Collateral damage

Why is it that some people - even those who are close to me - are so prejudiced or think that they know me better than I do myself? Lately, I've experienced some difficult moments in which people treat me as the lunatic that I (maybe) once was. However, in recent years, I have changed so much, it's almost a 180 degrees turnabout. I hardly recognise myself, in the positive sense, that is. It's just that some people - some who should know me quite well as well as some that hardly know me because I've met them only recently - seem to think I'm completely nuts and/or mentally unfit. They seem to think that I'm so into my own world that I don't notice their abnormal behaviour, for that's it, it's just abnormal behaviour. And for once, it's not me who's acting strange, that I can guarantee you.

In concrete, there are people - two persons in particular - who don't even look me straight in the face when they're talking to me. They avoid my gaze, and they talk to me, but they seem to talk to nobody in particular or direct their gaze to other people present. However, as I get the topic, I can figure out that they're actually also talking to me, without looking directly at me. They seem to ignore me, at least partially. They somehow seem to be kind of friendly to me, but at the same time they make me feel like I don't belong in that conversation. Or, when I'm not alone in the conversation, they act as if they were talking to the two or three of us that are with them, but they only look the other one(s) straight in the eye. They avoid to look me in the eye, and that really annoys me quite a lot. It also affects my confidence, because I feel as if I don't belong there, for some reason. 

Those people that act so weird seem to think that I don't notice them trying to ignore me or to make me feel the outsider, but let me tell you, dear reader, I do notice it. And it doesn't exactly help that my selfesteem is already quite low. It seems that I'm very sensitive for this type of behaviour, and that it really makes me feel uncomfortable and worthless. Is it just me, or does it also bother you, dear reader, if people don't look you in the eye when they're talking to you, trying to make you feel even more useless, even more uncomfortable than you already feel? 

You know, when I was a teenager, I was bullied at high school. The bullying in itself didn't really affect me that badly, just a little bit, but then some of them found out that they could also ignore me and act as if I didn't exist. And that's something that does affect me, very much indeed. And now everything comes back, all those sad memories, and I feel so small again... However, I don't know if they realise that what they are doing affects me so much. I wish they did, and maybe they do, but then they are the weirdos, and not me. 

People seem to treat me as if I were still that nutcase and that abhorrent person I was until a few years ago. I feel sorry to say so, but I really was, emphasis on the past time though. I admit, I was a strange, crazy person, but I've learnt to behave myself. Now I know that threatening with suicide and cutting myself can be really harmful for the other people involved. Now I know that it's not very wise to jump off the stairs when you want to kill yourself while other people are watching. Now I know that it's just insane to collect glass you find on the street and cut yourself with it while other people are present. First of all, I haven't cut myself in over 4 years' time. The same counts for a real suicide attempt. I've kind of threatened with suicide, that's true, I have to be honest. But the point is that I haven't done it. Now I can cope a lot better with the borderline person inside of me.

Unfortunately, it's not just these two persons who treat me as a stupid, useless and completely insane person, there is even more. There is one person in my life that loathes me so much, and I honestly have no clue why. There is pure hatred towards me in his attitude, and he doesn't even try to hide his loathsome feelings anymore, something he did in the beginning of his change in attitude when other people were present. Once we were very close, though. We were even best friends, soulmates, at least, that's what I thought. Now I see that person as somebody that should be family, but that in my eyes has spoilt it all. There is nothing left from what once was. And, although I'm not a saint myself, I've given that specific person lots and lots of opportunities, over and over again. Now, though, I've made a decision: that person doens't deserve my good intentions anymore, and I will no longer try to be kind to him. I will treat him in the same way as he has been treating me for years now. I'll still say hi and text him for his birthday, but that's about where the good intentions cease to exist. 

Now I realise that what I'm writing here might hurt the people involved as it's possible that they read my blog and that they recognise themselves in this post. True, I could have decided not to write this post. However, I'm so fed up with these people, and I can no longer handle it alone. I felt that I had to write about them on this blog, because they cause a lot of damage, and they are probably not even aware that they do so - or maybe they do, and then they are even more evil than I initially thought. It might sound stupid, but by writing this post, I hope that, if they read my blog - which they probably don't - they will realise that they've caused some damage themselves. To me. I know that I've caused substantial damage to them years ago, and that there's no way to make up for so much craziness. But now that I'm quite stable and that I can once again enjoy life, family and friends, they should not behave as if I were still that unpredictable, completely unstable borderliner. So if they read this post and if they recognise themselves and feel unjustly treated, they have to remember this: collateral damage is unavoidable at this level.