Here's the thing...

Here’s the thing…

Healing from trauma is a motherfucker.

It is an ongoing, tedious process that never seems to end, even when you think you’re good to go. Whether you choose to seek professional help, take the self-healing route from countless conversations within yourself, you’re never completely 100% done with the work.

Here’s what I know… I haven’t spoken to my ex-husband in well over a year now, and it has been the loveliest sense of peace, but I found myself in a situation where (believe it or not) communicating with him was unfortunately the easiest option. I screwed up my courage, unblocked his phone number (blocking him on all platforms was the greatest decision next to filling for divorce), and composed a text message. While I was writing the text, I felt physically ill, sick to my stomach. I was acutely aware of the fact that I was lowering my voice (metaphorically) to match the person he knew me to be, the person he’d created, because I needed him to do something. Yes, that’s a basic manipulation, but I learned from the best (him), so whatever. As I hit send, I let out the breath I wasn’t aware I was holding, and didn’t have to wait too long for a response. A few minutes later, with shaking hands, I picked up my phone and read his response, which was the exact way I was hoping for and my problem was solved, almost.

The initial issue I needed to address was solved, but I knew I couldn’t block him straight away again, I knew I needed to continue to provide him “access” to me for the remainder of the day to make sure he would follow through on the rest of the issue (I wanted to throw up at this point). Just as I’d predicted, he reached out a handful of hours later, wagging his silver tongue accompanied by a picture of my dog (the one he took and continued to use to try to get a response or reaction from me like the prince he is). I was instantly furious. The unhealed parts of me wanted to scream through the phone and tell him what a righteous POS he was, but the healing version of myself set the phone down and left it alone until the morning. In the morning I calmly sent a concise response that wouldn’t elicit anger from him, but to let him know that I didn’t appreciate what he had done. The response I got back was an insincere apology and back-peddling ramble to try to keep me talking, but it didn’t work. I sent a one-line response calling him out (in a polite way) and haven’t heard from him since. Also… I immediately blocked him again after that.

This is all a long-winded way of saying that growth, healing, learning to place boundaries and how to operate within them will always take work. Shit isn’t easy, or it wouldn’t be called work. Something else to consider within growth and healing is feeling proud of yourself for the way you handle (outwardly and inwardly) a given situation. The old me would have let that gross feeling fester, would have let his late-night text steal my sleep and enrage my anxiety, but neither of those things happened, and for that I will be forever proud of myself. Big, big healing moment. Also, something I think worth mentioning, is that it’s okay to feel whatever way you may feel in a hard moment, but the big consideration is how you react. Not how they expect you to react. Self-reflection and realizations are powerful tools in the healing journey. Think about it, you talk to yourself all day long, so it may as well be productive.

*I originally wrote this piece a year ago, so its been well over two years since I’ve spoken with him and the block game is strong. *