Accountability feels like manipulation to people who betray you.

I have been called controlling, I have been called manipulative, When actually most of the time I was reacting to inconsistency.
From the outside it might look like I'm overreacting, like I'm making a big deal out of small things or I just can't let things go.
Or I need to much reassurance. When someone is really kind to my face, really validating says all the right things but then their actions just never match that. It doesn't feel like a small social mismatch to me, it feels like a betrayal a quiet kind of betrayal. Where your brain is trying to make two completely different versions of reality, make sense at the same time.
My brain relies on consistency, I use patterns to understand people. I take words seriously, I build trust based on what someone repeatedly shows me, so when someone says they care, they say they understand me they say I matter but then don't show up, don't follow through choose other people repeatedly or just act differently behind my back.
That's not just hurtful it's destabilizing, it's confusing it makes my whole system feel completely unsafe. And I think this is one of the cruelest social norms we've normalised. Being nice to someone's face, saying what sounds comforting, avoiding honesty to keep things smooth while behaving in ways that tell a completely different story.
A lot of society runs on making things look okay on the surface, even when the reality underneath doesn't match and for no divergent mind that gap between words and actions can be genuinely damaging. If I open up to you about something, something personal and vulnerable, and you share that with other people, that's betrayal.
If you tell me that I matter but consistently treat me like an option, that's betrayal. It you reassure me that everything's fine, but your behavior keeps changing and you won't address it, that's betrayal too but when I react to that confusion, when I try to talk about it, when I point out the mismatch suddenly I'm the one being called difficult or controlling or manipulative. I'm not trying to control anyone. I'm trying to make sense of a reality that just doesn't line up.
I'm trying to feel safe in relationships where words actually mean something. I've spent years thinking and being told that I was the issue, but I'm not creating problems I'm pointing out inconsistency when words don't match actions. That's not me being difficult, that's me noticing reality.

Danielle Bryce