A toxic relationship is like an addiction. It’s all-consuming, lust-worthy, and even thrilling at times, but at the cost of your health and well-being. You have to break up to move on with your life.
In this life, I have found myself chasing the proverbial carrot down the rabbit hole. I am left to decipher what the carrot represents and what or where this surreal state is. These are mysteries, or are they? Who is dangling the carrot? Who dug the hole? Is there a rabbit? What is real? This is “the Fuckery,” the lingering confusion of what is real, what is deception, what is mine, and what is the fantasy.
In my younger years, I was vulnerable and not nearly as far along in my healing journey as I thought. I must give credit where credit is due; I was practically a bullseye for a skilled manipulator.. Ah, the clarity of that hindsight! To say I didn’t notice the red flags would be unfair, but lets just say I had a penchant for the color red. I figured I might use those flags to decorate my relatively empty impoverished apartment. Feng Shui? Definitely not my forte. Little did I know those red flags would later become my most stubborn anchors.
The warning signs weren’t subtle—they were glaring, like the neon sign at the local bar that makes you feel at home on a Friday night or conspicuous like a clown at a funeral. If I hadn’t been delusional and heeded my friend’s advice sooner, I mightn’t have needed a t-shirt that said “My Picker is Broken” as a birthday gift. No, I needed a signier sign.
My friends were unwavering in their support of my foolishness as I changed my mind 18,000 times because it took that long for me to get my goddam intuition to STFU and allow me to forge ahead into my fantasy. Even my therapist, bless her, strongly pushed me to deal with the traumas of my childhood before jumping head-first into a tumultuous romance. But that chaos felt electric, and I was ready for it. Nothing says chemistry like some inconsistency and boundary-crossing!
So now, I sit unraveling the fuckery. Playing back all the things I justified and ignored. I am trying to make sense of the confusion and F.O.G. (Fear, Obligation, and Guilt). The F.O.G. doesn’t happen right away. It’s the proverbial frog in boiling water. If you put the frog in boiling water, myth has it that he will jump right out. Put the frog in cold water and slowly turn up the heat; the frog will stay and die slowly.
Similarly, manipulation must be gradual, or theoretically, one would leave. “Theoretically,” because the assumption is that manipulation, gaslighting, and blameshifting wouldn’t feel “normal” or like home. Home: a place where I was always at fault, not good enough, and my reality was not as it seemed. Sooo cozy. Manipulation? I volunteer as tribute!
First, trust has to be gained, and deep feelings of intimacy must be shared. The grand gestures of love mingled with little lies- or what later is referred to as “It’s not a lie, I just didn’t tell you the truth because I wasn’t ready; I would never lie to you; You are the love of my life.” That sentence doesn’t even make sense! The cognitive dissonance is a mind fuck! “
One of the worst parts of this fuckery is while you are in love, they are gathering information to weaponize against you. Instead of this person helping you heal, they use all your pain and trauma to hurt you in the same ways you’ve already experienced. They remind you often that they are nothing like the others in your life who have abused you and taken advantage of you; like a magic trick behind the smoke and mirrors of their innocence and victimhood, they manipulate and take advantage in more sinister ways. It’s like having a person rip off your bandage and intentionally plunge a pitchfork into the wounds they promised to help heal. It is cruel and calculated.
I have learned, albeit the hard way, that my intuition is always right. My gut KNOWS. My fight or flight response never lies, and “walking on eggshells” never lies. Leaving doesn’t mean I’m avoidant or a poor communicator. It means my nervous system says, ” Get the hell outta here; it’s not safe!”
It is important that I am honest with myself about my level of delusion.The truth is that I had a front row seat to reality; I just opted for the popcorn and show instead. In my stubbornness, I ignored my gut like a GPS rerouting to Disneyland when I was clearly headed for a cliff. Why? Because I am a believer in love even though I have never experienced it. I believe in the magic of unicorns and heart shaped pizzas and have an undying hope that others operate with the same beliefs. Wishful thinking? More like wishful sinking.
Unraveling the tangled web of my past choices feels much like untangling Christmas lights found in the back of the closet, daunting, yet, oddly satisfying. As memories come flooding back, I have to have a little chat with myself. “Hey there Self, remember that big ole’ lie, yeah wer’re not playing that game anymore. No more ignoring the elephant in the room.” This journey of unfuckery is like trying to unscramble an omlet, but hey, it’s all part of the process. Despite the heaviness of it all, it is a constant reminder to stay rooted in reality and not to get lost in an absurd reality show.
Ah, Alice in Wonderland wisdom strikes again! As I have tumbled down the rabbit hole of life, I can’t help but recall the wise words, “It’s no use going back to yesterday because I was a different person then.” Instead of endlessly chasing the carrot, I choose to embrace peace. Currently, peace comes in the simple things, like writing, sitting with my emotions, healing, setting boundaries, sleeping in my own king-size bed, making my own coffee, and leaving rooms whenever I damn well please.