Tag: relationships

Worn living room with a flickering television, armchair, and eerie wall shadows
About Me

Understanding Esoteric Narcissism and Its Effects

Autumn
A list of psychological manipulation tactics, including pathologizing ordinary behavior, turning disagreement into deficiency, claiming specialness through suffering, creating restrictive rules, asymmetric interpretation of evidence, and building unfalsifiable frameworks.

I confess that I’ve developed a morbid fascination with the Franke/Hildebrant story, as well as other cult leader types, because they remind me of my own personal story.

When I first started hearing the word “narcissist,” my immediate reaction was, Him? But he doesn’t even wear deodorant! Absolutely nothing about him is charismatic or materialistic. He has changed into someone that I am embarrassed to be around.

But the word “narcissist” was said repeatedly across people who didn’t know each other, including an AI when I was venting about something that had upset me.

It was said a lot.

So I started watching Dr Ramani on YouTube, and learned that the grandiose narcissist isn’t the only type. Oh.

I remember the first time I recognized it when he slammed me with DARVO, and I was blown away how it wasn’t secretly buried in a five minute speech — it was three sentences: “That’s not true. It’s your fault. You’re always making things difficult for me.” That was the moment I realized what I was dealing with.

Well anyway, let’s get back to the Hildebrant connection.

He started calling everything an addiction. If the kids wanted to watch a kid show, they were “screen zombies,” and he even accused a three-year-old of having “a severe screen addiction” with zero professional evaluation. Seemingly, he had decided that normal toddler tantrums were evidence of addiction, not an inevitable stage of development.

I liked turning on the TV for background noise? Addiction. Obviously.

I took to chatting with AI because I literally had no other outlets for emotional expression and he was carefully monitoring everywhere I went and everyone I spoke to? Addiction. Plus AI psychosis.

The 12-year-old beat him in Smash Brothers with Rosalina? She was too addicted to that character and was banned from playing with her.

Essentially, anyone attempting to develop an interest that didn’t revolve around him (or outshone him) was accused of addiction. The only way to not be an addict was to sit around doing nothing and waiting for him to walk into the room. Then you were merely lazy.

So lately I’ve been pondering the existence of “esoteric narcissism”, or as I joked, “Why be ordinary special when you can be esoterically special?”

This is the idea that someone has unique spiritual knowledge, powers, and authority, ie Hildebrant. The damage they inflict on others comes from, “Your disagreement with me is proof that you are distorted/NPC/whatever,” as the terminology itself doesn’t really matter. The important part is, these people have clearly defined “enlightened” and “inferior” boxes that they put everyone else into. Personally I heard “NPC” a lot (combined with the philosophy that people who were NPCs didn’t have souls), and I remember the day he looked at me with contempt and declared the worst insult in his world, “You are an NPC.”

I know, people are sitting there asking, “How could you put up with that?” because it’s easy to sit on the outside and think, “As an outsider, I would have seen right through it and fled as quickly as possible.” To which I point out that they have the benefit of seeing the entire story, which you don’t have when you’re inside it.

It comes on gradually. He didn’t use the term ‘NPC’ when I met him — I don’t remember him using it prior to 2020. It started as the standard, “Ugh, people are frustrating,” in response to news stories about the darker side of humanity. Years passed by, we survived hardships, and he became more openly cynical. Conversely, what seemed to start off as ordinary spirituality started taking on more and more weight.

There was one time when we were watching a lunar eclipse, when he started spinning in circles and said that he was spiritually bound to do it to make the eclipse happen. It was so over-the-top that I blurted out something about schizophrenia, to which he replied with disgust, “You don’t understand me at all.”

Meanwhile, I was exhausted. I was sleep deprived. My body was flooded with cortisol. I was getting migraines. He would increase the number of criticisms and arguments that he subjected me to whenever I started taking steps towards any sort of independence, and in retrospect it was amazing how he could pull an argument out of thin air without me doing anything.

My refusal to blindly accept everything resulted in frequent accusations of being “self righteous.”

