IN AN INSTANT, SOMEONE MUST BE BLAMED.
I read an article today about a couple that ran their ship aground locally. The wreck was so impactful that the boyfriend of the injured couple passed away and the girlfriend has a long road to recovery ahead.
What does that look like for them? 'A long road to recovery.'? Will each other's family get nasty and blame one another for what appears by all accounts to be a tragic wreck?
I am to the point where I have just now, almost 5 months after my partner's wreck stopped trying to assign blame. For me, I think it boils down to my not wanting to see that there simply would ever be a way to cast the blame for the suicide attempt. Any which way you transect it, it hurts. So what if his maternal family had a strong genetic predisposition to Personality Disorders? So what if his military career ending at his own hands made him sad? So what if co-parenting with his ex was unfair in his opinion? So what if I'd asked for a separation? It seems like I just didn't want to relinquish acceptance of what he had triangluated our respective families and his command with. The vocalization that I made him what to take his own life. Imagine for just a bit if it had been successful and he last uttered those words to outsiders to your marriage. The ones who didn't know behind their back he blamed them for the same feelings. Would they too have this vast expansive emotion to blame someone for the hurt they're being told they're responsible for? To shield themselves and their ego from the painful possibility that they may have done something slight, that this human took that thing an negatively spun it into a colossal snowball of pain and discontent that made the individual eventually attempt to unalive themselves? Would it be easier to blame someone else? Anyone else? Than to accept that trying to take one's life is NEVER an acceptable outcome for whatever someone is going through. That it's something so caustic and tragic that it rots families through and through....that no ONE particular person is to blame for that act. Just like this boat wreck I just read about.
But will the families of that couple have enough radical acceptance to garner understanding and acknowledge something that heavy can just happen. That assinging blame does nothing for the soured wounds. Deeply lacerating their souls after late nights in ICU Lounges, Early morning reports from a respective attending or the punch to the pocketbook that tends to land around incidents such as these?
Why is having a place to shift the focus of what "caused" such a devastating act so important? Why do we as humans instinctively tend to cast stones at the other home?
I think it's a fundamental protection of one's ego. So to let my ego die, I have to accept that ultimately the only one to blame for my spouse's wreck is the person that was behind the wheel. The person who chose to drive into a pole in lieu of marriage therapy. And I may have said something that left my lips entirely different than a way in which he interpreted and acted out on. The same could be said for someone at his office, or his family...and when you take into account how many interactions a human tends to have with others every single day I think it's easier to take a large step back and set your overweight ego down. THIS WAS NOT YOUR FAULT. TRAGEDIES DO JUST HAPPEN.
And now, now it's time to focus on the healing emotionally. To set boundaries. To offer love and support.
And remember...it's ok to tell yourself as many times as you need to: This was not your fault. It's ok to not be ok. It's ok to demand safety and respect from your partner. It's ok to remove a person from your orbit if they intentionally bring you pain and strife. It's ok to dig deep into therapy and take time apart to heal separately so that a lifelong marriage can work.
For successful gardens to bloom, one must simply grow where they are planted. Cultivate happy thoughts, and happy actions will follow.
#SuicideSurvival #PTSD #Borderline #Bipolar #AntisocialPersonality #AttachmentDisorder #NarcissisticAbuse #NarcAbuse #Narcissistic #NPB #BPD #Overachiever #Boundaries #Survivor #DomesticViolence #ItsOkNotToBeOk #MilitaryMentalHealth #MentalHealth #Miltok


















