I know this isn't primarily about fitness, but this is soothing my mental health to write about, so thank you for your support while I get my shit together. I appreciate it. It's all for growth, both to become the physically and emotionally healthy woman I want to be. It's risky content, but like Taylor Swift says, they're burning witches even if you aren't one - so light me up.
The whole "blessing in disguise" thing is bullshit. I still attest to that, nearly ten months after all this.
What wasn't a blessing, you ask?
- Asking him why he'd slept on the couch that night.
- His sheer annoyance of the question and insistence not to talk about it.
- Him screaming in my ear, shoving me aside, and speeding off while I cowered away, afraid.
- Telling him as he left: 'go cool off' at his dad’s that night, and to “not come home”.
- Not knowing that when I left for work, that would be it between us - over; done.
- Coming home to an empty apartment, subsequently single walking through the door.
- Finding out that everyone he worked with knew I was single before I even did.
This one nearly killed me
I don't think it's right to completely shatter in order to move forward. To finally experience positive life changes. I've been feeling everything. Every little misstep or uncertainty in my personal life for the last three years - I'm a sensitive woman, but this has been ridiculous. The truth is, I can't even be mad at him anymore. This is now on me.
I finally have realized why I'm not 100% okay yet. Every time an acquaintance tilts their head to the side and asks "how have you been? are you okay?" I almost feel reluctantly forced to say "I'm fine" or "Yeah I'm good." That's what everyone says, right? "Fake it ‘til you make it" - thinking that if you act like you're happy, you save a little dignity or pride. That if I pretend enough, I may eventually get there. I figured the last ten months would be healing enough over the break-up and my co-worker reminded me of one important thing - "You ARE over him, Jaycie." She basically said that I'm just not over the experience.
What I realized today after she said that is that what I'm dealing with is the post-traumatic stress of it all. I don't miss him anymore because I've finally detoxed off of him - the high and happy I'd been idealizing and romanticizing was because he was confident and unyielding in his decisions; he had power, and power over me, but that was what eventually led me to feel like there was zero in my control. Underneath all of that bravado lies a selfish person with no regard for those individuals he uses to get what he wants - and only in the moment. I know we brought out the worst of each other. Rationally, I know that's not a good situation for anyone. But emotionally...
I'm an emotional war survivor. With PTSD to boot, and the residual mutual friendships that remind me of what I've been through are my triggers. The reminder that I was once a person I didn't recognize... That he brought out the most insecure version of me. That I lacked any and all self-worth to tolerate being lied to, tricked and manipulated. The fact that I was once a person I didn't respect for accepting that kind of treatment and calling it love is what makes me sick to my stomach.
"Oh, but he loves me" - the all too familiar sound of an abused woman claiming her abuser loves her is what I would say in my head over and over. "Don't make him mad - you know how he gets, this will just upset him. Leave it alone." When something pushed him over the edge and we'd make up after a fight, I'd tell myself he still cared and that's why he sticks around: He loves me.
Wait, did he ever even tell you that he loved you?
Yeah, that's gonna be a big fat NO. He eluded to it a couple of times... called me his best friend once. But no, never once did he say that phrase in two years, so who the hell knows if he actually loved me or if he simply found me convenient and made me work for breadcrumbs.
For those that don't know, "bread-crumbing" is the deceptive practice of giving someone just enough to keep them interested, even when you're not. Bread-crumbing keeps someone around to your liking, and is designed for dishonesty.
Basically, I'm not sure if it was real since I was convenient to keep around - to either feed him and do the "wifey shit" or feed his ego. Not with the way he talks about me now, I'm sure. I've heard so many nasty things that just point the finger away from him. All I wanted was his time and love and I received neglect, judgement and resentment.
How powerless I felt in the last two years... That's officially over. All of these reminders and flashbacks show me how unhappy I actually was, with a naive endless hope that we could be better - I'll never be THAT girl again. The healing can only begin when I truly see what our relationship actually WAS: a terrible Empath/Narcissistic relationship paradigm that has *thankfully* now ended and has subsequently shifted my self-worth and self-esteem.
A blessing in disguise? I'd fought so long for that to not be true... but it turns out, the fact that we're no longer together IS indeed a blessing.
I'd been discussing it with my girlfriends and nothing quite like today's conversation had truly hit me or made me realize why I was still hurting - because I still blame myself.
I allowed him to hold this power over me, one that stunted my growth and my confidence in my own convictions. I had found myself compromising basic relationship necessities simply because he didn't 'like' them or didn't agree with me on them. He never wavered, rarely compromised and made me feel guilty for feeling my feelings and needing my needs; I'm not mad at him anymore for all of that. He is the person he is. I loved him with all of my heart and tried desperately to accept him as he was, ignoring a lot of my own gut reactions in an attempt to do so.
I'm hurt and feel deceived, naturally... but I'm mostly mad at myself for staying as long as I did. With every red flag waving, practically blaring a train horn in my ear, and I somehow was deaf to it. We'd been doomed from about six months into it, and I should have ended it prior to living with him, that summer when I first found out he was talking to someone else, and eventually multiple people.
Friends seem to think that my constantly pushing the conversations that made him uncomfortable were my subconscious cries and prodding for him to eventually get fed up and leave the way he did, since I clearly couldn’t bring myself to do it. I somewhat see that, but who knows why I became brave enough that morning and enunciate through the rolled up glass of his driver side window “don’t come home”, so he could 'hear' me… Maybe I, too, had enough of it - the lying, the lack of boundaries (that we both pushed), our unhappiness.
I’m ready to be this girl again ->
The woman I fought so hard to be - the best version of myself and oh so healthy.
It's times like these that remind me what it is to struggle. Yeah, we all have those mundane day-to-day issues, but this was probably the worst hurdle I've emotionally ever had to face - AND I've BEEN FAT and BULLIED. I'm living proof that being scared and having a sincere "Oh shit" moment - the fear of the unknown - but that it's going to be okay. You will, just like muscle builds, gain the strength you need to press forward. I am hell bent to get back to this person I was before the two-year trauma. I’m almost there.
