I wondered a while back when I wrote “The Roots” on what it would be like to be interested in someone as a healthy minded person. I had started to dig up why I would repeat the same behaviors in relationships over and over and wondered how I could fix them, how I would know when I was ready. Now, I don’t think I would have ever really known and I don’t think I would have been able to scratch further past the surface without trying again. We don’t really encounter situations in our daily life that trigger the same wounds that intimate relationships do.
Reading back “The Roots”, I am proud. I am proud of the work I’ve done and the place I’ve come to. I’m one hundred percent grateful for the journey in its entirety to be where I am now. But to say it’s been a god damn doozy is an understatement.
Things finally came to a finite end over a month ago with my ex partner when I filed a protective order against him. I don’t care to speak on the events that led up to this at this time. The point is that it was over and for good. He legally could not speak to me, I was safe. I would wake up in the middle of the night shaking and repeat, “You’re safe, you’re safe. He’s not coming back. You’re safe.” until I fell back asleep.
This past November I went on a date with a man. Just a single date, I liked him. I had cataloged all the qualities he had that I valued and referred to him as ‘The Perfect on Paper Guy’ but had cut things off when I knew that, with my ex partner still in active addiction, I wasn’t emotionally available to pursue anything. I had too much respect for him, even then, to continue building a connection I couldn’t properly reciprocate at the time. I didn’t want to drag him through the mess my life was at that moment.
The Sunday after I filed the order, I didn’t wake up shaking. Instead I woke up from a dream about ‘The Perfect on Paper Guy’. (We’ll call him POPG for short) I hadn’t thought much about him since I cut things off and since I rarely remembered my dreams at that point, I was intrigued. I wondered if my subconscious was trying to tell me something: I was safe now. I could explore the idea of something new. I reached out and we hung out that night.
Dating as a mindful, healing person is a hellscape. Rewarding, challenging, and extremely healing but a fucking hellscape all the same. I am extremely grateful to my friends who have weathered this rollercoaster of emotions with me and listened to my rambling thoughts as I have walked myself through what my brain and body has experienced at every stage. Regulating my nervous system, reconnecting my mind to my body and sifting through what is my heart and what is my guard has been careful and sometimes excruciating work. I’ve had to be viciously honest with myself but also deeply loving to myself at the same time.
I had dived deep into attachment theory when I realized that every new time I felt connected to POPG, I could feel a visceral moment of shutting down. My subconscious would take over, flooding me with thoughts and feelings to drive me to detach and push him away.
Thankfully, with the mindfulness I have practiced to this point and the research into attachment theory, I could see these thoughts for what they were. I could take a step back and disidentify with them, take the time to calm my nervous system, and try again. Every time it has proved to build the connection stronger when I’ve consciously lowered my defenses and been patient with myself. And believe fucking me, I am grateful for his patience with this as well because it had to be extremely confusing and disheartening until I could fully communicate what I thought was happening with me in these moments.
I did realize after a week of spending time with POPG that I needed to let myself feel and ride the waves of the stages of grief over my ex partner until they settled. I was having a lot of conflicting emotions, a lot of guilt and shame over dating again when I was still quite sad over it all. This process didn’t take nearly as long as I thought it would, thank the fucking lord.
The moment I felt like my face broke the surface of the waters I had been drowning in and I took that first free breath will forever be one of the more poignant moments of my life. I felt the love I wrote on in “The New Way to See” break free again and expand back into my world view in one prismatic, euphoric burst. It was a normal, uneventful moment in reality but I felt like everything in my life went from black and white to vivid color.
With that new clarity and my head above water, I found more things were coming to the surface. Deeper insight was emerging with each wall that came down.
Last summer I bought a motorcycle. I took a class and I was absolutely awful at riding it. This was a challenge to my self esteem but I was able to take it in some jest and I was excited to keep trying. My ex partner and I were practicing riding together and I felt great. Until I dumped it twice in a row. I remember being overcome by so much anxiety in those moments that I could not physically make myself get back on the bike for the rest of the summer. I thought my pride was hurt, I was embarrassed. But going deeper, past the walls, I realize now how much different my reaction was when I dumped the bike in front of my ex partner versus when I did in the class. I could not laugh it off, I was paralyzed.
A year before this, my ex partner assaulted me when we were drunk in New York. I never really talked about it in depth until this past winter. Afterwards, I began to experience flashbacks and anxiety when I would attempt to dive deeper so I decided to leave it alone. I wasn’t ready, I concluded. Any emotions and feelings around it were locked tight. I was so disassociated during and after the event that I could barely access it in my brain.
