Breaking Past Relationships

Breaking Past Demons Continues…

Question from therapy: What past experiences and emotions are you ready to release and why?

When it comes to past experiences, I think I’d like to get rid of most, if not all of them. I’ve gone through a lot of trauma in my past and I feel like dealing with trauma has been a struggle and a challenge. Specifically, some past experiences are feelings of abandonment as a child. That’s how the borderline personality disorder started. It started with my parents’ divorce when I was eight. My mother was a recovering addict, and my dad gained custody of me. Furthermore, I have a half sister who was also taken away from me when my parents divorced. We have the same mother, but different dads. Her dad gained custody of her as well. Soon after the divorce and the emotional chaos, mom left. And she didn’t really return to my life until I was about sixteen.

For eight years, I lived with the belief that my mother didn’t care about me. I was distraught and alone, because my sister had been taken away from me. My dad worked nights, and ultimately, I was left to raise myself. My dad remarried. My stepmother was okay at first, trying to be kind and caring, when in reality she turned out to be a wolf in sheep skin. So, what does this boil down to for my childhood? What emotions do these memories dredge up?

Anger, hatred, fear, unworthiness, and so much more. The thought of being so alone as a child reinforced my loner persona. I enjoyed the solitude of not having people around and yet I craved the attention from friends and family as well. I wanted someone to fight for me to love me the way that I deserved to be loved. Being alone sucked.

As I grew up into the teenager years, I was artistic. I loved art, reading, writing and theater, even though I never tried out for the theater classes. I entered into my first relationship with a guy who was a church going guy but was a few years older than me. He had a truck. He hung out with me and my bestie at church and overall was a great guy, until he wasn’t. I’m not sure where that relationship went wrong.

I remember getting into a fight with him on my best friend’s birthday and being out in her backyard fighting with him. He wanted to dominate me, and I wanted nothing to do with anyone who wanted to control me. But I still cared about him, still wanted to be with him, even though everything inside of me was fighting to leave him. I remember tripping over a tree root and falling against it. I remember him pinning me to the ground and telling me that he could take me, right then and there. I hated him in that moment. I hated everything that he stood for, and I wanted nothing to do with him again.

Relationships have been difficult for me. I’ve had a hard time finding the balance between what is acceptable and what is not in a relationship. I want the relationship. I’ll dedicate everything that I am to the relationship, and then in the end it crumbles and falls through my fingers.

My second memorable relationship was with my high school sweetheart. We had everything planned out. He would go off to the military, I would follow suit behind, and we would have our family together afterwards. But that didn’t happen either. He went off to AIT training, was a heavy drinker, and slept with someone else. I was devastated, and again alone. I ended up leaving that relationship and almost immediately jumping into the relationship that has felt like it destroyed me.

The third relationship can be reflected in most of my writings on vocal so far. The relationship that lasted almost two decades. I always said to myself that I’d never let a man control me, but I did. I was so wrapped up in that relationship and emotionally gone that I couldn’t see myself anymore. I lost track of who I was and who I wanted to be. I lost track of me. And I never want to do that again.

So, what emotions, memories, feelings am I ready to release? All of them. I’m ready to let go of the male relationships in my life and find a relationship with myself. I want to discover what it’s like to get to know me again. The real me, not the loner who wants to remain an introvert. I want to discover my voice, discover who I’m meant to be.