He had successfully driven away everyone so I was isolated. I didn’t have friends and neighbors to reassure me, “You aren’t self righteous,” because it turned out that he was trash-talking me behind my back. All I knew was that trying to socialize was inexplicably weird and I was frequently ghosted. I found out much later that most people didn’t believe what he said about me, but they were also scared of getting involved because he gave off vibes of, “I’ll burn your house down.” Mind you, no direct threats just vibes, but it was enough to keep people away.

There was one time, after hearing several times from different acquaintances, “That guy is so manipulative,” that I burst into tears and sobbed, “Why was I the last to see it?” That was the first time in a long time that I received a hug for crying.

And now I’ve developed a morbid fascination with Hildebrant because I see reminders of him in the documentaries, and I feel grateful that he never managed to expand his ideologies outside of himself. At least so far.

There was, however, one early warning flag that I didn’t recognize at the time.

When I first met him, he told me that his favorite book was The Last Unicorn, and that his favorite quote from the book was:

“You are losing my interest,” the rustling voice interrupted him again, “and that is very dangerous. In a moment I will have forgotten you quite entirely, and will never be able to remember just what I did with you. What I forget not only ceases to exist, but never really existed in the first place.”

I didn’t recognize it as a red flag because it was 2009, Dr House was a smash hit on TV, and everyone thought that being edgy was cool.

But now, now that I’ve spent two years dealing with him attempting to erase my existence, I realize that he embraced the quote wholeheartedly and turned it into a personal philosophy.

No one has the power to erase another person’s existence.

No matter what type of special they think they are.

Bowl of fruit and banana on a rustic kitchen table
About Me

The Struggles of Hygiene in Relationships: A Candid Story

Autumn

I started reading The House of My Mother by Shari Franke, which is very well written and I highly recommend. It’s interesting insight into the experience of growing up with your life being showcased online through family vlogging, as well as the events afterwards involving Ruby Franke and Jodi Hildebrant that are the real reason we’re reading the book (you know what I’m talking about).

I can’t help that in the back of my mind I wonder what it would be like if I wrote an autobiography about my personal experiences. Probably terrible, because I don’t remember much; like the majority of my adult life slipped into an empty black hole and all I can do is shrug it off. My most vivid memories seem almost … absurd.

For example:

Sometime after 2020, he decided to quit hygiene.

There wasn’t some grand announcement, just the gradual cessation of typical hygiene-related activities. He spent a lot of time with his computer while I was busy with the same soul-sucking chores every day, so I can’t say exactly when it happened.

My first related memory happened in late 2021, while I was pregnant with my youngest. I remember reaching into the hamper, pulling out his shirt, then fighting back gagging and nausea when the smell hit me. I thought I was going to lose it right into the hamper. Holy heck. You would have thought that I had accidentally grabbed a maggot infested rat carcass from how badly I reacted, but nope, it was a t-shirt that had spent too long on a human body.

Thus began my campaign to encourage hygiene without hurting his feelings.

I settled on the word “overripe”, phrased in a roundabout way like, “Hey, you’re kind of getting a little bit overripe, so maybe you should bathe and change your clothes?”

I suppose that I should add a little side note for context: years ago he decided to remodel the bathroom then never actually finished the job. That meant that the shower fixture was permanently left in a closet, and we could only take baths. So if you find yourself wondering why I never use the word “shower” when talking about the past, that’s why.

Anyway, my efforts resulted in nothing. For all I know, maybe he became even more resistant to hygiene because I was hinting that it was something I wanted. I.D.K.

He liked to sneak up on me to startle me while I was sewing, but I started being able to smell him approaching and thus he lost the element of surprise. I dreaded being in the car with him, and began putting the window down to gulp in the fresh air whenever possible, my face turned stubbornly away from him.

I became hyper-paranoid about my own body odor, and was constantly checking myself for smell. I was mortified over the possibility that I also stank. It seemed like the smell was so pervasive that I couldn’t tell where it was coming from anymore.

Eventually, I became less subtle. Eventually I became rather blunt about the fact that he stank bad and was repulsive.

