Sometimes, Healing Takes a Long Time...

It has been a year.  One year since I left him and I really wish the lingering trauma of him was less.  It is hard to move past the lies, the cheating, the relapsing, the hurt, the complete indifference disguised as love and loving.  Sometimes, it is hard to get over something you never really had.

What I had was an extremely abusive relationship.  I know that now.  But for the better part of two years, I thought I had something else entirely.  And it was the belief that I had this other, healthy, loving thing that allowed me to remain in this completely fucked relationship for as long as I did.

I have done a lot of healing.  Cutting him off completely and having absolutely no contact has been extremely helpful.  And not really all that hard.  When you finally see the person for who and what they really are, cutting them out of your life for good isn’t a hard ask.  And I know that had I not cut him out and off completely I would never healed as much as I have.

I have come to terms with my part in the whole debacle.  Signing up for the manipulations, lies, deceit, cheating, relapsing, gaslighting, settling for crumbs while I starved.  He may have thrown all that shit at me, but I kept refusing to move. So everything he threw at me continued to land, hard and in my face repeatedly.

He was awful and my association with him made me awful.  A twisted version of myself that, after a short while, I did not even recognize as me anymore.  I completely changed who I was to deal with the trauma of him.  I did that.  And that, more than anything else, has been hard for me to get over.  His bullshit was not hard to walk away from in the end.  He was a liar, a cheat and not worth of my time.  Once I saw that, the leaving was easy.  But it was who I became that has been harder to reconcile...

I became hyper vigilant.  I became distrusting.  I became hyper suspicious.  I became a shell of who I used to be.  And I became very, very unsure of myself.  My confidence and self esteem took a hit, a huge hit and it has taken the better part of this last year to make any real progress towards feeling whole and complete and not just a jangle of nerves and neurosis.

I don’t think about him much, but I would be a liar if I didn’t own the negative affects of him and his “love” that are long lasting and I pray not permanent.  I do not want to hold other men accountable for his crimes.  I do not want to take anything related to him forward in my future or relationships.  But when you marry yourself up to someone who is just a really, really, really sick and twisted person, you cannot walk away unscathed.

I am still in therapy, unpacking my part in the whole debacle.  I am working on the childhood shit that allowed me to think he was a good idea in the first place.  I have to spend a great deal of time working through the inherent mistrust I now have for pretty much everything and anything a man says to me.  I am cautious and controlled where I once was open, light and excited.

When someone alters your reality so drastically that it shakes the foundation of your security, it takes a toll. And as much as I want to be rid of anything and everything related to him, I know that there are scars that are not yet healed.  And I don’t know what to do about that except move forward and do the best I can.

So I reflect back this morning, one year later to the day I said good bye to him and felt like I was losing so much.  But looking back now, I can see it was like I was holding onto a live wire and wondering why I kept getting shocked.  Once I let go completely, the healing could begin.  So long as I kept being willing to pick up that live wire, I was going to get shocked and burned every single time.

I have judged myself harshly for my entire involvement in that whole ordeal.  Today, I have more compassion. I believed and trusted someone when I had no reason not to...in the beginning.  Then I was so far in that I was invested and then I stayed because I just kept hoping he would be sweet again like he was in the beginning.  It is very hard to let go of someone who sees you, shows up for you and loves you when you feel like you have spent a life time of not being seen, not having people show up and love has been fleeting.  So when the person arrives, heart in hand, promise and action of complete and utter dedication, it is easy to fall.  I do not blame myself for that any longer.  What is harder to let go is the fact that it all went to hell 6 months in and  I then spent the next 18 months snuggled up next to someone icy cold and not interested in me as a human being, much less a partner.  That is harder to reconcile.  I thought I found the love of my life, what I found, actually, was the most abusive person ever.

I am not sure I will ever forgive myself for staying.  I have tried but when I think of how much I subrogated myself, believed lies that I knew were lies, gave more and more and more of myself, my time, my money and my life to a person who was just running game, it honestly makes me sick to my stomach.  Self compassion is the goal, and I get there, sometimes, some days.  Other days I just yell at myself all day long repeatedly for being such a stupid, vulnerable, dummy.

I guess we don’t all get to pick the way life unfolds for us.  I know I signed up for him and all his bullshit. I know, I know, I know.  It hurts a great deal to know there were people out there who purported to be my friends that didn’t mention, even in passing, all the hurtful, abusive shit he had done to other women.  I don’t know if I would have listened, but at least I would have had information that I lacked.  And that had to make some sort of difference.  The betrayal of women is harder to accept than the betrayal of men.  Always.  I am pretty sure that is because of motive...

Anyway, it has been a year of being free and I am grateful.  I am happier than I have ever been.  And you might ask, then why write about him and all of this again?

Well, because it still lives inside me and writing helps me purge it.  Sorry, not sorry.  He came a long at a time when I was vulnerable and he fucked up my life in so very many ways.  And while I would love to claim “I AM ALL BETTER NOW” but that would be a lie.  I am not ALL better, I have been to some depths I never wished to visit and I have had to swim to the surface, and I have barely made it, repeatedly.

Today I am working on why I allow these abusive people in my life to begin with...what is it in me that attracts them and what is it in me that allows them to remain?  I would love to tell you that he was the last abusive fucker to have access to me, but that would not be true.  While I have been successful in removing the abusive fuckers from dating, there are a few other people in my life who do not treat me well at all and while I would love to just not answer their calls anymore, their relationship to me is a little trickier to eradicate.

I do see it though.  My willingness to allow people into my life who treat me in ways that are not good.  And I have made great strides in removing people like that, unfortunately, I haven’t done the best job of keeping them out.  That seems to requires a constitution I just don’t possess. Not even after him.  And I would think that would have made progress in this area complete, but it hasn’t.

I guess I have to deal with the part of me that feels like I somehow deserve the malignant maligning, the abuse, the accusations that have never, ever been true.  The mean spiritedness that seems to result in me having relationships with people who say they love me when their behavior very clearly demonstrates that they don’t even like me all that much.

I am in it now.  Working through what is mine and what is theirs.  I feel pretty good all things considered.  I am clear about what is mine, and what is not.  I remain unsure about what to do next.  I would really like to feel like the people in my life actually like and love me.  But I would again be lying if I didn’t own that, while I may be able to eradicate some, I am not sure I will ever get completely away from people like this.  It seems to be my lot and that seems to be because there is something fundamentally broken in me that refuses to believe I deserve better.

Again, still...

Perhaps maybe for all time, all I can do is keep showing up, telling my truth and being willing to change the things I can one day at a time, a day very much like this day right here...