How Am I Not Myself

I met up with my dear friend Kit on Saturday, just to catch up, and I realized I had not told her about any of the high drama that went on from September through October. Last time I saw her, she fed me crepes at her apartment and I told her I was just a little worried about why my cycle was running so far behind. That was October. She told me she had assumed nothing happened because I never mentioned it again, and I told her that was mostly right. "I had a false positive on a pee test," I told her, "And I can't say Mike was really nice about it when I told him."
"What did he say?" she asked.
I outlined it for her, not in explicit detail, just the broadstrokes about how he had so indelicately implied that I was lying to get him to talk to me again. "I think," I said to Kit, "He gets me confused with my sister sometimes, because that is something she might do."
Kit looked aghast. "I'm sorry, but how dare he?" she asked.
I was surprised by how strong her reaction was, mostly because even though I had brought it up, I'm really kind of over being offended about anything Mike said. There is no point. I'll never get an apology from him for that because he doesn't think he did anything wrong, and that is his right. Plus, I still have not convinced myself that I am not getting exactly what I deserve when someone treats me that way. One side of my brain is telling me to stand up for myself and the other side is telling me to just accept my punishment because I don't deserve to be loved or treated well anyway. "He's just a boy," I said, "And I did catch him off-guard. It was my fault. I panicked."
"No," Kit said, "How dare he get you confused with your sister? I love her, but you are nothing like her. I can't believe he did that."
I thought about that for a minute, and I remembered just how many times Mike brought Sarah into the conversation, made me answer for dumb shit she did when she was harboring a weird crush on him. Moreover, the way he was with me, how he chased me like I was the Beatles and then, as soon as I was actually available, he couldn't be bothered with me, made me think even harder about how large my sister had loomed over that whole time. My appeal came from how off-limits he thought I was, as Sarah's sister, and as a wounded divorcee, and as somebody who made out with his friend in parking lots. Once he realized that those limitations didn't exist, and that I was just a girl who wanted to spend time with him and there was nothing forbidden about it, he was done. His response after that had to be that here was something wrong with me, and to treat me as such. He made me into just another crazy bitch who went all crazy on him. I will take a lot of shit, but I just refuse to swallow that any longer, because I am many things, but I am not crazy.
I love my sister, and I admire her, and I also know that she has emotional issues that run deep, that I cannot just reach in and fix. I have my own issues, of course, and I deal with them and know what I need to do to stay in control. I am not entirely confident, however, that what I see in her won't one day present in me. When most of your first cousins have been diagnosed with bipolar disorder, you start to lose faith in your own mental stability and wonder if it doesn't just run in the family. One of Sarah's problems, and this is something I have said to her directly, is that she loves too much. She becomes convinced that she will die if this person, who she loves more than anyone has ever loved anyone, disappears or leaves her. The problem with that is, she becomes attached on this level with everyone, even to men who are already in relationships or that she barely knows or who clearly tell her that they are not interested. In her mind, she had a claim on Mike, and part of him still belonged to her just because she said so. She feels this way because she believes it, and I am always afraid that her delusions are contagious, that I will lose what little perspective I have and start looking at the world the same way.
I am always afraid of letting go of the restraint I have developed, that I will lose myself in another person exactly the way Sarah has lost herself in any number of men. I don't look down on her for this, but I see how much it hurts, every time she gets her heart broken, and I don't want any part in it. That is what made so much of this, with Mike, so humiliating: I got suckered in by one of Sarah's "guys", a man she had idealized, and convinced herself she loved, and who maybe strung her along and messed with her head a little. I have always thought that I was smarter than her when it came to men, but I guess we all turn into idiots for the wrong person.
I did turn into a mush-brained idiot for Gino when I met him, but that was not something that made me worry for my mental health. He was just as stupid for me as I was for him, so neither one of us looked foolish, standing there while the other person turned away. I just told Gino the other day, "This is hard. Things were never this hard with you because you always told me exactly what you were thinking and it wasn't this big guessing game."
The fact that everything feels forced and confusing and not at all like the dependable, reassuring love I had for years with Gino makes me point the finger of blame at myself, try to figure out what is wrong with me and wonder if maybe I have the same problem I see in Sarah. I keep telling myself that thinking that way is unfair, both to me and to my sister, because all she really did to him was like him a little too much. If dude can't handle women liking him, he should just not talk to them and stop queening out if one of them likes him back. He was full of charm with me, and then tried to make me feel guilty for responding to it. I still feel that way. I was thinking about this last night, wondering what, exactly, he wanted to happen, since apparently I fucked it all up by responding the way I did. He must have wanted me to reject him, make it into a game for him, but that's not something I even know how to do.
I will always romanticize the period where I met and fell in love with Gino because it was so simple, and there was no push-and-pull to it. A relationship that starts out as a negotiation, with so much complicating it, just doesn't feel worth having. Even if I had played it exactly the way The Rules or whatever book women are reading now says I should have, I have a feeling I would have ended up in exactly the same place. What bothers me is how much I still think about it at all. This thing with Mike is turning into my borg, the sentient automaton that I can't kill because I don't know where it draws its power from. If I can figure out what is still feeding it, why I can't just let it go, I can move on. People tell me to stop thinking about it, but that is the least helpful advice ever because it is not a possibility for me. I don't really believe that it is possible for anyone, actually. I can go about my day and pretend something isn't bothering me, or focus on something else when I start to think about the forbidden topic, but I can't just stop thinking about it. I think what people actually mean when they say, "Don't think about it," is, "Don't talk to me about it".
I understand why someone would want me to shut up about this big bag of bullshit, and in fact, I said it myself when I was out with Kit. We were talking about another friend of ours, who kept going back to the same worthless dude, and I said, "I just look at girls like her and want to tell them that they can do so much better, and that this just isn't worth their time."
I said it, hearing myself, and realized that Kit was smirking at me because I was saying exactly what she was thinking about me. I can see these things about other people, but not myself. Still, who wants to talk to someone who is totally pleased with theirself, and never doubts their own decisions or actions? Too much confidence can be just as dangerous as too little can be. My confidence has definitely taken a hit, but I am trying to listen to my friends who are trying to rebuild it, and remind me that though she is a lovely person, my sister and I are nothing alike.