I walked you through what one progression was like. Just one. That was one aspect of my life where I made myself small. That was one part of my life where I compromised myself into a place and a person that was unrecognizable. That was one teeny pebble on the Grand Canyon floor.
I can recount it now because I am outside of it. I can share the timeline in a very succinct and factual manner because time has passed and I am doing a lookback. I want to be very clear that I am still afraid. I still question whether those were the events as they occurred or whether I am changing the story now to suit a narrative I’ve spun.
I know it’s the former, and do you want to know how? Because I can still draw upon my anxiety and sadness and feelings of isolation. I can still taste the bitterness of repressed anger pooling on the back of my tongue. I am still terrified to connect with other people, romantic and platonic. I still hesitate before voicing my feelings or having an opinion or walking away from people or situations.
I learned about abusive relationships as a young woman. I learned about patterning in families and physical violence. I learned about history and escalation. I never identified myself as someone who would be susceptible or victimized. I wasn’t always in a ‘I love myself’ moment, but I was mostly level-headed and pretty intelligent and I had a good heap of common sense. If I encountered someone “like that”, I would know and I would get out. Quickly.
What I didn’t see back then was all the ways in which I set myself up for that one particular relationship. I didn’t understand all the ways in which I compromised or sat in a puddle of unhappiness before I found myself in desperate need of an escape hatch; one that typically came in the form of my significant other’s infidelity or abrupt departure. I didn’t know that we have the ability, as humans, to condition ourselves for particular types of abuse. I didn’t understand that the willingness to take shit is transferrable and it grows, like mold.
As a younger woman, I stayed with men who cheated on me. Repeatedly. Viciously. Methodically. Pathologically. I allowed myself to remain unlabeled, overlooked, hidden, and well, used. I told myself it was okay because it’s what I wanted too. I was really fucking cool. Nothing bothered me. I never in a million years could have comprehended that my outsides could appear to grow tougher while my insides grew weaker and more permeable. I was tough and so I didn’t care, couldn’t care. Whatever. Doesn’t matter. I was using them too. I wasn’t though. Not at all. I was the most unwilling, willing participant in my own unraveling.
I’ve told the stories behind the relationships I’m referring to. You know them by now, or you can access them. I attached myself to men who weren’t for me or I wasn’t for them, or everything was fucked. I was massacred, but to my credit and detriment, I rose above it. Perhaps if I had allowed myself to fall apart, I would have learned the lesson I was meant to learn. Maybe if I had admitted to my pain in a real and meaningful way, I would have seen things well in advance of my take down. I don’t know. I can only speculate. I can only encourage you to do it differently, if you have the option. I can only tell you about what happened next, with the expectation that it will make you feel better or less alone or hopeful.
I didn’t do anything right. I can admit that. I did the opposite. I did everything wrong. I did everything you could do to cause yourself pain, and then after I felt that pain profoundly, rather than jumping back, I doubled down. I recommitted to my agony. I told myself that I deserved it, but also, it would get better. I told myself that I was overreacting, but regardless, things would change. I told myself that I imagined everything. All of it. None of what I felt was real. I looked to him to create my reality, and in that world, I was a piece of shit who ruined things and everything that followed was on me.
I subscribed to his narrative because I lacked one of my own. I bought into his bullshit because my story ended with us together and the bits of normalcy that everyone else seemingly had (i.e. marriage, kids, house) all around me. I was all in because he had created a paradigm whereas he was the sole source of reliable information and support in my life. Everything I needed or wanted to know was provided or confirmed by him.
I’m not embarrassed to share these truths with you. I’m sad. Writing these sentences, my heart ceases beating in my chest all over again. The stillness makes me ache. Ache for the woman who I always wanted to be, and never was, and maybe never will be.
I want to talk to you about how I felt, along the way. I want you to understand in a more definite and granular fashion why I was not interested in shifting things or moving away from the kind of heartbreak I’m talking about. Then, I want to explain where I’m at today. I want to share the aftereffects. I want to be real about all the ways in which that relationship grew and broke me, simultaneously.
I don’t want you to feel sorry for me. I want you to know that even though I’m going to spend less time on it this go around, I have taken responsibility for the role I played in all of it. I own that I lied about a friendship. I own that I shrank rather than going toe to toe. I own that I had the ability to leave at any time, and made the choice to stay. I own that I have a variety of character flaws and make mistakes in relationships like anyone, and everyone.
I know that my decision to stay and how I feel today, are just as much my fault as his. I know that I still don’t feel like I can call out what happened to me, and yet, I know that I have to. I have no fucking choice. It’s time.
x
L.
thepathtoworthy.com 