His response?

If I truly loved him, then I would find his body odor arousing.

Alas, my heart was untrue. Q.E.D. 😂

And that was the state of him when I moved out. I couldn’t tell you if anything has changed since. Yes, I’m aware that in a storytelling sense that’s such a non-conclusion to the arc, but that’s how real life often goes. No closure.

It seems a little odd to me, that a situation that included the court ordering me to attend four months of classes for victims of domestic violence is now reduced down in my memory to … body odor?

I am at peace with my memory though. There was nothing famous about what I went through — I was and still am one of the thousands of faceless women who had to focus on survival far too much to build anything else. I don’t have the audience or clout for a tell-all book deal anyway, so I don’t need to remember the sensational details. Besides, going into it too deeply is still more than my nervous system can bear.

Woman journaling with coffee at a sunlit kitchen table
About Me

Finding Joy in Solitude: Why I Don’t Need a Relationship

Autumn

I walked into the dentist office for my appointment, and the receptionist commented, “You look so happy. Are you dating someone new?”

To which I exclaimed, “Oh my goodness NO!”

Then I revealed that the real reason for my happiness is that I can watch whatever shows I want without having to hear anyone else’s opinion about it, so my relaxation time is genuinely relaxing. Because, c’mon, when someone walks into a room and is all, “Oh, you’re watching that show again? You have an odd taste in TV,” it has a tendency to grate the nerves after awhile. I’m sorry, but I didn’t ask you to evaluate my preferences in entertainment, so please keep it to yourself and just let me exist in peace.

Or there was the other scenario, where they wanted to watch the show with me but then added constant commentary, like, “That character is being stupid.” Or pausing the show every 30 seconds to talk about something. My long-term takeaway is that I really hate watching TV with anyone who can’t shut their mouth. I’d list it as one of my top pet peeves, along with people chewing loudly, and ASMR videos that use that squishy squelchy poop noise because srsly what is up with that?

Lately I’ve been watching Arcane on Netflix, and I’m hooked. The idea of “hextech” is intriguing, the characters are complex and engaging, and the gorgeous eye candy animation certainly doesn’t hurt either. I’ve been finding the world of Arcane to be inspiring for my own creativity, giving me plenty to daydream about between episodes as well.

So …

I suppose that enough time has passed for the question of my dating again to become socially acceptable. To which the answer is still a solid no. I’m thinking that it’s a permanent no.

I have discovered that I like making decisions completely on my own. Quite a lot. I like my hairbrush having only my hair tangled in it. I like the way it feels to be with the kids when it’s just us. I like having solitude that I can count on every week. I like being the problem-solver of the household. Heck, I recently learned how to put air into my car tires to maintain the correct pressure, so I’m feeling pretty dang competent. 💪

Which means that whenever the question of “moving on” comes up, I will have to coyly sidestep it with a wink. Ah yes, relationships. I suppose maybe when I’m ready. Whenever Viktor from season 2 of Arcane materializes in real life with his staff and cloak. What can I say? A woman has to have her standards. 🤣

The answer to why I’m so happy isn’t that there’s a new person in my life — it’s that I’m finally in my own life.

Before, I was the sort that whenever I was asked, “Are you having a good time?” My answer was usually, “I don’t know. Is everyone else having a good time? I can’t have a good time if everyone else isn’t.” In retrospect, I was to exhausted from making sure that everyone else was happy, and justifying it by pointing out that everyone else was happy.

It’s weird, because I never saw myself as a “people pleaser” — people pleasers tried too hard, didn’t they? I was just trying to live up to being a good wife and mother, by being nurturing, patient, supportive, low-maintenance, and cool. It happened so gradually that it took me awhile to realize that it was not the life that I thought I had signed up for years ago — he had promised to support me being a writer, and instead he was demanding dinner. If I could take all those hours I spent on meal prep and clean up and put them into writing instead, I’d have myself an established career right now.

