Transitions

The frequency in which I have breakdowns and moments of getting hijacked has shifted dramatically over the last few years. The year 2020 and 2021 were a wild ride while simultaneously being the most challenging and most beautiful years. And then as I write that I'm thinking, "every year has been beautiful and challenging but just in a different way." And with that being said, I'm left with the thought that life just keeps going, and sometimes it's up, sometimes it's down, and the perception of it is just that...my own perception and lens from which I choose to view it.

There was a long period of time I walked around in fear. I censored myself in a lot of ways, in part because I was still second-guessing my own reality, and also in part of not wanting to cause irreparable damage to someone's character. My emotions were heightened, I was in a reactive state that required A LOT of conversation OFTEN to walk me off the ledge of turmoil. I remember one morning the cinderblock that I used in the back yard to block the gap in the fence and prevent my dogs from being able to escape was moved. I went into full-blown panic mode of being watched, I was in danger, and it just spiraled from there. It turns out that my kids were much stronger than I realized and they moved it. Fight or flight is a wild ride, a crazy phenomenon that is truly grounded in self-protection while simultaneously shifting the lens to seeing even the most neutral of situations as dangerous or threatening.

I read the book series It Ends with Us, and It Starts With Us by Colleen Hoover a few years back and had never found a more accurate account of the self-doubt, second-guessing, excuse-making, rose-colored glasses, and cycle that occurs in an unhealthy relationship dynamic. The subtleties in which unacceptable actions occur. The fierce love and compassion that exists along with a very valid reason why those behaviors are coming up and the resultant way in which we can justify the abuse.

I remember saying so early on in my past relationship, "he's not used to being loved," "he doesn't know how to be loved, this is new for him," etcetera. For the longest time, 12 years to be exact, that was justification as to why I needed to do more, understand more, love more, say more, forgive more, excuse more, and ignore more when his words and actions hurt me. It was me. I made it mine. This was wild because one day there was the insight into what's his is his and it's not a justification for what is happening, and the next day that disappeared. I carried it all, and his words only reinforced that it was mine. I didn't love him right, support him right, talk to him right, dress right, I confided in friends and that wasn't right, I spoke to my family about our relationship which wasn't right, I journaled and that definitely wasn't right. I didn't communicate right. I did nothing right. Until the days that I did. Then everything was right. I was doted on, loved on, spoon-fed all the ways in which I am wonderful, perfect, and supportive in all the right ways. I was understood and seen by the man I loved dearly. Those brief moments of acknowledgment were enough to keep me looped in. The rose-colored glasses went back on. Sometimes it was a subtle transition back into a deep disconnection and other times it was waking up the next morning to be met with a week-long silent treatment and wondering what the hell I did this time. What did I say wrong? Did I use the wrong tone? Did I forget something?

Experiences like that change who you are if you give it that power. And I will say that being able to stand in my power in that dynamic was one of the most challenging things I've ever had to do. There's a valid and real fear that this person could harm me, coupled with trying to diffuse situations as best I could for the sake of safety, while also trying to maintain being able to stand on my own 2 feet to get out.

In the movie It Ends With Us, they are at the hospital after their daughter is born. She turns and asks him what he would say to their daughter if she came to him and said that the person she loves is hurting her? He paused for a long moment and teared up, and replied saying he would beg her to leave him.

I remember exactly where I was sitting in the moment I posed that same question. It's not that I needed permission, nobody ever does, to leave a situation I was in but the moment that he responded the way that he did, I gave myself FULL permission to leave. And I never looked back.