#letting go

[iamalittleufo]

A little walk at sunset 💜🩷🧡

[help-my-relationship]

My bf(21M) keeps pushing me (21F) away, comes crawling back and I stupidly fall for his promises every time

My (ex) bf(21M) and I (21F) had been together for a year before I broke it off a couple months ago. We didn’t fight, we didn’t hate each other, I was just tired of him running away everytime things got a little hard. After a couple weeks weeks we started talking again, purely logistics (him picking up his stuff, that kind of things) and it felt right again. We both admitted that we wanted to try again and he admitted that our last conversation was him running away again. Some backstory about our breakup: He got to comfortable, didn’t take me on dates anymore, didn’t make me feel special, loved or desired. But as stupid as it sounds that wasn’t what did it for me. Everything is great, we were just great. He put in the effort, showed me I was important to him AND communicated in a healthy way about everything that bothered us. He told me that him saying that he didnt want to do it was actually him running away from his problems. He thought it was an easy fix and regretted it when he calmed down. Now if this happened once its still messed up but I could forgive that, but it happens all the time now. Everytime he’s stressed, he runs away. But when he comes back he promises me the world, tells me everything I want to hear and i stupidly fall for it every single time. When im upset, he gets stressed and runs away from me. Runs away from his problems. I forgave him so many times but I’m tired. Today he did it again and I just broke down. I dont feel save when I express my feelings, because everytime I do I’m scared he’s going to run away again. I miss feeling important enough to keep in his live. I dont feel loved anymore because when he feels bad thats the only thing he can focus on. I miss feeling like I matter, I miss feeling special. I really don’t know what to do. I’m not sure if I just accept more disrespect because of the way my parents treated me or that I’m actually dense but I need advise about what to do in this position. Has anyone been in a situation like this? Does anyone have any advise for me?

You stay because you're getting something* from this relationship that you're not getting elsewhere. Once you can figure out what that is and either take steps to get that thing or accept that it's okay to be without that thing for a while, then you'll leave. Ie, you'll leave when you're ready to leave.

*Something could be...companionship. If you don't have any friends or many close friends, leaving this relationship could be very scary, overwhelming, and lonely. The first step could be to joining a hobby group or volunteer group and meeting new people.

Something could be...just plain the feeling of being in a relationship and not having to be single. It might be a good next step to get into therapy or pick up the book Single on Purpose and figure out how to start living as if you're a whole person by yourself or confront whatever fear it is you have of not being in a relationship.

Something could be...really stellar sex. A good toy and some exploration could help solve this or you might just need to get to the point where the shit of the relationship overcomes the dopamine of the great sex.

Something could be...hope that if you can fix this relationship, it means you can fix something else in your life (such as a familial relationship) or that some struggle was all worth it. Again, therapy for help letting go and moving on could be good here, too.

Etc. The point is: you're human. There's no evidence or reason to believe this relationship is ever going to make you happy at this point, but you're in it because you're getting something from it, even if you don't know what that is. Give yourself a break. When you're ready to leave the relationship: you will. And none of the time spent here is a waste because it's time that you needed. Time you learned something about yourself and your needs. Time that was gonna pass anyway.

Good luck.

[concord-keep]

Life Goes On

Below: alter conversation about past friendships falling out, how we ended it badly, and the different perspectives on that.

Lesson learned: not every ending is clean and neatly resolved. Sometimes finding closure comes from within yourself.

You never called. You never texted. You never found the time to talk outside of meet ups. You might as well have stopped going to those too. You were so distant.

🐋 I understand, Rosie. You never felt like I was putting in enough effort. I was never the first to reach out.

I get it, but...

I needed a friend. I really needed a friend. My home life was bad, and I really needed my friends there for me then. You left and it all blew up. It was sad. And it made me really angry at you.

I never thought you'd do something like that. I felt really betrayed.

💎 I understand, Rosie.

🪭 I lost it when someone close to me left the group without saying goodbye. I felt so mad at him.

It was never about that.

It was about the way you acted. More than anything else.

🪭 It was... almost two years ago now. In a month it'll have been two years ago that I left you.

A lot of psych work has been done in that time. I feel differently about myself and how I'd handle certain situations. I also feel like we're less triggered than we used to be. We've made some moves towards recovery. The alters that left you back then aren't the same alters who work and live this life now.

I honestly feel that. I feel that so hard. You've done so much work! You should be proud of how far you've come! I mean it.

But at the same time, your body still did that and you need to stop disowning the fact that it "wasn't you" that did all those things to your friends.

It was an older version of you, but it was still you.

🪭 The alters active back then... Jake, Andrew, Abel... they cared about one thing and one thing only... keeping the trauma hidden. We've stopped doing that, and have actually started confronting it and working through our emotional issues, so I don't think it's the same anymore. If I were to talk to people now, I'd react totally differently, I wouldn't be avoidant of talking about certain things, and my first response to anything challenging wouldn't be to freeze up and say nothing.

That's part of the problem! You always said nothing. Then you'd blow up about it later!

You could never have a conversation about anything that triggered you without blowing up.

🛟 Here's a question to you.

Were you not basically the same way?

I honestly feel like you too got super defensive and always reacted in a combative way. The reason she blew up in the first place was because she always had to fight to be listened to. Everyone basically always shut her down, so she grew increasingly frustrated, even when her attempts to communicate were calm and polite.

💙 I guess I felt ...

I don't know. I don't know why she reacted that way. I'm not actually her! But I felt like she probably felt ...

I just feel like we did everything wrong!

🪭 Maybe you need to learn that some people do you wrong, and that you shouldn't take the blame for it.