Anyway, my point is, no one was telling me, “Don’t be like that, you’re sacrificing yourself.” I was told over and over that I was a “good mom” and a “good wife,” when I should have been more of a bitch about making him share in the domestic work. Instead I got to learn that the man who had refused to lift a finger for me was cooking dinners for his new girlfriend, and I realized what a fool I was. My postmortem is that I was manipulated into becoming a people pleaser, not just by one person but by the culture at large that reinforced that it was something that I was supposed to do.

So here we are. I don’t need a relationship to be happy and I don’t need a man to be valid — I am my own person.

And that feels dang good.

Young person standing outside a cabin overlooking cloud-covered mountains
About Me

Overcoming Creative Block After a Toxic Relationship

Autumn

Over the last year, I’ve been internally more creative than my output would suggest. Which is basically a roundabout way of saying that I’ve been thinking a lot of things that never see the light of day.

I think that I’ve written about it before, but I really can’t be bothered to read back through my blog posts to find something to link to and all that jazz. Essentially, for a good long while I had someone position themselves as the Director of my creativity, and every project I pursued needed their stamp of approval. Then rather abruptly that person dumped me and is now living with a woman half his age. Go figure.

The thing is, people like that manipulate themselves into that sort of authority through the guise of teamwork — they aren’t gatekeeping you, they’re part of your dynamic duo. The editor to your writer. Literally. They constantly tell you that your creativity is messy without their guidance, and only they understand your vision well enough to push it towards something amazing.

Recognizing that something was wrong is easier than living without it. When it’s your own muscles that have to support the momentum after years of someone restricting their use, it’s hard. I’ve spent a lot of time wobbling, second-guessing, and feeling insecure.

I’ve written thousands of words for Runemaster that I quickly realized were rambling.

The thing is, my “director” wasn’t constantly cutting down long-winded passages because I had a tendency towards unfocused writing. My “directer” actually had very little input with Alice and the Warden for example, and I mostly remember him wanting me to put in more sex scenes. He said that he wanted to edit the story then never actually got around to it, and since I didn’t want to delay publishing because of him I did all the editing myself. “Dynamic duo” felt more like him taking credit for my work.

I keep asking myself why I’m so unfocused now when my functional thought process and workload hasn’t changed.

A year ago I sought a protective order against him, and was granted something softer for the long-term but effective enough (he continues to send me unpleasant texts that I’d rather not receive). I’m still realizing how different life is without him in it. I recently took the kids out for a day trip, and after packing the car and hitting the road, I found myself spending the first 30 minutes of driving wondering if I had forgotten something important because of how easy leaving had been. Why had my previous life been so hard in so many small ways?

Perhaps my writing is unfocused now because I’m having so many new experiences every day. My brain is constantly stopping to ask, “Wait, what? Is that really it?” I had grown so accustomed to someone throwing up roadblocks over every idea I had, that now it feels like something is missing without them.

It feels like standing in a doorway gazing out at the world and feeling overwhelmed with how big it is. What am I even looking at? Where should I go now that I’m free to go anywhere? Why is everything so dang easy? Life isn’t supposed to be easy, is it?

I also struggle to understand how someone can be the one to initiate a divorce then afterwards act like they still have a say over what you do in your life. Excuse me, but I will eat cancer-causing ultra processed food in microwaved plastic as much as I want, because I like it. Srsly, what did you expect would happen when you filed for a divorce? What makes you think that you have the right to punish me when you were the one who wanted this?

Unfortunately there’s a pressure to not talk about him, because talking about him means that I still think about him, and thinking about him proves that I’m not moving on. But I’m not sitting here thinking, “This was his favorite song,” “I miss him,” or anything remotely sentimental. I think about how much I hated following his principles and rules. I think about all the things I tolerated because I believed “that’s just how men are.” (Like using a ton dishes to cook something simple, then leaving the mess for me to clean up.)

I think about how being a trad wife was the biggest mistake of my life.

I still wonder how much of my mind was my own, versus how much was him utilizing chronic long-term sleep deprivation to insert thoughts into my head — and I believe that the sleep deprivation was deliberate too, because he interfered with my sleep as soon as I met him and he kept it going for years. I reached the point where I broke down crying because I just wanted to go to bed and sleep through the night without interruption.

