Lost in the chaos…
I spoke in an earlier post about my struggles with female friends. During that time period, there were a couple of friendships that really triggered me. The conversations seemed to have an energy behind them. There seemed to be undercurrents of things unsaid, and even the things said felt provocative, interrogative, almost confrontational. So those things added to the trauma from that December intensified my anxiety.
I literally began to feel unnerved. Like I was being watched…viewed as guilty of something…bad….poked at emotionally…and unsafe. Maybe the weird energy was mine projected on them. Maybe it was both. I know that after almost losing Ed, and realizing I couldn’t be the strong, self-sufficient island anymore, I was desperate to nail down a friend I could depend on. I felt lost in the chaos of life and started to question my sanity.
Future perspectives
The new therapist I would eventually move to the following year would help put this into perspective for me and diagnose what was really happening. I’ll write more about her later, but for now, I will just say she has been amazing.
While her assessment of me could have left me feeling broken and beyond hope, she has constantly reinforced how much I actually succeeded. On more than one occasion, she has told me that despite everything done to me, I somehow got through my life psychically intact. And somehow, skirted addictions and self-destructive behaviors.
On those last two, I will say, though, that I do consider those narrow escapes. More than once, I’d drowned my pain in too much alcohol at parties or at home, so it could have been easy to slide down that path. I think I only managed to avoid it for a few reasons.
For one thing, I just don’t think I was biochemically wired that way. Also, after a couple of really bad “binges” that made me sick enough, I decided not to do that to myself anymore. Regular therapy was certainly helpful, too, as were a couple of decent friends who supportively encouraged my decision to stop self-destructing. But just because I didn’t end up an alcoholic, I understand pain. And I have compassion for the agony of life’s crushing hurts, and how that could drive a person to seek an escape.
The last thing she noted as a success was that I did not get tangled up in abusive relationships with men. Given my background, she would have expected that to be the case.
Abusive and dysfunctional relationships
For some reason, I was very clear with myself about the men I chose to date — only gentle ones. Macho, domineering ones could take a hike…I was NEVER going to be at any man’s mercy again. I’d join a convent before I’d date one of those. And early on, I hadn’t even wanted to get married. Just live my life on my terms. The nature of my husband changed my mind.
But just recently, I realized there were dysfunctional relationships. It’s just that those were with women. And I’ve come to understand those were based on that DEEP “mother wound” I carried. I was looking for my mother in these relationships. Either to “save her” by saving friends that represented Mom, because I’d always felt bad when I left that house. I’d wanted to save her from him. Or to get her unattainable love. I think it was both. So unconsciously, I think I sought out the types of women who were like my mother.
While the draw for a strong female friendship was very intense most of my life because I’d had none, it was especially so after Ed almost died. On one level, that longing confused and terrified me. I’d always been thrown by how, even though I was interested in men, I ended up in a sexual relationship years ago with my friend and her husband. It haunted me because I still didn’t understand why that happened. That clarity would only come much later. So I was always looking over my shoulder in a way, wondering if I’d be blindsided again — a hypervigilant state of living.
The true hunger
What I hungered for was a meaningful emotional connection with women, a soulmate. A deep, loyal, “sister” relationship where I could open my heart, talk about the deep things in life, hear another woman’s perspective, and find total acceptance. Someone who was trustworthy and supportive…someone who was all the things I never had.
Because I wanted friends who could accept all of me, I followed that earlier therapist’s advice to not hide my past out of shame. She had recommended openness with good friends, and to trust that they could hear about my abuse, and even that sexual relationship with my friend, and not judge me.
And for me, I wouldn’t settle for less. I needed to put that out on the table. If someone was going to be a good friend, I wanted them to know the whole story and accept ALL of me. I didn’t want a “half-friend.”
Wrong choices
But the combination of all these varied emotions and traumas brought an intensity to my quest for friendship that I think attracted the wrong energy from others. I was reeling. And while not all were like this, some of the people who came had their own issues.
So, instead of choosing women who were grounded, with intact boundaries and capable of a true connection, I seemed to gravitate toward ones that were more like my mother, or like that earlier friendship. I was still learning what makes a good friend and good boundaries.
So I was still drawn to women with issues — emotionally unavailable, substance abuse and mental health issues, ones stuck in abusive situations, or even ones that, while I am not positive, may have “hit on me,” thinking I shared my past with them because I was open to another “dalliance.”
On that last note, if I did read those situations correctly, I was somewhat clueless at the time, as it only occurred to me later. I grew up never being the “object of someone’s pursuit,” and so I neither looked for it nor noticed it.
A funny example was the time a young man at a local grocery store kept flirting with me, and I didn’t even notice it. I was more irritated that he was bothering me while I went through my to-do list for the day, while the young girl checked out my groceries. It wasn’t until I was driving home that I realized what had happened. My husband and I had a good laugh when I said, “Guess what just happened to me?”
But my then-teenage son was irate that someone hit on his mother. On my next trip to the store, he accompanied me. I guess he felt it was his duty to defend his mother’s honor? As we walked in, he glanced around, and his question came out more like a growl: “So where is this guy?!” While his protection was unnecessary, I did sort of smile at his concern for his mother.
In any event, at that point in my life, I was still struggling to learn how to have healthy friendships. I didn’t yet understand my own power and that the answers to life were within me, not out there in others. And I hadn’t yet learned that if a relationship didn’t go well, it didn’t mean it was all my fault.
Hope on the horizon
Of course, those relationships would not end well, but at least I finally gave up on them. It took me a long time to realize that “standing by someone” is fine…up to a point. But not endlessly.
I was an emotional person with a wide-open heart, ready to give my all. I was still operating from a vulnerable, traumatized, and immature teen level of relationship awareness.
Also, I had believed in the maxim: “Greater love hath no man than that he lay down his life for a friend.” It is a worthy goal to aspire to. But I applied it with an idealistic, child-like simplicity in a very complex world. I hadn’t yet learned that not all relationships deserve that level of devotion.
Those changes were still a few months off, with a new therapist. But at least change would come.
I am seeking financial support to complete my memoir, work with an editor, and return home for fact-checking. Your help would mean the world to me as I take this step toward healing and giving voice to my journey.
Please like, comment, and share this post to help spread the word. The link for my fundraiser is on GoFundMe. Thank you for your support.
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment