Relational Safety...

It has taken me forever to solve a repeating pattern in my life.  I think for about the last 40 years, I have just been fine tuning a trauma response.  And yes, I am talking about dating, again, still.

As I review my history, I can see how wrong I got it all.  The people I picked, the choices I made, the things I expected.  And how very much safety was not a thought in my life at all.  And for the life of me, I cannot understand why I didn’t see this before now.  (To be fair, the safety conversation with myself started during my last relationship which was with a totally unsafe person - it took a totally out of control, Datelinesque relationship, to show me how it was MY behavior with men that was causing all the lack of safety!)

For years I was focused on the dudes.  They were “bad boys” with good hearts.  Except they often really weren’t.  I just needed to call them that because I need to justify why a nice person like me (who was often a very huge asshole but I couldn’t really own that at the time) would continue to engage with men like that.

God has a very funny way of getting you to see the error of your ways...and in my case, God was incredibly patient and kind, and likely shaking his head for years.  But I was stubborn and persistent and pigheaded and kinda dumb.  I mean, looking back, anyone could see what was going on with me, except me!

It was in my last dumpster fire that I realized that I was actually the most unsafe person in that relationship.  Me. It wasn’t him.  It was me.  My behavior, my selection, my codependence, my trauma that made the whole thing possible.  I was the one with time and I was the one who should have known better.  I mean, I kinda did, but I thought (as I always used to) “fuck it, how bad can it be??”  Well in that case, pretty fucking bad.  And that bad was finally sufficient to get me to see how fucking fucked up I was.

And then I was at a turning point.  I had to make a choice.  I had to decide to move forward or go back to doing it like I always did.  It has taken me the better part of two years to really alter myself in a fundamental way so that I am now just different.  I don’t need or want myself to be different, I just am different.  And my choice in men, for the last two years anyway, has mostly been a choice of no men.  I needed some time to heal and I couldn’t do that with some dude sitting there expecting things from me.  I needed time to reflect, assimilate and own that it was my behavior that made all of my relationships unsafe. I was the one who was letting these maniacs into my life.  Me.  

I also realized that I outsourced my own safety to men.  Which is totally fucking insane when you look at my history.  My early years are not marked with safe men who were loving, devoted, caring or safe.  Those early years are a blight of anger, abuse, frustration, instability and a great deal of peril.  All part and parcel to a pervasive feeling of NO safety.  But we all tend to recreate the same old thing not because we like it, but because it is familiar.  And I am not exception to that rule...I did that, repeatedly until I finally hit a bottom sufficient to bring about recovery.

It is so funny, once I became a safe person for myself, my choice in men improved.  I was no longer attracted to the hot shit shows.  I was no longer willing to engage with reckless ideas and fairytales.  I was able to just withhold myself and watch how my mind and body wanted to respond.  And I had to test the waters, and fail a few more times before I understood on a micro level that I AM THE ONE RESPONSIBLE FOR MY OWN SAFETY! I can’t out source it to others.  And where the outsourcing was concerned, I was especially bad at the selection process.

I have done an enormous amount of healing in the past two years.  I feel like my relational growth has been exponential.  And I don’t think I am done.  I have always known that relationships and intimacy were my battleground.  And believe me when I tell you that I often didn’t want to trudge that blood soaked ground.  I wanted to just opt out.  But I also knew that if I made that choice, I would rob myself of growth and change and a path to a higher consciousness.

I am still not all good, but I am less bad than I used to be.  Healing parts of myself as they become apparent and available to me.  I can stand within my own story and be grateful for all the healing that has occurred while also being excited about the healing that is yet to come.

Again, still...