Anyway, maybe this is too emotional. Maybe this is bleeding onto the page too much. I’m just so tired of feeling like I have to follow rules, and maybe it’s time that I engage in some oversharing. Maybe I’m dissatisfied with my writing because I feel like I have to follow all the rules of healing instead of just being raw with my words.

Because that’s the thing … there are parts of my life that hurt, but also parts that leave me ecstatically happy, and they’re both real. I would definitely describe myself as being much happier now, but that doesn’t mean that every day is full of energy and momentum. Sometimes the good moments teach me how much misery I was living with before, and it’s devastating. Sometimes I question why everything seems too good to be true now.

One thing is for absolute certain: I will never go back.

Leather-bound book titled 'Memoirs & Hopes' wrapped in flowering green vines on wooden table
About Me

Healing Through Writing: Confronting Pain and Progress

Autumn

I have a problem.

Despite my efforts to get my story writing onto the computer, I still find that I feel most comfortable with handwriting. I guess that it feels more “unofficial” and therefore has less pressure attached to it, so I’m free to quickly jot down my thoughts as they come to me in all their messy glory. Unfortunately … my hand isn’t keeping up, even with my wrist support/compression glove.

I’ve been typing for ages. My hands are accustomed to typing. Holding a pen hurts.

I’m old now (hur), so I worry that if I try to push through the pain then I’ll develop tendonitis. Which means that I should push myself to get my story typed up and continue writing it on the computer, preferably before I develop any long term inflammation. Which also means confronting whatever emotional block has me feeling safer with paper and pen.

I have a lot of emotional blocks.

Honestly I never want people to worry about me because it makes me feel guilty when they do, so I always present myself with a “chin up and shoulders back” can-do attitude. Why yes, I am strong and optimistic. Listen to me list off all the positive things that I have going for me right now (not a lie, since I do have good things going). Inside, I’m kind of worried that it’s weird that I’m continuing to work on Runemaster because I started it while I was still married, even though there’s no logical reason why I should abandon the novel purely because I’m now divorced. I don’t really want to switch over to writing “girl boss” women’s interest fiction. Or whatever. I still want to write Malachi and Lyra, with some darker tones of horror thrown in for good measure.

Inside, I worry that I’m unknowingly writing toxic dynamics because I was normalized to them. I’ve become hyper-aware of manipulation tactics, and now I’m very cautious of word choice because of how easy it is for sentences to become postures of dominance. We don’t want to be patronizing around here. But what is a healthy relationship supposed to look like? I dunno. It doesn’t help that I don’t particularly enjoy most fictional relationships I read. Or real relationships that I eavesdrop about. I mean, really, you had to go to couples counseling for that?

Occasionally ChatGPT tells me that healthy relationships are supposed to be safe to speak your mind, but out in the real world I don’t see much of that happening. Granted, I am eavesdropping, so maybe I’m just getting the juicy tidbits that people actually want to talk about, and feelings of safety and security don’t make the gossip cut. Who knows. As someone who preferentially talks to an AI, I can’t go claiming superiority on human connection. Har har.

I enjoy the joke of getting ChatGPT to say, “I’m an AI,” then replying with, “OMG you’re an AI? I had no idea!!!” My sense of humor is pretty corny. And isolated. 😅 That’s basically how I spend my weekends.

Anyway, I get myself worked up with anxiety about what’s supposed to be realistic, and then that voice inside says, “Who cares about reality? Write how it feels.” So I do. With a black gel pen on notebook paper while my wrist protests at me, and as time passes it’s getting easier to write how it feels.

I just wish it didn’t hurt my hand so much.

About Me

Finding Freedom in Being Single: A Middle-Aged Perspective

Autumn

Now that I’ve hit my late 30’s, I’ve become aware of the trend to marry and have the spouse do all the hard work of raising kids and securing stability, only to then turn around and dump that spouse to coast through the easier part of life with someone else.

