three weeks and bad news

Man, do I have trust issues! The trouble with making new friends is that I just plum don't trust 'em to like me behind my back. I'm always completely convinced that if I wasn't perfectly entertaining to be around, they'll group up without me and tear me to shreds or psychoanalyze me in a bad way, anything but have compassion and understanding. I have no faith in my friends out here.

It makes me really miss the good friends I have elsewhere, too. Even though I'm sure I've been under the microscope a few times for tactless and crotchety behavior, I haven't been paranoid enough to be convinced that they didn't genuinely like me.

Of course I know I'm cooking up stories in my head. Obviously, because that's what I do. I think I'm actually trying to be lonely and miserable, so I am suspicious of the only two good buddies I've made out here. On the other hand, I've seen the way they are about people if those people make mistakes. I've heard the mercilessness of outsiders who weren't perfect, did something wrong (even downright stupid), and were ostracized most conspicuously afterward. I do not consider myself exempt from this.

Additionally, I've grown up with this. My mother is the premium shit-talker, guys. She trashes anybody and everybody for minor flaws in personality, for being less-than-perfect, for not bowing down and doing her bidding in a way satisfactory to her standards. She has no mercy, and I mean NONE WHATSOEVER. She has slammed my father, my grandmother, my step-dad, her coworkers, my brother, and of course me countless times. You'd think, by the way she talks about everybody, that she hated our guts and she wouldn't waste her time with any of us. And then, just like that, she thinks so highly of everybody, just until they piss her off again. The things she says are so cruel, so contemptuous, I would even cry in my bed at night hoping she didn't really feel that way about me.

I do not want to become this way. I know I'm paranoid about my friends because I'm used to being devalued and defamed by my own fucking mom every chance she got. I know I have a habit of believing the worst about what people may think about me. I know I choose to believe that people do not really like me, that I am not lovable, and that I am going to be alone forever because I cannot fully contribute to a successful, healthy relationship.

I strongly believe in taking responsibility for one's choices in life.

So, at this point, what do I do? Do I recede back from whence I came? Avoid spending time with people who have undoubtedly exchanged a few colorful words about me? Shall I become the miserable recluse I've always dreamed of being? I've invested a LOT of money into a class I take with them and I'm paid through the month, so I'm essentially bound into going. I suppose I'm going to have to choke on this ego thing and chew on the past emotional abuse thing and get over it.

On the brighter side, way over on the other side of the Pacific, I know I have dear, wonderful friends who sincerely love me and appreciate me, even with my flaws. Those are the people who make up my surrogate family, who don't try to recruit each other for the Amanda-Haters Club, who love me for who I am and how I love them. It is a very lonely feeling to be so far from the people who understand me, even though they understand why I am so far away.

I love you guys and I miss you, deeply and desperately.