(Personal thoughts type post, stuff about abuse follows)

Since the troll circus a couple days ago I’ve gotten something like a hundred private messages from people about their own similar experiences, with both anxiety and abuse. It’s so hard for me to believe there’s even people out there who haven’t experienced either.

In the case of my parents, they seem to have a different memory of events. They believed they hid most of their fighting, the suicide attempts, the drug and money problems from me and gave me a relatively cushy childhood, whereas I can remember blocking my door off with furniture while I heard bloodcurdling screams and objects smashing on the other side. There was a time one of them actually broke the knob off that door trying to get in and they see to have just no memory of that at all. They acted like they were off in some other world whenever these things would happen.

But they are totally, totally different people now. They’ve been divorced and in new relationships and doing great for some fifteen years, and now I care about them and look forward to seeing them and I’m more worried about the limited amount of time I’ll be able to keep visiting them than anything else. I have a ton of mental problems because of them, but they also do because of their own, even more unstable parents and I don’t feel bitter or angry about any of it.

I know I’m really really lucky that it turned out that way, though. Some of you still have shitty family and nowhere else to go, and they might never get better, but I hope you stay alive long enough to be able to leave and take care of yourself.

In the case of abusive relationships I’ve been in (at least two), I have it on pretty good authority that they’ve changed a whole lot too, and looking back, they definitely had no idea they made me feel that terrible. I don’t think of them as “toxic” or naturally “abusive people.” I don’t hate them, I’m not angry at them, not afraid of them and I’m really glad they’re happier and healthier, I really hope they’ll keep being okay.

Bad things were normalized for them by their own upbringing, and enduring bad things was normalized by mine, so I never even told them how seriously their actions and words were affecting me.  I just thought that was how life was, you know? People get mad and they tell you you’re worthless or they threaten you or they make you do things you don’t want to do, sometimes every day. Surely it’s because you’re the problem, right? That was my thinking, anyway. I thought I was the “abnormal” one and that something about me just innately tried people’s nerves. I hadn’t known a better situation, and neither had they.

In hindsight, if I had spoken up for myself, if I’d ever said “hey, when you say those things I actually want to die,” I know they’d have probably been shocked, and they’d have probably tried to get better sooner. They really can’t be blamed for having no idea it cut me that deep. I didn’t know how to show it or even know that I should.

Your mind really likes to rationalize and excuse this stuff without you even knowing it. You can even recognize someone else’s relationship as abusive, but when the same things happen in yours, you might default to thinking it’s completely different somehow.

The big problem is, even though people are capable of changing, you can’t KNOW who is and who isn’t. There’s definitely people out there who will always be hurtful. I’m lucky I haven’t had those in my life, but some of you aren’t that lucky. There’s wretched, bitter fuckers in mine and my wife’s more distant family who’ve kept shitting on their children and spouses until they finally keel over. They even know exactly what they’re doing sometimes and they don’t care.

You wanna give people the benefit of the doubt, it’s totally understandable, but you can’t gamble your life on it. You can’t just stay in a situation where you’re miserable and hope it’ll magically get better, nor can you even count on making it get better once you recognize the problem. Sometimes there’s nothing to do but go your separate ways, learn more about yourselves and figure out what you need to do for yourself, not the other person.

I know this is a really repetitive, messy, subjective post. I might not be saying anything relevant to your situation, and I still don’t even know for sure what was going on with all of mine. In some cases it’s taken years for me to even realize something from the past was so messed up. Every scenario is different.

I just needed to get these thoughts out I guess.