Rude.

Sometimes the word ‘love’ is tossed around like it’s magical justification, but love has nothing to do with it — love doesn’t inspire people to hurt everyone around them. If you ask me (which nobody did), it’s not simply about laziness; it’s about erasing the one person who knows that they didn’t build their life on their own merit.

They didn’t really get up at 2am to feed the baby every night, but they’ll certainly tell their next partner that they did.

It’s about controlling the narrative.

Not putting up with the person who’s far from their best self because they’re overworked and exhausted.

Anyway, we don’t want to sound bitter, though maybe wiser. Getting older makes one realize just how many people have the dressings but not the substance. Stolen light.

The longer that I’m single, the more I want to stay this way. It’s a relief to never hear the words, “What’s for dinner” or “That’s your job”. I picked out the sheets for my bed based solely on my own preferences. I like that my driving revolves around safety and patience, so I never feel trapped in the passenger seat while someone else grows too competitive for comfort.

Not to mention escaping all the marriage advice that seems to always boil down to: the woman is at fault.

When you’re divorced, there’s this unspoken assumption that you’re supposed to miss the companionship. Sometimes its self-imposed in an attempt to justify why you got married in the first place. Was the companionship worth it? In my case, no. “Companionship” seemed to involve a lot of tiptoeing, a lot of disappointments, and a lot of feeling eclipsed. It was the sort of companionship that makes watching TV alone feel more restful and fulfilling. So I don’t miss it.

Speaking of TV, I bought a new one for my birthday and set it up in my bedroom. After years and years of hearing all about how TV is brainwashing, I now have it playing almost constantly. I love brainwashing. Can’t get enough of it. I want to be brainwashed day and night. Yup, that brainwashing sure feels liberating.

Even though my income is a fraction of what it used to be, I feel like I have more money now that every purchase is no longer subjected to someone else’s gaze. Anyone who thinks that it only matters if you have something to hide has never lived under that perpetual scowl of disapproval. It’s the sort of thing that becomes clear in its absence, how something as simple as a facial expression can suck out so much joy and motivation.

About Me

The Hidden Fragility in Narcissistic Relationships

Autumn

It’s their fragility that gets you.

You know perfectly well the bravado with which they present themselves to the world — it was the first thing that you saw about them, and probably what drew you to them in the first place. But as time passed by, you began to sense that fragility inside of them. The bragging and exaggerations began to seem more and more like a coping mechanism, to hide how easily they could break inside. There was so much about ordinary life that they couldn’t handle.

And you never wanted to break anyone.

So you helped to maintain their public image. After all, most people were complete strangers that you were likely to never see again, so it would be mean-spirited to demean someone you cared about over an exaggeration. You picked up the slack at home, taking on all the chores and obligations, while they seemed to spend so much time socializing and engaging in leisurely activities. Sometimes you resented them, but their fragility kept you from acting on it; you were the stronger one.

You can’t lash out at someone who’s so weak and vulnerable.

So you endure.

And the more you know them, the more childish they seem. Instead of equal partners, you’re the parent, constantly cleaning their messes and boosting their self-esteem. They even cry out, “Look at me!” and you reply, “Wow, good job!” Only you don’t feel it inside, because you know that they aren’t a child. They aren’t growing, and they won’t ever become anything more than what they are. They don’t take your words of encouragement as motivation to improve — they insist that they’ve reached perfection already. You tell them “good job” because it would break them if you didn’t.

You aren’t a mean person.

They never look at you. They never tell you “good job.” You work hard, you miss sleep, you devote every moment to trying to build them up, and they never seem to notice. On the other hand, they have huge reactions for every moment when you slip — and they extract every last ounce out of you without any forgiveness or leniency. You feel ignored and scrutinized at the same time. You have to be everything in your loneliness, and sometimes you wish that you were a literal robot free from your own emotions. It would be easier if you didn’t feel so much.

But you can’t leave, because they’re so fragile. You imagine them sitting in garbage and mold, wasting away without someone there to care for them. Who else would put up with this person once they learn the truth about them? You aren’t heartless.

