Leaving "toxic" at the door, moving from survivor to warrior.
This is kind of therapist homework, but I figured I'd share in case it helps someone else.
So 3 years post divorce Im finally, finally going through anger. Absolute incandescent anger. The kind of anger that would not feel bad at all if terrible things happened.
In all the years I was dealing with it, I never actually got fully angry. I was hopeless and upset and depressed and always, always looking for the loophole that would mean I had either fixed the problem or gotten out, and even though I repeatedly brought up the idea of getting out I was so stripped of my own self that a simple no just tossed out the whole thought.
The first time I thought of myself as an actual victim - I had no problems understanding that bad and advantage-taking things had happened, but I didnt frame it - was one of my professors talking to me in my trauma class as I struggled and didnt know why. I still have PTSD, and Im still working through that with the help of my fantastic boyfriend who deserves sainthood for the times I react out of my lizard brain instead of with actual context for the moment.
And in finding the label victim, I allowed myself to move into the idea of being a survivor, with some help, and now my therapist says that what I need to look for is warrior now. To know my own power, but in such a way that I am comfortable and that I know its there but only when I need it. That other people dont need to know anything except that I have boundaries and they are not flexible, unless someone is trying to step all over them.
Shes right - Im angry because I (belatedly) am trying to look for a way to have power over years of my life when I didnt. But thats the past, and you cant ask the past to change itself because youre angry about it. Anger is a motive force, and instead of trying to direct that backwards or (under no circumstances) toward the person from my past who fucked me over, I need to look at what that motive power can do for me to make me happy, to make me in a better position, to help me shift the narrative from survivor to warrior.
I understand it a little better today than I did last week when she brought it up. I still dont know what I want, but at least I have a better sense of why I want it. And over this last year Ive learned to sit with myself, and listen, and try to work with myself to achieve goals that are realistic and sound better to me than the shoulds you get out of self-help/life-hack crap you see around the net.
Its just really hard to sit with the idea right now that I was without power - I didnt even give it up, it was stripped from me over and over and over - for a long time. And now Im trying to figure out my power looks like after all that, and its like those 3-D pictures. Im waiting for my eyes to fall into the right kind of focus
So I'm still continuing, and I've been physically ill, so it's been a struggle to keep my emotional level even.
I watched a Disney movie, thinking something fun and gentle would be nice. Instead all the messages about being yourself, and sitting with yourself when you're unsure, and trying to listen to the part of yourself that's always tried to emerge as your true self - I ended up crying through the whole movie.
I know it's good to cry, releases coritsol and reduces other stress reactions, but I spent so many years telling myself that my emotional reactions weren't the right ones or were too much or needed to be something else. It's hard for me to accept my own emotions as they are. It's part of me. And even when the emotions aren't nice or very fun, they're still part of me.
So on the road of accepting the parts of myself I need to be kinder to, even if I need to work on them or change them in the long-term, I think maybe even though I didn't mean to stumble across this today, I probably needed it.
I've been really thinking about what I could do that would be for myself, to better my life, that would be taking that desire for power over the old, abusive relationship and turn it into positive power in my life.
I've built a whole new, supportive friends group. I keep up with my therapist and my psychiatrist, and have even had some changes there so that I have a more supportive, more accessible team that is interested in me rather than just taking my money. I've learned to set more boundaries in my personal life (I should hope so, after everything). I have a really great loving partner I live with and my fantastic dearheart who lives further away, and both relationships require feeding and care and intention, and we talk a lot about what we need and when and how. My family cares for me and we have learned our own new set of boundaries after everything that happened.
But I think I have problems setting boundaries for work. I'm lucky to be working from home, but the general trauma of the world right now (and, living in the US, the unique traumas unfolding here too) I feel like all my coping strategies and things I used to stay even have been upended. However, maybe I can start working on boundaries for my work, coworkers, and work/life balance. My therapist mentioned that having power doesn't require you to display it so other people always "know" you have it. It's enough to know, in yourself, that you have it, and to wield it when necessary.
So maybe I can work on some boundary issues there, and not only will I feel personally more secure and strong, but it would probably help make my day-to-day a bit better too.
@mnemosynedream I wanted to say that I have been reading your enteries. I am glad that you have built such a supportive network, which you deserve. Setting boundaries and enforcing them is very healthy. You sound aware of your emotions and self reflecting. To me, that shows your strength. I hope writing here helps you. :)
So I finally figured out how to conceptualize the time I lost to this traumatic relationship in a way that doesn't make it seem like a total black hole, a total loss of part of my life.
My ex never saw me, never saw the real me. He had an image of me, of a person he could defeat, a person he could abuse and break down and remake. I stayed a long time, it's true, but I always fought.
And during that time, the real me was in a coccoon, growing and learning and shaping myself to be the person I am now, the person who did not lose but learned, and who did not quit but outlasted.
Whatever memories he has of me, or whatever image of me he holds in his mind, it isn't me. It was never me. He never, ever saw me for who I am, and he never, ever will.
I outlasted my abuser, and I am a person and have always been a person he just did not see, at all. Who I have been and who I've become are all me, all mine, and mine to share or withhold, as it's always been.