Child

You, inner child; deep within, the storehouse of my urges and needs, I give you my fingers, my toes, my eyes, my lips, all my senses. I give you the freedom to be yourself and conduct your symphonies, and write your books, to paint your pictures, make your mistakes, to cry, get angry, and be happy. I am all yours. I am you. You are mine and I need you. I want you to feel loved.

We will walk and talk together from now on. And you! You are going to create miracles here on earth. You will endure the hardening and suffering and crystals will be left behind.

Are you nervous?

You oughta be. It’s scary out here. For I have been busy searching for safe grounds for us to play. I have been fine tuning my tact so you may be calm, stealthily accurate, and precise. Your genius!

she's a child in adult's clothing - well, except for that creepy fleece onesie.

there are two things I have to keep reminding myself about whenever I start feeling upset and angry about how she's treated me.

thing one is that she's depressed; she has been for a while, and although she's finally getting actual help she's still moody and unhappy. I can sympathise. I don't know how I can help besides letting her do her own thing and heal with time, so yay for avoiding that issue I guess.

thing two is that she is an emotional child. oh sure, she looks twenty-three, she has a car and a house and a job and a string of ex-boyfriends longer than my arm, but there is a reason they are exes. as far as I can determine, she is completely self-centred, to a rather impressive degree. nothing matters but herself and her own happiness, and she has absolutely no shame about using the people around her to get what she wants.

I lived with her for most of a year, and realised after we all moved out that the reason she'd invited me to move in in the first place was not, as I had delightedly assumed, that we were the best of friends. I was just convenient; someone tidy and quiet who would lower her share of the rent and bills. I didn't even leave my room most of the time besides to make food in the kitchen, so she didn't have to put up with me like the last few housemates she'd had. I was useful sometimes; I set up the router and the cable modem, when we were going out I was an extra share in the taxi fare, I tidied the kitchen and bought pans and tupperware that she'd quite happily use. she even took them with her when she moved out, one evening while I was at the pub.

she hasn't spoken to me since we moved out, not in a malicious 'fuck you I hate you' sort of way but just... like like she never knew me. like the year since I'd met her, all the parties and hanging out and shopping together and sharing secrets had never happened. because I am just one of the people who exist but serve her no purpose anymore.

Do not act like that child knows what to do and how to behave. As a child, I was constantly traumatized by adults giving me hell for not following rules that I was completely unaware of. They would punish me, try to make me feel bad, and then act like I was deliberately misbehaving to get attention. What the hell do you do as a child when you're constantly dealing with this, other than develop lifelong complexes? Children a) haven't learned much about how the world works and b) haven't had a lot of practice following the rules that they have learned. Anyone in the position of supervising, teaching, or rearing children should either have patience and understanding or have someone else take care of those kids. It's easy and gratifying to yell at kids or even to calmly denigrate them for their mistakes, but it really does make you an awful person, and makes it easy for them to become awful people. I feel like I only escaped that fate by making the (disconcertingly rare) decision at a young age to actually care about people's feelings and never put anyone else through the shit that people put me through in my life. Pick on somebody your own size.

I am not a fucking child! Stop treating me like one. If you want my fucking respect then do something that's worthy of it. Stop treating me like I'm fucking two. I don't need you to tell me how to take care of myself. I don't need you. I appreciate what you've done for me, but as soon as you stop being a monetary asset I'm done with you. You can go fuck yourself for all I fucking care. FUCK YOU!