The Haters

The very first time I came across this Brene Brown quote, I fell in love with it. I remember thinking it applied to Peter and his family and the way I was being portrayed in our divorce---as the cold, unloving wife who left her husband because he had lost his belief in God. They had no idea what he had put me through or what life was like in our home. And more importantly than that, for a while they didn't know HE was the one to leave ME.

He conveniently left out that detail and they didn't find out until right before our divorce was final and I told his dad during our divorce settlement meeting. {Fun times...}

I digress...

A lot of people have hurt me in my life and unfortunately, I've come to fear it and expect it. That doesn't make it hurt any less and the problem with that is that it takes a lot out of me to keep my relationships genuine. It is so freaking exhausting sometimes.

Tonight I was reading through the first few months of writing in this blog {I started it a year ago this month!} and I came across some words that I wrote that have fit perfectly with where I'm at right now.

"Today my writing taught me something I hope to never forget---I cannot rely on the actions of other people to determine my life. I am fighting against the urge to hate Peter. I am fighting against the urge to swear at him and post nasty things about him all over the internet. I am fighting the urge to lay in bed all night and cry. I am not a hater. And I am not going to become something that I'm not just because someone hurt my heart."

That last sentenced pierced my heart tonight because it is exactly what I've been trying to remind myself of all week. When she turned on me, I didn't gossip about her. In fact, I was still worried about her.

I still am.

And when she came at me a week later with more hurtful words, I stood up to her but I didn't gossip about her. I didn't run to our mutual friends and tell them how horrible she is. I didn't try to get people on "my side".

Sadly, she did. Her support system was most of our mutual friends and as she started believing and saying horrible things about me, she was saying those things to them and almost all of them stopped contacting me.

This hurt me a lot to realize.

I wish our mutual friends would displace their shock with questioning. I wish any one of them would've come and asked me for my side of the story. But they didn't. She's told them too many things about the type of person that I am for them to hear me out.

I've lost so many friends in the past few weeks.

But I have not hated on her. I have not written nasty things about her or tried to build up my own gang to counteract her allies. That isn't who I am. And I refuse to become someone that I am not just because someone hurt my heart.

It's as simple as that.

So many times, I've wish I could yell at her and our other friends who have believed her. I wish I could tell them how hurt I am but I don't think it would make a difference.

This is genuinely me. I am trying to trust that tonight. I am trying to believe that I am a good person and counteract the voice in my head that tells me I am innately selfish and horrible.

Hello, Ed

Fighting is hard.
I feel this sense of pressure that I'm supposed to be fighting for myself every day and a lot of times, it's too much. It is too damn much.

People say I'm strong. I even say I'm strong. But at night, when I think back on the day and the amount of times I gave in to my eating disorder, I realize just how weak I am.

I don't know if the trauma from the past month has made it worse but I feel like Wendy all of the time these days---obsessing over my food intake, purging many times a day, looking in the mirror and seeing fat fat fat fat fat fat fat and a whole lot of ugliness, weighing myself in the morning and wanting to throw the scale out the effing window.

I act like I'm fine. Am I fine? I feel fine. I feel like this is who I'm supposed to be. I feel like if I can just lose weight, I'll be happier than ever before. I believe that. I remember last March/April when I was going to the gym daily and starving myself or obsessively purging. I was beginning to look better. I was beginning to feel in control while simultaneously getting out of control---irony? Sure.

I think that's the thing I hate most about eating disorders. I crave the control but after a while, I lose control. But in a weird twisted way, the loss of control also feels good because my brain is saying, "This is what you've wanted! This is total commitment and you will love yourself soon.".

Soon?
When does "soon" happen? Does it end with the specific amount of weight I've dubbed as "worthy" of my approval? Or will the number just get lower each time I reach a goal?

I don't know. She used to tell me it never ended, that I'd never be satisfied. But I don't believe her. My brain doesn't believe her. It believes Ed.

Ed hasn't ever left me the way other people have. Ed hasn't ruined my life. In fact, he tries to fix my flaws and I like that. I like that when I give in to my eating disorder, I'm fixing myself to become more worthy of life and love and happiness.

My counselor pointed out that I've always equated my worth to weight and that is true. It feels like the two things go hand in hand for me. Do I think that about everyone around me? No. But for myself, weight matters.

If I was skinny, my stupid flaws and mistakes could be overlooked by someone. This is just logical to me. If I was what the world perceives to be "hot", I would be more attractive and people would want to get to know me better. I feel like this whole "I'm an overweight mother of 2" thing is a real downer for most of the men I meet. Because who would want to take all of that on for someone who looks like me?

I feel oddly out of control and in control right now. I feel like I deserve this, like this is just the life I was meant to live. The aches and pains of an eating disorder are worth it when the numbers on the scale get lower.

With everything going on, this seems like the only little piece of control I can have. Everything else is being pulled out from underneath me. People who I loved no longer love me. I need this. I need Ed.

