Treading on eggshells

I've found myself having to tread on eggshells around people for a great deal of my life.

When I was a kid, I trod on eggshells around my father's rage. I trod on eggshells around my mother's fear. I trod on aggshells around my sister's anger.

When my girlfriend was raped, I trod on eggshells around her terror, then I trod on eggshells around her depression, then I trod on eggshells around her rage, too.

Treading on eggshells is so draining.

People call it "sensitivity", but it's treading on eggshells.

Yet who does it actually serve, to tread on eggshells? I mean, what's the real purpose of it? Is it so that we cater to the fears of the subject in a way that stops them blowing up, or actually having some kind of spiritual breakthrough?

I think so.

We tread on eggshells because we fear the backlash that comes from moving into a new reality. We tread on eggshells because we fear the loss of control that comes from saying and doing what we really feel.

Treading on eggshells is all about being inauthentic. That's what I've learned from my very painful times doing so. Treading on eggshells depletes the person doing it, and it doesn't serve the person who's being treated so carefully.

In some respects, I think that's the beauty of GU's candidness. I've had people say things to me that have been so direct, so in my face, that I've had to come to terms with things that no "friend" would dare say.

Because I think that's one of the main reasons we tread on eggshells. We don't actually do it for the person concerned, but for ourselves.

When we don't want to lose the relationship, we tread on eggshells around that person. But it doesn't actually serve them at all. In many respects, treading on eggshells is one of the most hurtful forms of patronisation, because it never allows the person to face what's going on for them, and allow them move on.

But we tread on eggshells because we see no other way. Inevitably, we tread on eggshells because we feel we're between the devil and the deep blue sea. We tread on eggshells because we feel we're damned if we do, and we're damned if we don't.

As a kid, I trod on eggshells around my father because I knew that if I offended him, he'd either ignore me, leave, or hit me. I trod on eggshells around my mother because I knew that if I was who I really was with her, she'd suck me into her misery even further, and I'd be lost.

Treading on eggshells taught me to wear a mask. Treading on eggshells taught me to go inside myslf. Treading on eggshells taught me to dissociate, to separate, to observe from a safe place.

When my ex was raped, that's when treading on eggshells was the greatest for me. That was when I could only ever be supportive, caring, loving, and perfect. I had no room to be anything else, for fear of unleasing her rage, or feelings so strong that I wouldn't know what to do with them. For years, I trod on eggshells around someone I had such great compassion for, such immense respect for, such profound love, but whom I knew just wasn't facing her true feelings.

All that treading on eggshells did was postpone something that each of us needed to deal with, eventually. That's all that treading on eggshells ever does.

I don't tread on eggshells any more, if I can help it.