Thanks I Hate It

I have seen this meme or whatever you want to call it in various places online. (I think it originated on Twitter but I am not sure.)

I think one day in the future, when I am no longer drowning (I would say I am treading water right now, not full on drowning), this will be the big realization that will remain forever lodged in my mind.

Like, I never really heavily criticized how people handled their own challenges and issues - but I admit I was a bit judgy in some cases.

Even when it came to women leaving serious DV situations, which I knew from witnessing friends’ experiences was VERY hard to do - I would still sometimes get internally frustrated when they didn’t seem to even want to leave.

Like they would seemingly sabotage their own progress in that regard - or they would go back after successfully leaving!

And as a bystander, seeing that happen can be so incredibly frustrating and baffling. The whole “but I love him” thing is genuinely angering to hear, sometimes. As are all the excuses for and multiple chances that people often give in those situations.

I assumed, like most people, that I had enough self-respect and enough sense to never get caught in that type of situation. I thought my own self-awareness and my own (privileged) access to resources or just my ability to figure shit out in general, would protect me from ever being stuck in any sort of abusive or even unhealthy situation for very long.

I was wrong. Very wrong.

And I am so very sorry to anyone I ever judged or got frustrated with before, because I just didn’t “get” it, not really.

I thought I did. Like, I thought I knew enough about abuse and abuse dynamics from the various things I had read etc - and again, from witnessing friends go through it - but even then, I didn’t really get it.

And in a way that wasn’t my fault - nor is it anyone else’s fault for not “getting” it - because I do think it is one of those things you have to experience firsthand to fully understand.

And it is also very different from a shitty relationship. It isn’t just a matter of degree - you can be involved in a shitty, dysfunctional relationship that makes one or both people very unhappy and/or both people are behaving badly in various ways, and they might even have a lot of trouble disentangling themselves from the relationship - breaking up and getting back together etc etc - but it still isn’t the same thing as an abuse dynamic.

It doesn’t have the same kind of mental/emotional effect on people.

Again, you can definitely still feel like utter shit inside a shitty relationship. It is very hard in its own way. People can really hurt each other in those kinds of dynamics. It can still be really painful and hard to walk away from.

But again, abuse is its own thing. It operates in its own way. It isn’t even necessarily “worse” than just a crappy relationship dynamic, where two people are just incompatible and/or immature or just unskilled or inexperienced in dealing with relationships.

On the surface, an abusive relationship can actually often function better day-to-day than a crappy one.

It can often look a whole lot less chaotic and dramatic than those other types of dysfunctional relationships. Both to observers but even behind closed doors, too.

Again, an abuse dynamic just has certain distinct features and it operates in a certain kind of way. It isn’t necessarily “worse” (although it obviously can be and often is worse, as in it can be a lot more dangerous), it is just its own thing as far as how it “works” and the effects it has on the victim.

The effects it has on the victim often seem…totally illogical. Totally and completely illogical!

Like, the victim can often be self-aware, as I said. Know what is happening etc. And even have the means and ability to leave - abuse knows no socioeconomic boundaries, although when you add other issues like financial dependence into the mix, it can be even harder to escape.

It is what happens to your mind on that deeper level that is the issue.

It isn’t affecting you on the level of the intellect. Again, that is why it looks so illogical. Because victims are often intelligent etc. They really seem like they should “know better.”

And it isn’t even usually a result of lack of awareness - of their own feelings or experiences or of the abusers’ abusiveness.

You can know it is not normal or okay and even know full well it is abuse, and still your mind works against you in that way.

You can even be strong and confident and competent in multiple other areas of your life, and still the thing that abuse does to your actual brain can still be a big issue.

Because I have come to realize that abuse affects your actual brain functioning. Not only if there is physical injury. Emotional and psychological abuse can also change your brain. In real physical and functional ways.

That isn’t just me saying that, from my own experience. It is supported by good research too.

But I think you can tell people that and they get it on an intellectual level - but unless they have also had firsthand experience of it, they do not know what it feels like, to have your brain be affected in that particular kind of way.

It isn’t like brain damage. Or any other kind of cognitively-based issue resulting from damage or disease. Although your memory and cognition can indeed be affected.

