*I want to preface this by saying again that I have no idea where my relationship with my boyfriend is going to go, so don't assume by my talking about him that we're on the brink of marriage or anything. I write about him because I write about what I am experiencing as a survivor of abuse. That's what my blog is all about. Showing you how I see things based on what is actually happening in my real life. I actually feel kind of bad that the poor dear keeps getting dragged into my blog. He's such a trooper.*
Okay, so here's part two. Here's where I really talk about what dating is like after being abused.
It's rough man.
Not because my boyfriend is anything less than fantastic. Not because he has done anything wrong. On the contrary, he has done everything right! But it's still rough because I'm still in abusive-relationship mode.
I've been reflecting a lot on our relationship and how I have been feeling/reacting towards being back in a relationship. And the other night I was thinking about the term "toxic relationship."
I pulled up the handy Webster Dictionary app on my phone and looked up the word "toxic." I mean, obviously I know that it means, but I wanted to see the exact wording. I'm going to talk about a few different definitions that I found:
#1- "Extremely harsh, malicious, or harmful."
#2- "Containing or being poisonous material especially when capable of causing... serious debilitation."
#3- "Relating to or being an asset that has lost so much value that it cannot be sold on the market."
Synonyms: Envenomed, poison, poisoned, poisonous, venomous
So let's start with numbers 1 and 2.
Dating a toxic person is dating someone who is harmful and capable of seriously debilitating you. There are various types of "poison" that these types of people may administer, or different methods of abuse. I would imagine that each case of abuse is different for everyone. For example, mental/emotional abuse is sometimes manifested in direct insults and sometimes shouting. But it also may manifest itself in silence, where no words are necessary in order for the victim to feel the cold disappointment emanating from the one that they love.
Regardless of the type of poison, the results are the same. The victim is left with some measure of toxicity in their system.
If you think about it in terms of a snake bite, the type and size of snake determine both how severe of an injury the bite is, as well as how long it will take for the body to completely flush away all poison and properly recover.
The recovery time for abuse will be different depending on the type of abuse, how long the abuse went on for, etc. And the flushing out of poison will take time in this case too.
This is why dating is so rough.
Tyler was out of town for most of last week (last week when I first started writing this post that it). He was out hunting with his family, and so he didn't have service or WiFi. So from Tuesday to maybe Saturday, I had no contact with him. That doesn't sound like a long time, but it was ample time for my anxiety to have a field day.
He's going to realize that he likes his life a lot better when I'm not a part of it. That I'm not all that I was cracked up to be and that I'm not actually worth all of the mental and physical health problems after all. He's probably trying to think of the best way to break it to me that he's not actually that into me anymore and would rather just be friends. I can't blame him. I don't deserve him. The good in me doesn't really outweigh the bad. I knew it.
Whew.
Luckily, I was dying for most of the week with bronchitis and a sinus infection, so I spent most of the week sleeping, which didn't leave me a ton of time to let those lovely fears ruminate. But they were definitely still there. And they overwhelmed me on Friday and Saturday.
Logically, I knew that I was being completely irrational. But tell my heart and overactive imagination that.
This brings us to that last definition. Because I have been "intoxicated" by abuse, I feel that I'm not good enough to be a viable option in the dating market.
I can't seem to get this picture of a scale out my head. One side holds all of the good things about me. The other side holds the baggage. I keep thinking Yes, there are good things about me, but do they REALLY outweigh all of the bad? Doubt it.
The problem is, even though everything has been going super well with Tyler, I can't get the previous abuse out of my head. Because everything went really well at the beginning of my last relationship too! And then I was poisoned by degrees. By the time that I realized what was happening, it was too late. I was caught in a relationship where I was always wrong and always to blame. Where I would never be good enough. I would never satisfy him.
And so now Tyler is seeing just how much poison is still left in me. I'm doing my best to dispel it, but it is seeping out ever so slowly.
I apologize. A lot. I didn't used to, but now I do because I can't break the habit. "I'm sorry that I'm weak sometimes. I'm sorry that I have emotions. I'm sorry that I have health problems. I'm sorry, I'm sorry, I'm sorry."
Tyler always tells me that I don't have to apologize. I don't have to apologize for being human. A mere mortal.
But I keep doing it because I did have to apologize before. How dare I have emotions? How dare I have wants and needs? How dare I ever have a differing opinion?
Everything was my fault. I had to prove that I could be better. That I could let go of myself and become a robot for my ex to program to fit his needs and desires.
How sick is that?
I still have that caliber of poison in my system. The abuse mindset sure is hard to flush out.