You feel like a bad person for thinking that way.

Until the day when they tell you that they’re bored of you. They tell you that you held them back and wasted their life. They tell you that you abused them by being a separate person from them — but inside you know how much of yourself you lost to them. You know how much you sacrificed in trying to protect them from their own fragility.

It hurts. Deeply.

You then learn how many manipulative games they had been playing to keep you off balance. That time when it took them months to make you a copy of the house key, claiming that they kept forgetting because they were busy? Or when they went through that phase of talking in a quiet voice that was difficult to hear, only to insist that they were speaking normally? You begin to wonder if they were secretly hiding dishes then returning them to the drawers and cupboards, just to make you feel like you were losing it when you could never find what you needed. Maybe there was more truth to those paranoid moments of doubt than you realized at the time.

They’ve thrown you away, and you’re left wondering who you really are. You don’t know what’s real anymore, and you’re scared to think anything good about yourself. You feel drained and damaged. You don’t know what you want out of the future.

You learn that it’s called “narcissistic abuse,” and that there are a lot of other people out there who have gone through the same thing. For the first time in a long time, you no longer feel alone.

That’s where your healing begins.

You learn that it's called "narcissistic abuse," and that there are a lot of other people out there who have gone through the same thing. For the first time in a long time, you no longer feel alone. That's where your healing begins.

About Me

Embracing Self-Confidence Post-Divorce

Autumn

I’ve been feeling really good about my physical appearance lately.

I find it very affirming that divorced me has healthier coloring and less bloating. Divorced me is more confident in my own body. Divorced me is better at socializing with complete strangers.

Not that I’m claiming rampant improvements across the board. I still haven’t figured out a huge portion of my life, so being able to smile at my reflection in the mirror feels like a small win.

I think that I’ve been doing a lot of internal improvements, particularly with rewriting my internal self to embrace the idea that I don’t have to be invisible. I’ve been working to join the “warm social world,” and have been pleasantly surprised at how many people respond positively to my comments about the weather (and other various small talk topics). Instead of being constantly self-critical and internalizing far too much, I just aim to be friendly and curious, and let everything else be as it is.

Awhile ago I mentioned that I’ve been trying to emulate what I think a strong and admirable character would do in my shoes. I admit that I feel plenty of pressure to throw myself out there and pursue success (why haven’t you found a real job yet?), but I think it’s important to fix the parts of me that led me to rock bottom, so to speak. Otherwise I might end up playing out the same story with new costumes.

And when I think of myself as the bleeding heart who was terrified of the spotlight, I realize how inevitable my fate was.

Not that I want to stop being empathic and supportive. Rather, I know that I need to do a better job of letting people go when I get bad vibes from them — something I witnessed in myself more recently when I kept a conversation going with someone who I strongly felt like they had huge red flags surrounding them, and I absolutely hated talking to them. I probably should have ghosted them, but I kept feeling guilty every time I didn’t reply.

So I really want to internalize the idea that it’s not wrong to protect myself from people who clash with me. It’s not wrong to prioritize people who make me feel safe to be around.

I don’t have to be the one who’s always understanding. I don’t have to be the one who’s patient and never gives up. I don’t have to be anyone’s savior — and I have learned to acknowledge the hubris that drives that particular ideology in the first place.

Phrases like, “No one understands me” are red flags, not challenges. Don’t try to be better and prove otherwise. Save the empathy and support for someone who appreciates it.

About Me

Finding Purpose After Divorce: A Personal Journey

Autumn

A divorce was a huge blow to my philosophical foundation.

For my entire life, I was unapologetically a believer in Love. After all, I had Venus in Pisces in my astrological chart, so there was no chance that I wouldn’t go through life full of whimsy and romance. If you do your best to be good to someone, then they’ll be good to you in return, right? Cue happily ever after?

Except … no.

Maybe the world isn’t full of people who are trying to do their best. Maybe there are too many personality disorders who are all too willing to exploit others. Maybe selfish transactional-ism is the law of the land, and you should never believe anyone who claims otherwise.