Life goes on. People change.

Yes, Rosie's life was honestly really hard and horrific, but. It doesn't mean we need to look the other way...

💙 I guess I felt like I was the one to blame, and not them.

They all left me. I might have made the first step away. But they never tried to reach out to resolve anything. I never felt like they cared less in that moment of my life.

I wanted them to ask me to stay! I wanted them to reach out! They didn't even bother! They immediately got mad and never even asked how I felt! They spoke to me through my other friend and totally villainized me.

🔊 How did it feel to know they cared less than you thought they did?

💙 It felt really bad! I thought we were closer than we used to be. I felt good about our friendship. I felt more connected to them when we met up and felt more myself.

But they told me that they felt like they didn't even know me. They told me that they wouldn't be able to list off a single thing they knew about me as a person. It felt bad. She said, "Are we even friends?"

I felt that way because I felt like you never told us a lot about yourself. I just wanted you to open up more and be less ...

💙 I felt like I was talking more and being less shy. I really felt like I'd made strides socially and was doing better to feel more connected. It really hit my confidence to be told that it was only me that felt that way. I used to barely talk. I really felt like I was doing better!

I never really knew you to begin with. That's how I felt about you.

🔊 Never really knew you, huh? That's cold. Considering how long we knew each other.

I felt like I was the one ostracized in the group dynamic. You loved to bully me. And yet, as adults we remained friends. It created a weird divide in my mind, and I saw the you as adults and the you as teenagers as totally different people. They treated me a totally different way. So those two periods of time became totally separated in my mind.

It was a protective instinct, to separate the different sides of a person who treats you poorly in your mind. You have one part of your mind only remember the good times. Then another part keeps the bad times away from all the others.

That was what happened. I was at odds with myself. My friends are different now, but they used to treat me bad, and I still carry the pain.

I saw it as... the pain had to be buried inside. It was hard to acknowledge it when I had to remain friends with them, and see them as different people now.

Another alter crept in. But it felt like mostly me writing this. Parts of it were definitely: 🏀

Anyway. I think that's all we can unpack for today. Please come back another day.

⛓️‍💥 Another aspect, in my opinion, was that our trauma... our programming, made it impossible to talk about certain subjects. I had a fear of punishment wired into me.

It's hard to really hold it against... them, when I know they acted and reacted that way because they literally had no way to speak up.

Can you really put all the blame on them, considering the circumstances? Them meaning... the us that isn't the current us. Them, the alters back then.

🔊 That really is all we have time for. But you have a point. Are we really solely to blame?

💠 I find it hard to believe so.

I never thought of that side of the subject. I was only focusing on the way you reacted and conducted yourself, to be honest.

I never thought of that layer to the issue. It makes it a lot more complicated to place the blame when we think... well, our friends were just desperate for us to speak up and connect. But from our perspective, our trauma was deep enough that what we had currently was a deeper connection than we ever had.

The silencing mechanisms and the deep level of fear was still in place, and it felt impossible to talk about anything more than we currently were.

🪭 I personally think they have some real nerve.

She outright told you she wanted you to talk about your trauma, in the form of an emotional outburst.

Then no-one talked about it afterwards and pretended it never happened!

Really. The nerve.

I really am sorry for how I've pushed you like this to reconnect with her. With all of them.

They had a hand in the friendship ending too. I'm sorry for putting the blame all on you.

It was a complex issue with no real source of blame.

I'm sorry. I'll drop it now. Pretending we can reconnect after two years is a little foolish. I didn't realise that much time had passed, to be honest with you.

I'm not your friend. Just a bystander that wanted you to take accountability. But I can see it was a more layered issue than I was originally seeing.

I was seeing a limited perspective. A clouded recount.

I'm sorry.

[baringmysoul]

I always wondered what would happen if I let you loose me, always wondered what would happen if I let myself need more

Might fuck around and elevate my expectations?! Cuz I'm fine, to leave you in a past life

[healingspacejournal]

you don't miss him. you miss the way he said your name.

you don't miss him. you miss the way he said your name when he walked through the door. that specific stretch of syllables, in that specific voice, like it was the best part of his day just by default.

it's never the big things that get you. it's the small ones. the way he'd glance over during some boring conversation like the two of you were in on a joke nobody else could hear. the exact rhythm of his laugh. the three seconds before he said anything at all.

those are the things your brain kept. not the relationship, not the timeline of it, not even most of the conversations. just a handful of tiny, specific moments it filed away without asking you first.

and it's confusing, because missing something that small shouldn't feel this big. except it's not small. it's specific. and specific is the part that's actually hard to replace, because nobody else does it exactly that way. nobody else ever will.

that doesn't mean he was right for you. it just means memory doesn't grieve relationships. it grieves details.

if you're in that stage right now, where one exact detail keeps outweighing every reason you had for leaving, that's not your judgment failing you. that's just what memory does when something specific gets left behind.

more on this over at healing space, if you want it: HEALING SPACE LINK

you're allowed to miss the sound of your name in his voice and still know you made the right call.

[bluspills]

I saw it coming, and so I closed my eyes. Sometimes, when you love something, you’ll let it happen regardless of your feelings about it. Sometimes, you have to let go whether you want to or not.

I have left claw marks on everything I have ever loved and I’ve realised that hurting something does not make it stay, carving yourself into their soul will not fix anything - what you’re actually doing is carving them into yours, and the only person you will affect by doing such is yourself.

Leaving claw marks on something does not make it yours, and fighting for something does not mean that it will stay.

- BM

[socialbutterfly19]

In my feels and I have this song on repeat