Jan 09, 2024 01:07
I've been living on a pretty much constant influx of TikToks since my divorce.
At first because I couldn't sleep without someone giving me some kind of audible background so I wasn't left alone with my thoughts. (This still helps.)
And at first I thought, "this is really gonna fuck up my algorithm!"
... It did not. It somehow improved it. I've learned so much about healthy relationships, unhealthy relationships, giving too much, being a people pleaser, setting boundaries, what is abuse, and how to not get yourself lost in the same unhealthy dynamic again.
So here are some of the things I've learned from my failed relationship and TikTok:
Being a people pleaser is not a good thing. All you'll teach people is how to treat you worse and worse and you'll continue to take it.
- I always thought giving, and being loyal, was love. Turns out... no. Find your boundaries, and enforce them.
Abuse is insideous. It's even where you don't see it. Especially when you've grown up in a household that held no space for you. I grew up in a household that held no space for BabyTink's emotions. After living with my mom for a couple of months after my divorce, this fact continues to be true. I am a child of Boomer parents, one of which was a Narcissist. The other is my mom. I don't know what her deal is, but she is definitely the "I am uncomfortable when not about me"-meme.
My husband spent more and more time yelling at me, and I kept on taking it. Again. I was raised being told that I am lazy, and useless, and could do so much better. It's hard to argue with a narrative that's been following you your whole life.
My husband started a narrative that I was deliberately sabotaging him. That whatever I did, or didn't do, it was an intentional jab at him. Even when confronted with this madness, even saying, "why would I do that? It makes no fucking sense?" he was dead set on me doing exactly that. He was applying intentions to my behaviour that simply wasn't there.
I didn't see it at the time. I do now. He'd already met my replacement. He was making me the bad guy, so he didn't have to be.
He was comparing 15 years against something new and exciting. Something he couldn't fuck until I was out of the picture. So could I kindly exit stage left and fucking quickly?!
THAT was why he was in such a fucking hurry.
I am still fucking hurt. That doesn't go away overnight. I am still furious, and easily triggered, and scared for my future. I am trying to take care of myself as best I can. I'm trying to find my new hobbies, now that I have to learn to de-center the man I made my whole identity for the past 15 years. (Again, don't do that, it turns out.)
I'm not a position right now where I can look back and feel any kind of melancholy about the years preceeding what came before. When a memory attacks me, I push it away. I don't have the bandwidth to feel anything other than hurt and rage right now. I'm pushing that part of my healing in front of me, because I am SO TIRED of being sad. I don't have it in me right now to be sad on a deeper level.
I went away over the end-of-year celebrations, and it helped to put some miles and emotional... shit behind me. But it also gave me hideous dreams about him. Wendy says it's Rumination. Essentially, my subconscious just checking in to find out if the habitual thinking is still a thing, or no? I see that. I also see that it feels like a death. Either way, the person I thought I knew, even while still in this world, is not a person I will ever meet again. He's the type of person where, once he's said he doesn't love you anymore, will never treat you with an ounce of kindness again. And that is a death. I don't care what anyone else has to say. I thought I knew him. I did not.
I'm back living at my house right now. My apartment is 5 minutes away. I pay for both places. So I'm not in a big hurry to move into my new place. We still have to sell the house, and before that we both stupidly signed to not move any furniture. (Not doing that the next time I get a divorce, lol!)
My friend said that as long as I am I this angry he still controls me, or at least my feelings for him still control me. I don't now how to fix that. It's still only been barely 4 months. I feel like I've come pretty far with what I have to work with.
But I am fucking scared to look for jobs. I've worked 14 years with zero positive reinforcement. I have no confidence in my abilities. I know, on paper, that I am amazing when it comes to organization and thinking outside the box, but I have no idea what job I want, or how to go about getting it. I want a career change, but how?