And so I treat our relationship very differently than Tyler does. I feel overwhelmed by the possibility of things being like they were before, that I'm jumping to prevent them before I really need to. I'm not in love with Tyler as of yet and I have no clue if we're going to get married and I'm totally okay with that. I feel like our relationship is in a good, stable place, and want to take as much time as we need to figure things out. And yet I still feel this intense need to be accepted by, and close to, his family. Do I really need to worry about that right now? Not really. But am I? Absolutely.
Because I felt that I wasn't good enough for my ex, I certainly wasn't good enough for his family either. I didn't feel like I fit in and that bothered me a lot. And that makes a little bit more sense since we were engaged and these people were for sure going to be come my actual family. But I don't know that with Tyler. And so I really shouldn't be worrying about it, but I'm still paranoid.
Fix it. Fix it before it's broken. Fix yourself before he realizes that anything is a problem in the first place.
It goes back to the ideas from "Words Fail" in the last post. Pretend that you're better than you are. Don't be yourself, be better. "You" has never been good enough, so be something else.
The poison takes away all rationality. Let's face it, I already had a problem with over-analyzing everything. Now that's gone into hyper drive.
Tyler treats me well and has never done anything to make me feel like I'm not good enough. And yet I still feel like I have to prove to him in every moment that I am, in fact, good enough to be with him. Unfortunately, this means that I have become afraid. Not of him, but of losing him like I lost my ex. I'm afraid to be stressed out or sad around him. I'm afraid to show weakness of any kind or an inability to take care of myself. I'm freaking terrified of pushing him away. Only show the good and maybe it'll outweigh the bad.
Where I would easily call/text Tyler when I was having a rough day before we started dating, now I'm am often afraid to do so. Don't let him see that the toxicity levels are still so high. He doesn't want to deal with your self-esteem issues. Show him that you are worth being with, that you are worth loving. Don't push him away. Don't push another person away with your imperfections. They left because you didn't measure up. You have to measure up.
Again, two of the biggest reasons that I fell in love with my ex were because 1- I didn't feel like he would ever abandon me like so many friends/love interests had before. And 2- I could talk to him about anything and everything. I just knew that he would love me even after I told him about the things that I struggle with and the weaknesses that I have. He would still love me despite my shortcomings and baggage. He would love me just as much on a day that I was feeling down (whether emotionally or physically because I was sick), as he would on a day where I felt like I could conquer anything.
But as time went on, those reasons became inaccurate.
And because of that, poor Tyler is dating the poisoned version of me who is so afraid of him abandoning me as a hopeless case, damaged goods, incapable of recovery, that I struggle to always reach out to him when I should. I struggle to show any sign of weakness (although he's already seen it all!) because in my mind, every moment of weakness is another little nudge away from me.
I sometimes wonder what would have happened if I had fallen in love with Tyler when I wasn't poisoned. Because he has shown me that things aren't always like they were. He has shown me how I should have been treated from the beginning. He treats me so well, and yet I am still afraid.
And I fight every day to quell those fears. I constantly remind myself that Tyler is not my ex and that even if things don't work out between us, it doesn't mean that I'm not good enough. I also have to remind myself that Tyler won't ever hurt me like my ex did. He will never make me feel worthless. He will never touch me in ways that I'm not comfortable with. He will never pressure me to break the law of chastity, making me feel like that's the only way that I can satisfy him. The only thing that makes me worth keeping around. He will never make me choose between him and the Lord. He will never see me as a body first, person second.
I know that Tyler will not break down everything good about me, leaving me feeling tainted and at times like I am broken beyond repair.
I tell myself that I can't keep treating my wonderful relationship with Tyler the same way that I treated my abusive relationship with my ex. I shouldn't have treated my relationship with my ex the way that I did in the first place. Allowing myself to be stripped of all self-worth. Being guided by the fear of forever being inadequate. But I was at the point where I no longer had control. It was like I was a marionette and my ex held the strings. My will was swallowed up in his. All that I had and all that I was was his for the taking.
The poison had muddied my mind and weakened me mind, body, and soul.
The memory of that mindset, of how completely lost I was, is extremely hard to dispel.
It doesn't matter that Tyler is completely amazing. It doesn't matter that he is so patient, and kind, and compassionate. It doesn't matter because I'm still suffering from the effects of poison. I'm struggling to expel the toxic sludge from my system so that I can not only know in my head that Tyler is not my ex, but also in my heart. Things aren't the same, so I need to learn to stop treating them like they are. And I'm working on it. I really am.
But sometimes I wish that I could speed up the detox a bit. Because then it would be easier to simply enjoy being in a relationship with a good man.
The thing is, it is so hard for me to remember that I'm not a victim anymore. I'm a survivor. Tyler sees that in me. Now I just need to believe it myself.
(To be continued...)
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