I don't watch Steven Universe too often. Like, I watched the finale and the main episodes, but I try to skip over the pointless fillers. But I'm not talking about that, me. 

Ok so in short, I feel really attached to pearls.

Spinel and Lapis as well, but they're characters that had to abandon their functions.

Pearls are natural servants. They follow the rules don't speak out, hold your things for you and just kind of stand there. I feel or felt like that for ages. Especially with Liam.  It's weird, because every time I get close to someone in a way that makes us both emotionally vulnerable, it always feels like I'm the only one that gets hurt in the end. But it still makes sense because I know that it was me that encouraged them to use me as this little vent box to cry into and then leave me to drown in their feelings. 

Maybe that's why I'm so unsympathetic and cynical online. I don't have anyone relying on me for emotional support or expecting me to be a 'good friend' by focusing all my time and energy on them alone, so I just don't know what to do. I don't really feel guilty about it either, because I know that I'm doing a bad thing and that makes me feel good. Just knowing I didn't follow a condescending request with guilt tripping along side it, and instead just did something that they wouldn't like have said to them. Or maybe I'm just an ass, who knows.

I sometimes think that it's for the best that I'm controlled by people. Even when I was like 9, I had Anoushka controlling me until I was 11. It's not like it made her a bad person though, she was just a dumb kid who hated Kaylin, so I was told to hate her too. I wanted to talk to Kaylin, but I knew that Anoushka wouldn't be my friend anymore, so instead I came up with plans to hurt her feelings. Just dumb kids stuff. I hope she's okay.

Then in primary school, it was Maurice. Ok no, Maurice wasn't super controlling until maybe 1st or 2nd year. He just made me feel bad during primary school. Then, in Rockwell, he told me to quit study so we could hang out. I wasn't allowed to, so he just got angry at me. Then in 2nd year, I had depression and didn't talk to any of my friends. He got angry again, which is reasonable. I didn't even bother to open his chat. I explained to him during summer break, and we hung out one last time. I didn't know for sure if it would be the last time, but I had a feeling it was. After a week of not texting him because I couldn't use my phone at my grandparents' house, he said 'so much for new beginnings'. I tried to change it to something else, he said he was talking about me, I responded with 'oh'. That was the last time I talked to him. It was stupid, and cowardly and a bad note to end on, but I did it anyway because in general he made me feel like shit.

Liam is probably the worst though. He still controls my mind in a way I didn't notice or ignored until now. I keep making excuses for him, and my therapist even said that I either sort it out or cut him off, but I didn't listen. My parents don't like him, just like they didn't like Maurice. Because they both treat me badly.

Maurice only guilt tripped me towards the end. He said I was all he had, and I believed him. He was right, I was all, he had. But that's because he treated everyone else like shit, and I hadn't caught on yet.

That really sucks, when someone says that they rely on you and need you, and then think that that makes it okay to hurt you. Liam does it too.

In 2nd year, we were both hurting. I'd say he was hurting a lot more than me, though. I'm not going to share his pain on this, but it's bad. But I really felt connected to him. I wanted to be able to help him, so I always offered to listen. Because that's what friends do, they listen to each other, and open up to each other. 

Despite how I come across online, most people say I have a lot of empathy for people. I don't actually like seeing people in pain. When I get really numb though, I want to hurt people. But generally, I feel for people in pain. I'm sure that it's normal though. But when I saw Liam hurting, that empathy kicked in again, and I felt for him. It must be so hard having to deal with the shit he goes through, so the least I can do is try to make him feel better and comfort him. So I spent my time helping him.

And then he went off and abused that part of me.

Every hour of my day is devoted to Liam. Lindsey once said that 90% of my energy is focused on Liam, and the 10% is everything else. 

I don't know if Liam purposely did it, but he certainly did a good job in guilt tripping me into doing things. I didn't hang out with people, and so now it's been 2 years and I don't know half the names for the girls in my class. I just know Liam's and maybe 5 others. He stopped me from hanging out with people because he was too busy venting to me. Sometimes I tried to work out some problems with him, instead of lending the sympathetic ear, and he agreed. And then, 2 minutes later, he would talk to someone else about it. I understand that I'm not his only friend and I shouldn't cling onto him, but it feels like that's exactly what he did to me, except he was allowed to talk to other people. 

I kept saying to everyone that he had changed in 3rd year, because I thought that he had. Clearly, past me didn't see the pattern of him dumping his problems onto me, guilt tripping me into listening more, leaving me to hold his problems and talk to other people, and then me having full on meltdowns because I was worried about him, and then making excuses on why his actions are okay. 

You know that one JaidenAnimations episode on toxic relationships? I rewatched that yesterday, and suddenly everything just clicked. 

I knew that Liam was draining me, but I felt guilty for not wanting to help him more. Sure, he never listened to my problems or wanted to hang out with me in general, didn't eat his food so I would worry and give him mine, made me late to multiple mock examinations because he was busy shifting the person I had a crush on but let him have them out of guilt, constantly pulled me from social situations when I was getting along with other people, put me in situations that made me uncomfortable, showed me and read me things about self harm that he knew made me super anxious and had triggered attacks in the past, guilt tripped me into staying with him for everything by hurting himself when I didn't comply and tried to dodge confrontations I made with him about the problem itself, but it's because he's hurting, so it's okay to act this way.

I know that he's not a good friend now, or at least not in the right mindset for me to be his friend, but it feels like I can't leave. He's friends with my friends, and I'm not ready to be the bad guy. I've spent so much time being a pearl, but I'll choose that over being the bad guy on any day. I know that they'll take his side as well, because he's actually allowed to go and talk to them in this, and I'm not. Abbey told me I was like his shadow, and I 100% agree with her. I hate it so much.

Sometimes though, I think it's for the best. I mean, I had 1 year where I wasn't being controlled, and that ended in me getting bullied and hurt and isolated. I should've realized that our Pearl was damaged because she stepped out of line. But now I'm trying to be the new pearl. Like, the one that plays guitar and doesn't give in. She's her own person now, and so am I. I'm trying not to give Liam so much of my energy, and it's starting now.