But I think memory and thinking issues are a secondary effect from the impact of the abuse on your brain. But that primary impact is still something other than memory or cognitive stuff.

Living with an abuse affected brain is its own thing, as I keep saying.

It is trauma, yes. Like abuse causes trauma and trauma affects the brain in various real, observable ways.

But it is also like your way of thinking gets re-wired. It is akin to brain washing but it isn’t that, either.

I feel like the brain-washing that happens in cults etc is very close to what I am trying to describe, but still, cults function differently because it is a group thing - and the way someone is “brain washed” in a group involves different techniques than what happens in an abuse dynamic between just two people.

So because there are different techniques involved in controlling a group, the effect that it has on cult members is different than if it is one-on-one and thus more intimate.

And I really think it is the level of intimacy or attachment involved that makes it unique.

Whether it is the attachment children have to their parents, particularly when they are young and reliant on their caregivers for actual survival - that is a profound level of attachment - but very strong and deep attachment can also happen in adult romantic relationships too.

Particularly if the attachment exists and is reinforced over a long period of time, although it can happen fairly quickly in romantic/intimate relationships as well.

That part of our brain - and our nervous system/body - that is innately wired to gain and maintain those important attachments, like it is a part of us that is there from infancy/we are biologically set up for it, gets hijacked and re-wired in an abuse dynamic.

That is why intellect and awareness and even resources/having the means to leave isn’t enough.

That part of your brain/nervous system (your entire being, really) has been distorted and indeed damaged by the tactics used by abusers.

And if you never really had a properly wired, undamaged attachment system - if your brain has always functioned dysfunctionally, so to speak - then re-wiring it to a healthier way of operating is very very difficult. Because it got damaged so early, you developed as a person alongside that type of dysfunctional attachment system.

Undoing it means undoing your actual identity, in lots of ways. And then re-building yourself - when you have no solid ground underneath you. Re-building who you are in those basic ways from…nothing.

It can only really be done with professional help and the right kind of professional help too. With someone who fully understands how all of this works and can help you do the specific kind of re-wiring and re-building that is needed.

It is highly difficult work and it takes a long time - often it is a life-long process.

Anyway, my overall point is that until I had to do this re-wiring and re-building process myself, I had no real idea of what it takes to do it.

If you have a food intolerance, your digestive system just cannot tolerate or digest that food/ingredient.

So you will have only gastro symptoms if you eat it - and sometimes those gastro symptoms can be worse than others. For me, it mostly depends on the quantity.

So eating a little bit of gluten means my body only has to deal with a little bit of the thing it cannot digest. If I eat a lot of gluten, it has to then deal with a lot of the thing it cannot digest, thereby producing some pretty bad symptoms.

People tend to think that allergy just equals a worse reaction than intolerance. So if your reaction to a food is really bad, it must be an allergy.

But that isn’t true. Allergies produce immune system reactions which CAN be very bad, even fatal. And only due to very small amounts as well.

Intolerances will never kill you like allergies can. So in that sense, yes, they can never produce that worst-case reaction. So intolerances are not “as bad” as allergies in that regard.

But within the realm of just gastro distress - yes, the reaction an intolerance can produce can be…dramatic and pretty fast.

My digestive system HATES gluten. Hates it. Wants to get rid of it ASAP the minute it hits my system. So that is when diarrhea happens.

It is like if you accidentally ate raw chicken. You might get food poisoning aka salmonella.

But your body might just recognize the threat fast enough and eject it forcefully from your body right after (or shortly after) you consumed it.

In which case, you might just puke it up and be done. That isn’t food poisoning. Your body has (fortunately) not been invaded yet by the salmonella bacteria. It hasn’t yet gotten into your bloodstream and intestines etc.

If you puked 15-30 minutes after eating the raw chicken, that was your body going “this is bad, get rid of it, now.”

That is what my body does with gluten. It thinks it is raw chicken or whatever. Except I do not puke cuz the stomach doesn’t fully digest gluten anyway, so the issue only comes further on down the line, so to speak.

Which is why the gastro issues tend to hit, like 30 minutes to two hours later.

Which, actually, if I had a that kind of immediate “get rid of it” reaction, it might be easier to manage.