My Character

When someone tries to defame your character, you are left with a few different choices. And the thing is, a lot of the choices seem scary and messy.

You can cower down and lose confidence. You can put your trust in the accuser and wonder whether you are really, truly a bad person. 

Or you can do nothing. You can ignore it and live your life, cutting that person out to keep yourself safe from future hurt.

Or you can fight. You can become pissed off and possibly go bat-shit crazy on the person. You can attack their character right back. You can try and hurt them how they've hurt you.

Or...

Or you can fight for YOURSELF. This is different than fighting with the person. You can stand up for yourself when you are attacked and you can prove the person wrong. You can live your life, showing the world your character. You can have compassion for the persons anger and set boundaries that keep you from further harm as much as possible. 

And if you pick the fourth choice, which in most situations I would recommend, you will find who you're real friends are. 

They are the people who hear horrible things about you and question them. They are the people who come and ask you for your side, even if they don't agree with you in the end. They listen and they don't attack you. They don't believe things about you just because someone told them to. 

This is where I'm at right now. A lot of days, I struggle with trusting anyone---because I trusted her with all of my vulnerability. All of it. The deep stuff. The messy stuff. The happy stuff. I was transparent and I still got hurt so deeply. 

So it's hard to feel like I can trust any of my friendships to be genuine. But I'm doing it. I'm fighting for myself and part of that is continuing to trust the people in my life who have supported me. 

Because this trial is not going to ruin me. I won't let it. 

Yes, it has changed me. It has made a lot of things feel horrible and it has left me with a great amount of fear. And fear is hard for me because I live every day with an anxiety disorder that sometimes takes control. 

But ever since that day a month ago, I have worked. And that's all I can do. It doesn't matter that it still feels so scary and messy. It doesn't matter that I'm often afraid or feel anger. Because I'm trying. I'm trying a little bit each day. 

I'm trying to build a relationship with God because I'm putting my faith in the Spirit and it's ability to help me discern safety. 

I can't forget the power of the Spirit and the help my God gave me that day or in the weeks since. I've been so angry with Him but He didn't leave when I yelled. In fact, He surrounded me with extra comfort when I yelled and blamed and asked why. He loves me unconditionally. 

I know I can trust in that.

And I refuse to let this ruin my trust in the people who genuinely love me and support me. I refuse. 

Because I am a good person. I know I did everything I could in the best way I knew how at the time. 

Yes, in hindsight, I'd change a lot of things but that wasn't possible at the time...because I didn't know any of this back then. 

Hindsight

I've heard people say that hindsight is 20/20 and after this week, that seems to be the reoccurring theme in my head. 

Because in hindsight, I would've trusted myself from the beginning. 

In hindsight, I would've asked Peter about porn years ago.

In hindsight, I would've trusted other people a lot less.

In hindsight, I would've leaned on my family because no one else is guaranteed to stay in my life forever.

In hindsight, I would've started working sooner and never babysitting.

In hindsight, I would've realized that helping people could end up devastating my life.

In hindsight, my kids come first and nothing else matters, including serving or money or time...the kids always come first.

In hindsight, safety isn't ever completely safe.

Because in twenty seconds, your life can be dramatically altered. Twenty effing seconds. 

With my divorce, that was always a struggle for me. Because all it took was one phone call to confront Peter in a lie and he was gone, never to live again in our home. One phone call. One regular Saturday afternoon where everything felt normal. 

It all came crashing down in seconds. 

And in those seconds, my faith and hope came crashing down too. I have lived with a lot of fear since that day. I have feared trusting people. I have feared being good enough. I have feared being vulnerable with other people. 

But I did it anyway. I trusted. I love(d). I worked really hard to be vulnerable. I gave so much time and energy. And none of that changed my world from crashing again. 

And I don't know who I'm most angry at. Not myself. That is for damn sure. I have found my trust in myself. I've got that. But I'm angry that God would allow this to happen when he knew it would break me. I'm angry that my relationships were altered...every single one of them in some way. I'm angry that I was vulnerable and reliable. Why was I killing myself to be so reliable for others? 

The only answer for that I have is boundaries. I've always struggled with them. I would give and give and give to others before thinking about what's best for me. 

My heart is huge. Today I know that. I am confident in the person that I am. I know she did her best. I know she has loved and tried her hardest. 

And now it's time to stop trying. It's time to worry about my own family and nobody else. It's time to take a step back and analyze my priorities because they certainly weren't in the correct order and for that reason, I was burned pretty badly. 

So now I get to start over. I get to rebuild myself. I get to find out more about myself and learn to love that girl because honestly, she is the only person I can trust right now. 

And I'll do it. I'll figure out what that looks like. I'll evaluate how much religion and friendships and family play a role in all of this. I'll evaluate my time, my priorities, and my opportunities. Maybe it will all change. Maybe a lot of it will stay the same. But my goodness, it is time to reevaluate. It's time to stick up for myself and fight back. 

It's time to show the world that although I was buried, I will sprout up out of the ground and become the strongest damn tree in the forest.