Nobody tells you how to do this...

Content warning: abusive relationships

Hi my loves!

You might have noticed that I missed our regularly scheduled MJC-mail catch-up – it’s been a wild week of emotions over here and honestly I just haven’t felt able to make content as usual and pretend everything is fine.

I feel like I need to write something, and I’m going to write it here because you are my most supportive internet people, and I always value how gently you hold the things I share with you. This one probably needs a content warning for discussion of abuse within relationships – please read with caution and skip if you need to. 💜

Last week a woman came forward and publicly shared the abuse she’s experienced while dating my ex. How do you react to something like that?

If you’re like me, you start by wanting to validate her experience and let her know how much you believe her. You believe her because you know your own experience with this person, which you never shared much of publicly, but that you’ve been healing from for years.

You can’t help but go back over everything that happened, all the parts that align with hers, all the things you’ve pushed down to the back of your memory. You try to explain to the people around you why you suddenly can’t stop crying, why you feel so small and anxious and scared. How it somehow feels like you’re right there again, even though years have passed.

You write things and think about sharing them and then change your mind. You question your level of personal responsibility over and over – what’s the most helpful thing to do? Share every detail of your trauma across the internet? And what happens then? Can you handle that? Do you want that?

You talk to your therapist and your friends and your partner – they all tell you that you have to do what’s right for you. But there is so much fear attached to everything. You feel frozen. Like you can’t figure out the right thing to do but you also can’t move past it like nothing’s happening.

You take lots of deep breaths during therapy. “I can tell that this hasn’t been good for your nervous system”, your therapist says.

You go home and try to have a normal weekend with your sister, try to make her smile and laugh and not be impacted by the storm you’re trying to navigate. You have confusing phone calls and messages from people who want you to say nothing and people who want you to say something. You cry some more, and doubt yourself and feel stuck.

You try to take care of yourself – move your body and eat your meals and write your morning pages. You try to focus on just that, until you feel more like yourself again. Until you remember that you are not the small, broken woman you once were when you were with him. You have worked harder than anybody knows to rebuild yourself and move forwards. You may have been temporarily pulled back into that pain and fuckery, but you don’t have to stay there. You don’t live there anymore. Thank god for that.

So, this is where I am now. Remembering who this current version of myself is: what she loves, what she wants, what she’s working towards. Sinking back into this life and putting the old one down for now. I might choose to pick it up again; I might choose to share more or I might not. But right now is for coming back home to myself, where I deserve to be.

I hope you’re all at home as well. 💜