Survival of the Self: Growing through pain

A Breakup, Overcoming Domestic Abuse, Taking back Our space, Learning to set Boundaries..And how I learned that caring about myself is just as important as caring for others...

This past year wasn't just big, it was massive, and in every sense of the word I have become someone I wasn't. You won't find an apology, not even once, here. I am unapologetically growing into the most stunning version of whomever I am meant to eventually become and to apologize would be gross and I won't insult every carefully maneuvered adversity that's been gifted to me over these last six years by dripping apologies across the page. Instead I'd love to climb up to the highest point around me and scream from the bottom of my guts a gigantic "THANK YOU!" But I'd be slightly worried that it would avalanche into hysterical tears and "FUCK YOU!!" and laughter and who knows...I still might.

Overcoming the Abuse

“However I do think if everyone is perfectly honest, we see the signs at the very beginning and it's a lack of self worth or core value awareness perhaps so we willfully avert our eyes.”

Truth be told, no one plans to find themselves in an abusive relationship. However I do think if everyone is perfectly honest, we see the signs at the very beginning and it's a lack of self worth or core value awareness perhaps so we willfully avert our eyes. We stubbornly see pink words and actions laced with sugar, despite the madness that crouches just behind each sweet text or bunch of flowers. Maybe in my case the danger was a sliver of the appeal. Twelve years of marriage to my high school sweetheart, twelve years ignored and denied, twelve years of trying to fix something by myself and maybe out of anger I wanted something that had teeth. If I had known what I know now I wouldn't have opened that box, but hindsight isn't retrospective...

What's a Boundary?

After realizing I was in danger it felt too late. By then the fort had been overrun and I was in full damage control mode. I managed to hide most of the ugliness behind forced happiness and I put myself in an emotional coma so as to allow healing while under siege. The most important thing was that no innocents were exposed and that became my task each day. My dad getting sick took up so much space and I didn't want to face it alone. I didn't believe in my own strength, understandably, and my faith in anything beyond me was so shattered that I pinned all of my hope like a dollar store pin the tail on the crackhead. Pretending everything was fine was my second job and I went to work before and after my full time job every single day. When I was let go from my job and I started therapy I had no intention of addressing my relationship issues. In fact, I hid them for the first year and some change. I opened up and did hard work on past trauma, rerouting neural pathways to attempt to heal damage that had been done and begin the road towards healthy coping mechanisms. I began the work of addressing body dysmorphia for the first time ever. But through that work and on that battlefield I grew stronger. I discovered myself again and I found my strength....that inner core strength....and enough time passed that she wouldn't be silent anymore. The gaslighting didn't work like it used to. The love-bombing didn't have the same effect. The most important work that I did in those first 12 months however was learning about my own personal boundaries. Learning about codependency as a coping mechanism to childhood or pre-teen trauma and how significantly it had been affecting all, and I do mean all, of my romantic relationships and partner choices. Understanding how my broken relationship with my own parent had translated itself into twisted abandonment issues that I was pinning on romantic partners hoping they would repair the damage done by someone else. The harsh truth was, I had no business being in a relationship until I did work on myself. Until those broken pieces within myself were made whole and I no longer felt the need for a partner to fix me. So not only did I realize that I was in a physically and emotionally abusive relationship, but I also realized that I had allowed myself to get there because I wasn't paying attention to any of those things and instead was focused on finding anyone that would give me other key things I thought I desperately needed. It became obvious that I needed to make my exit from the relationship and do so as quickly as possible as it was toxic in every way.

Black Hawk Down

“The shock of the entire situation was so enormous that I felt absolutely nothing and my mind stayed numb for weeks after he'd left.”

He didn't want to leave. He stood in my living room in front of my children sobbing, telling each of them that he had nowhere to go and that I was kicking him out. They were children...innocent...and he didn't care. After he'd called them genetic abominations, after he'd said that they would never be his and he would never claim anything with part Japanese heritage, He begged them to intervene and help convince me to change my mind. I rushed them out of the battlefield, off to their father's house, out of the line of fire. They didn't need to see this. For two weeks the war raged. My oldest and I stood watch while he held out for some glimmer of hope that I would change my mind, refusing to leave the house. Slowly losing what little bits of his mind he had left to whatever drugs he was secretly doing when we weren't looking. That was the winter that Texas froze over. We lost all power. Finally I took my son and myself and we went to my mothers leaving him behind at the house with no lights and no heat. I even offered for him to come with us, because I wasn't heartless after all. He refused and stayed behind. When we returned whatever fight he'd had left was gone and he agreed to take the plane ticket back to his home state. The battle was over. The shock of the entire situation was so enormous that I felt absolutely nothing and my mind stayed numb for weeks after he'd left. Maybe even months.

My Happy Ending

He's been gone a year and a half and the kids and I keep the doors locked. After three years of work with my therapist I no longer see romantic relationships as a way to fix trauma and codependency isn't something I struggle with. My sense of self is stronger than it's ever been, but I'm a work in progress much like everyone else. The most important thing is that I have boundaries now and where once I was a beautiful castle laid bare for anyone to come in and take whatever they wanted, I'm now a beautiful castle surrounded by a formidable army that only allows people that have been granted access to come in and partake of whatever has been pre-approved. This is how it should be. This is called having self-worth and knowing your own core values well enough to be ready to consider a romantic relationship with someone. Still, I take things one day at a time and I don't rush headlong into anything where partners are concerned because there is no urgent need to do so. I spend time with my partner to enrich my already full and whole life, not to fill a hole or need and I have to be honest, this is how it should have always been.