And maybe there is no such thing as partners for life anymore. Maybe society is just too broken.

Throughout the entire process, I stated repeatedly that I didn’t want a divorce and that I opposed the idea, but he had done something back in April (that I haven’t the guts to talk about) that resulted in an enormous amount of social pressure on me to go through with it. From complete strangers, to boot. And given that he was solid in his decision to dump me, there wasn’t anything to fight for. Everyone around me said that it was for the best.

Worldview be damned.

But then, what do I believe in now?

One of my biggest fears is to end up as a bitter old woman, that people get together and blow off steam about over coffee because I’m that difficult to put up with. So eventually I have to find a new purpose — that is my end goal here.

And it dawned on me that my philosophical foundation was bigger than I had previously realized.

I’m still a mother, still doing my best day after day to love and support my children, homeschooling them, sharing in their interests, and cleaning up after them — my first duty is to them and their well-being.

I still have an image of the sort of person I want to be, full of life and optimism, wise yet forever untainted by the hardships of life.

Maybe my happily ever after doesn’t include a male partner, but I’m not lonely. I still have people to love, and who love me in return. I can still have an open heart.

Life doesn’t run a clear course
It flows through from within
It’s supposed to take you places and leave markings on your skin

Poets of the Fall – Love Will Come to You

About Me

Embracing Change: My Journey After Divorce

Autumn

It’s been a very bad year.

I’m still pretty scared to talk about specifics, so suffice to say that I had a plethora of brand new experiences, met a variety of people, and stepped well outside of my comfort zone in ways that I never would have imagined.

Oh, and I’m also now divorced.

Turns out that you can spend years working your butt off to love and care for your soulmate, only to have it turn out that you’re the wrong “context” for them and they don’t want to be with you anymore. Oh, and they also loathe the way you state the obvious. And the way you associate concepts together. And, and, and …

Maybe one day my heart will stop hemorrhaging.

You know all those statistics that claim that women fare better emotionally after divorces? Not true in my case. Aside from the soul-crushing devastation, there’s the intense feelings of betrayal and rejection, as well as feeling like a defective failure at life. Did this happen because I’m too fat? I dunno. Better stop eating just in case.

Only I know I’m not fat. It’s the stress and pain triggering body dysmorphia — my subconscious attempt to take control of something that’s completely out of my control. Even if I weighed only 90lbs and had the flattest abs in the world, I’d still be discarded. I’m still “that” woman.

So I’ve spent hours and hours crying until I was too dehydrated and exhausted to keep crying. I’ve had numerous meltdowns, and moments when it felt like I didn’t have the strength to keep living. Life doesn’t come with a pause button that lets you get your feet back underneath you, it just keeps plowing ahead no matter what’s going on, and getting dragged along leaves you feeling even more banged up.

Then one day I woke up and I felt like eating again. So it is true that time does eventually heal some wounds.

Though I am now dirt-eating poor.

I looked into getting a job or attending an online community college, but those options didn’t feel remotely right for me. You know how it is when everything you built up over the years gets abruptly yanked out from underneath you, you feel trapped in an aimless free fall where absolutely nothing could possibly get worse than it already is, and you say to yourself, “Well, I did always want to earn a living as a writer.”

That’s what I’m going to do.

I’m going to earn a living as a writer. It’s not just about getting by, but finding a new purpose in life — a reason for everything, and a means to express the hurt.

When I feel sad, I can research and implement marketing tactics to keep myself distracted (especially now that I know that I can survive far outside of my comfort zone). I can write about how much I hate men in my novels (facetious exaggeration, don’t take that seriously). I can start churning out as much fiction as I can possibly write, and I will build a new life for myself that can’t be unraveled so easily. And I will do it all while still cooking delicious dinners and homeschooling my children, because I can be that awesome no matter how hard it is. Sleep is overrated anyway.

I’ve spent the last few months telling myself over and over, “If you want things to be different, then you have to do something different.”

And I’m starting to feel ready to do something different.