Self sabotage, but not really

[BecomingKind]

I've thought about this for a while, but I haven't really understood it.

My mother used to threaten us (children) that if we weren't quiet or didn't do things like tidy up, she would leave the family. I didn't remember this as being noteworthy, but now that I've been thinking about it I recognize that the feeling I sometimes have in my chest is the exact same feeling I had as a child everytime my mother would "declare herself undependable" by way of some fit.

I do a form of self-sabotage, where I arrange situations with people that will make me have this feeling. Very subtly. Attempting to connect with someone who is going to be unavailable, and I make sure by my behaviour to make it so. It's so clear to me now what I did and why. At the time it feels like the entire world is doing it to you, when it is actually your subconscious directing it.

It's not about being attracted to what is familiar, it's more like trying to get to the "end" of a melody you're whistling but never reaching it. That's why it doesn't work when you start on a different note or melody.

I think the point is to recognize when a situation is creeping up and to stop the subconscious from trying to have a re-enactment. All the feelings that seem genuine and involuntary, really aren't.

A good question to ask is, are you treating other people as human beings or as characters? Are you trying to direct a scene? That's a tell-tale. Is curiousity motivating you, or are you trying to "scratch an itch"? Two people scratching each other's itches is co-dependency.