But the usual 2 hour delay can be a real problem. Because by then you have usually left the place where you consumed the food (I rarely have this issue if I eat at home, for obvious reasons that I have a lot of control over the food I eat at home), aka left the place where you were a customer and had easy access to a bathroom.

*Not saying I would rather be celiac. I have seen how challenging that is for celiac folks and I have great empathy for that. My issues are nothing compared to that!

Because my condition is not technically a medical one, or classed as an “allergy,” it is then automatically viewed as a preference.

But it isn’t a preference. At all.

I sometimes eat stuff that I know probably contains a bit of gluten. I know from repeated experience how much gluten my body can handle before I tip into the zone of 2-3 days of hellish symptoms. So yes, sometimes I do not worry about consuming small amounts, but I am not gonna eat a big bowl of pasta with regular noodles cuz then I will feel like dying for 2 days. No pasta is worth that.

Also - and this is perhaps even more important that the “not wanting to be in hell for two days” reason above - sometimes I am in situations where I know eating gluten would be a very bad idea, simply because there isn’t easy access to a bathroom in some situations. On a road trip or on a plane or just you know, being out in public for awhile.

Public bathrooms are not really a thing in lots of places. Yes, stores and restaurants and cafes etc have bathrooms - but you usually have to buy something to use those facilities. Which I have done in the past, but when you gotta go in those kinds of situations, you rarely have much time.

Time is a big factor in these cases so yeah, when I say “easy access to a bathroom,” I really mean that. I mean “if I cannot get to a bathroom within a two minute timeframe of when I first get hit with the sensation, there is gonna be a major problem.”

Have you ever had diarrhea? The real kind? Where the cramping feeling first hits you and then you have maybe max one minute before things go sideways in a way that you simply cannot control or hold in?

Now, if you knew eating a regular muffin would cause you to be in that situation - where your guts then become a ticking time bomb (that might go off in 15 minutes to a couple of hours) where you know that the timeframe between that very first gurgle and you HAVING to be literally on a toilet, is maybe 30 seconds to one minute max - would you ever eat that muffin?

Because let me tell ya, shitting your pants in public is no fun. Ask me how I know.

So no, it is not “just a preference” - unless you want to define me not wanting to shit myself in public as just me being “high maintenance” about my “food preferences.”

Most people do not want to shit themselves in the middle of the grocery store or while driving or while waiting outside the school while picking up their kid.

Most people would take great pains to try to avoid that happening in fact!

So yeah, I might not technically have an “allergy” but my body cannot digest gluten, regardless. That means it comes on out pretty damn fast. And since I am not always right beside a toilet at all times, and I also do not wish to be in actual pain for two days, I do not want to fucking eat it!

In this dream, I was picking V up from a house. It was a nice house, but not super fancy. A regular suburban home.

As V came out, she yelled good-bye to her Dad. He poked his head out from the side of the house and waved to her and to me.

As I drove away around the corner, I looked back and saw that he was building a new deck on the back of the house.

When I saw that, I felt a twinge of…envy. Because the deck in our backyard has needed replacing for years now.

My mind started going down that path (the path it has gone down in reality many times in regard to what I know of how he is with AP), which is the one where you start to wonder what is wrong with you, that they were never willing to put in a similar kind or level of effort for you.

Like, it isn’t so much about a new deck. It is about the effort he was/was not willing to put in to make that happen.

Anyway, in my dream I felt that old, sad, “I am not worth the effort” feeling (a feeling I am familiar with throughout my life and in lots of relationships, not just recently or with him), but then I kind of broke through that old feeling in the dream.

I was like, you know what, it sucks and it sad and hard to realize you are not worth the effort for someone. But it is the reality sometimes and it really isn’t a referendum on your inherent worth.

Even if it happens with lots of people! Although it is admittedly harder to convince yourself of that after repeated experiences - but it still genuinely says more about their capacity (which does fluctuate for people) and motivations and priorities and all of that than it does about your own inherent worthiness. Which is a whole separate question really!

Anyway, like I said, the dream was sad and I woke up sad, but it was also one of those ones that made me realize certain things on the deeper emotional level.