Personal Responsibility

I've been abused. I've been lied to. I've been cheated on, manipulated, used, and then discarded when my 'use value' diminished. These things are not my fault. I was never an equal partner in a relationship with a psychopath. That is also not my fault. I never willingly entered a relationship knowing that I would give everything and get absolutely nothing of value in return. I was ready to have a happy, healthy, long term relationship. What I got was something entirely different, and it was not of my own making.

There are some things that are mine to own. First and foremost was my ability to minimize and ignore red flags. Those warning signs were there nearly from the beginning. Some of them I didn't even know *were* warning signs, that's true enough. But I knew not long into the relationship that the few boundaries I had were being pushed and that if I objected, I would be punished. (The silent treatment is the ultimate in punishment.) Instead of kicking the jackass to the curb I gave more and more to avoid the punishment, and it never worked.

I was so entangled in his life that I forgot I had one of my own. I forgot that I was a sentient human being with a voice and a mind of my own that worked quite well if I just used some of those critical thinking skills I knew I still had somewhere.

I put HIM ahead of me. Always. I neglected myself so badly.

I justified, I explained things away, I excused things I never should have, and I listened to the wrong people instead of my gut that was telling me to RUN.

Eventually I did run, but only when he began doing things that were so egregiously bad that I could not stay. I finally gave up, but only because there was nothing else I could do.

So now my personal responsibility lies in healing myself from the abuse. In order to do that, I have to get and stay real.

The first thing I did was go to my doctor and I was immediately prescribed meds as I was in crisis - just a big ball of negative emotions that affected me so much that simple acts like eating, sleeping, and taking a shower were too much to contemplate. You know you've hit rock bottom when you are sobbing uncontrollably in your MDs examining room.

Next on the list was to get a therapist. I don't know how I got so lucky to get in quickly when most of the therapists in this area have appointments filled months in advance. But I found her, and she was great. She did a lot of listening and she showed a lot of empathy. She listened to me talk about the ex, and all the things that had happened, and it was she who first used the word "sociopath". After about 4 visits she began directing me to stop obsessing about him so much and start working on me. Wallowing in the misery of HIM was not part of the game plan. I have a lifetime of shit to go through and my problems didn't just begin in 2010 with a psychopath. It's my responsibility now to work through all of those issues and do it effectively.

I've seen personally what NOT recovering, not healing, not working on the 'self' looks like, and it's not a pretty picture. I know what constantly making the same mistakes and not learning from them looks like. I know what giving up on life looks like. I don't want any of that.

It's my personal responsibility to work through what led me to a lifetime of being attracted to bad people, why I have had a lifetime of bad relationships, why I overlook red flags, what made me stay in these relationships far beyond their expiration date, and I have a responsibility to do all of this honestly no matter how much it hurts.

If I don't do these things, then I am surely going to either keep repeating the cycle or I will completely shut down and refuse to engage in relationships at all. Neither seems like a good option. I think I'll move forward, instead.