But I would venture to guess that my true issue with the bike and my ex partner wasn’t necessarily the embarrassment of being bad at something in front of him, but the feeling of weakness that came along with it. Being weak in front of him was absolutely unacceptable to my nervous system. It sent the alarms blaring, “Get up, get up, get up! Stand up tall!”
In New York, he pushed me to the ground. My face hit a parked car and I landed on the street. I laid there, gazing at the gold reflection of the streetlights on the pavement, I could taste blood as it pooled behind my lips.
“How did this happen to me?” I wondered as I Iay there, paralyzed. Then, I felt him grab me and pull me up by my coat, putting me back on my feet and forcing me forward. I spit the blood onto my white fur coat, feeling around in my mouth to make sure my teeth were all still there.
Outside of the where we were staying, I sat on the curb. Still frozen, eyes down, I begged him to please leave me alone. Then I watched as his boot reared back and then came forward. He kicked me in the face, full force. I can still feel what the sole of his boot felt like on my skin in perfect detail.
I went reeling backwards and in slow motion, I felt my spine fill with steel. I was not going to lie there in the street like a pitiful mess. Eyes narrowed, jaw set, back straight, I sat back up and I looked at him dead on.
Eyes narrowed, jaw set, back straight.
Eyes narrowed, jaw set, back straight.
Eyes narrowed, jaw set, back straight.
The threat is over, he is not coming back. But anytime I feel weak, powerless, vulnerable: my eyes narrow, my jaw sets, my back is straight. I am hyper vigilant. I am ready to defend myself, to discard any threat to my safety. I will not be hurt, I will not be pushed down, and I will not feel sorry for myself. We have already established that weakness and pity has evoked disgust in me since I was a small child. This event and some after, I believe, has increased this tenfold.
The really fucking annoying thing about this is that the threat is over. But almost two years later, I am still bracing for it. As I have identified this feeling, I notice it often in many different types of situations. None are true threats but it turns out that I never really left New York, the girl with the iron spine is still there ready to defend the girl lying on the sidewalk.
I never wanted to be the person who would bring her old shit into new shit. But I think at this point it is almost impossible not to, we all have baggage we still have to work through. I am realizing now that I spent years with someone that I subconsciously never felt safe around, I never fully relaxed after New York. I never knew true safety until I filed that order. It was always, “What will I have to endure next?”
This state of being was normal for me, I never questioned why I was this way. I thought maybe I was just an aggressive person, I could work on that. I had, to a point. I was softer in public, on less high alert and I wasn’t having this reaction as often. But as I said, there are certain things intimate relationships will trigger far more than day to day interactions.
To return to the present: POPG has a real knack for bringing out things in me that I have kept locked behind defenses. Whether it’s just an inherent quality of his or my own natural reaction to feeling (and accepting) a new state of safety, I’m not sure. I lean towards thinking it’s both.
I do know that everytime I am more vulnerable with him, I must be mindful. If I feel my eyes narrow, my jaw set and my back start to straighten: I need to take a moment alone to relax, disidentify with the thoughts that come in, and know that this is my body and mind’s reaction to feeling unsafe in vulnerability. It is my subconscious trying to protect me. I know now with certainty that it has and will pass. I am no longer under threat, after all.
It has been well worth enduring the moments of discomfort. It has been worth questioning my thought processes. It has been worth pushing through. It is a gift and it is extremely eye opening to have moments of being truly seen as myself with no walls up. I am becoming comfortable with that, slowly. There are more and more moments of it all the time. It is also a gift to realize the beauty of being able to see someone else the same way.
Everytime past trauma clouds my vision, the sun peeks back through and I find myself wholeheartedly present in my True Self again.
The pitiful girl lying in the street, the girl with the iron spine, and the girl who lost her ability to see clearly becomes the girl who learned to love herself in weakness, the girl who knows what she fights for, and the girl who sees everything, all at once.
In my journey since “The Burning” my growth has always been inspired by clawing myself out of the toxic sludge I was mired in. Experiencing a connection with someone who evokes growth and healing by simply just being the person they are blows my fucking mind. I have never in my life wanted to better myself on a deep level simply just because the purity of another person’s soul inspires me to do so. Ready or not, I don’t think it matters in the end. I was ready to take on my own challenges that would come up head on. I was as ready as I was ever going to be.
No matter the outcome, I am grateful.
He wants to help me get back on the bike. Wish me luck!
