesn't die easily. I know that consciously, and so when I realize fully that I don't just have a crush on this person, and that I actually am in love with them, it's probably just as painful. Because I know my habits, I know my behaviors, and the pattern shows that this will inevitably end in heartbreak.

There is another flaw with this, one that I guess I forget: These people about which I feel this way also feel love and affection... for other people.

Jealousy is all too familiar to me. More than once, I've avoided the object of my feelings until they start dating someone else.

The worst part is when they're so incredibly happy together, and I can see the fantasy that I've built up in my head for so long being acted out in front of me, but by somebody else.

And then I can feel the envy crawling around inside me like I swallowed a centipede whole, eating me from the inside out - taking a bite out of my lungs when I see she's more attractive than I am, my intestines when she's more successful, my stomach when they look at each other and smile because they can't help it. She has what I don't. What I couldn't have because of myself.

That hurts more, I think.

My feelings of inadequacy all come crashing down at once. Not only that I'm not as good as she is, as beautiful, or as talented; but also because I'm too much of a coward to go achieve this for myself. I've only been rejected once, because I've only ever tried once. And I think I probably still blame that one time for all the subsequent heartbreaks I've brought upon myself, because he made me too scared to try again.

More inadequacy attacks from the sides as the fact sneaks up on me that I hate that I feel this way in the first place. I really do love him, and I want him to be happy. I want the very best for him in every situation. So then I feel like a shitty person for being jealous, because in this case, she's the best for him. But then it becomes a cycle. Why couldn't I be the best for him?

Feelings-wise, things look grim for the immediate future. Because I know that I'll continue to torture myself by looking at pictures of them together and imagining myself in her position. I'll continue to write speculative fiction, I'll continue to seethe and writhe and melt away in a vat of my own self-pity because I don't know how to cope with such an intense amount of jealousy. And I'll hate every single moment of it.