Keep loving, keep fighting

I still don’t really understand how trauma works. 

I want healing to be this linear progression and don’t like that psychological abuse has left marks on me. I want to be done with all of those feelings. It’s possible now to not think about my ex for weeks or months at a time, but then something appears unexpectedly, some reminder, and that rush of anxiety and fear is there. (And anger, and resentment—those feelings women aren’t supposed to feel.)

I’m afraid that someone else I care about will get involved with him and be harmed by him. I’m afraid that someone I don’t even know will get involved with him and be harmed by him. 

I’m afraid that he has changed, and afraid that he hasn’t. 

Or maybe a concrete block.

The heartbreak, the deep and lasting pain that does not end even when the world thinks it should be done by now, and you should be over it.

We have not come here to take prisoners But to surrender ever more deeply To freedom and joy.

We have not come into this exquisite world to hold ourselves hostage from love.

Run my dear, From anything That may not strengthen Your precious budding wings, Run like hell, my dear, From anyone likely to put a sharp knife Into the sacred, tender vision Of your beautiful heart.

We have a duty to befriend Those aspects of obedience of our house And shout to our reason "Oh please, oh please come out and play."

For we have not come here to take prisoners, Or to confine our wondrous spirits But to experience ever and ever more deeply our divine courage, freedom, and Light!

DO YOU FEEL ASHAMED WHEN YOU HEAR MY NAME?

Closure isn't a real thing. Peace can only come from within.

I got stuck for awhile on the point that I’ll never get any kind of closure from my ex, that he’ll never take responsibility for what he did, that he’ll never acknowledge my humanity, that he’ll never apologize for the dishonesty, betrayal, gaslighting and manipulations. And then I realized that expecting closure is futile. I’ll never have it and it’s not a helpful concept.

"the soft season will come"

Probably worth remembering.

Probably worth remembering.

I’m now about 16 months post-separation from my partner. The property settlement is over; the divorce has been finalized; I got my name back. I still find myself replaying some of the events from the last six months of our time together — that most painful and brutal of seasons. The hurt and anger are still sometimes present for me. At times I seem to forget the details of how awful that time was, but remembering them is grounding. I kept telling myself then that I never could’ve imagined him capable of such cowardice and dishonesty; now I have the advantage of time and perspective, and I realize that the cowardice and dishonesty were subtly there long before I could really see them. Reminding myself of the details at the end — the explicit psychological abuse, the betrayal, the multilayered deceptions and intense manipulation — actually helps me to be kinder to myself, to recognize again how incredibly fucked up that period of time was. 

Our marriage wasn’t easy. It was lonely and, for long stretches of time, isolating. I rarely felt heard or understood; I rarely got the sense that my feelings mattered. I made endless excuses and explanations as to why it was so hard to connect with him, and concurrently put my head down and kept going, trying to improve myself, trying to read more books and introduce more communication tools. For so long, I didn’t even consider that it might be an impossibility, a losing battle.  

Now that I see the whole thing more clearly, I resent myself for having been so unaware for so long. This is the most powerful feeling I've been contending with. I ask myself many why questions: 

Why did I stay with him so long, at such great cost to my well-being? 

Why didn’t I see sooner how manipulative he was? That he was gaslighting me about things as mundane as the quantity of household labor I did?

Why did I believe that that was all the better love could get? 

The whys, as I now understand them, reflect my self-loathing and self-blame. Whatever he was and is, whatever he’s responsible for, it doesn’t matter anymore. It’s done. He can’t harm me any further. But I seem to be able to harm myself by replaying the worst parts in my head. What am I responsible for? Why didn’t I protect myself and prevent this from happening? 

The end was so disorienting and chaotic that it’s taken me until now to really be able to feel some of the normal feelings of grief, albeit an ambiguous grief. Occasionally I feel sadness and mourn the good parts of our shared life that are gone forever, or little things I miss about him. Even in a relationship like mine that so clearly needed to end and should’ve ended much sooner, the story isn’t simple or black and white. 

I also see the ways my life has changed and feel ambivalent about where I am now. I have plenty to be grateful for, and being concretely and permanently free from him is on that list. And yet, I’m frustrated to still be doing so much soul searching, so much processing. I don’t feel all that free. I wonder if I’m permanently broken, if the damage is too great, and if I’ll ever truly be able to trust anyone again.  

As I go into a new calendar year, I've dedicated myself to working hard on forgiveness (first by trying to figure out what it actually means) and letting go of resentments. I want to stop carrying around the things that aren't serving me well. I want to move forward and re-imagine my life.