Let’s keep going with my very meticulous research of what do I want in a romantic relationship?
A question came to me out of nowhere while I was doing something else, proof that my brain is still researching even when I am not aware of it. The question is: How can I not die in a relationship? What I want is therefore very simple “not die.” #Fun
We’ll agree right away that it sets the scene! It’s not a great starting point for sure. I see (nicely, obviously) packed luggage from a 6-year relationship surfacing here. I mean, can’t we leave them in the lost and found? I loose LOTS of things, but the trauma of past relationship, I can’t? I totally agree we can heal from our story and everything. But can’t we do it WITHOUT opening the suitcase? No, but it’s true, right? We wipe everything clean, start with a blank slate for each new relationship… We can make some sort of agreement, right?
Because going into a relationship with my suitcases, I’m not super keen on that. For a starter, I don’t really feel like opening them on my own, but with someone else? I’d rather stay alone for the rest of my life! I’m just barely kidding. #badjoke For real, we don’t know what we are going to find, dirty socks are still (more or less) fine but imagine you brought bedbugs? That’s awful! Bedbugs in your pretty new bed?!
Honestly, I’m joking but this is a real question. Theses are real questions. How do you deal with past traumas in new relationships, even non romantic ones actually?
How are you not defined by your story? I have a great Brené Brown quote for this occasion, “When we deny the story, it defines us. When we own the story, we can write a brave new ending.” You know this moment someone throws a quote at you and you feel like “Scr*ew you with your stupid quotes, I don’t care! » Thaaaat one!
Actually, I do care, even if it is annoying and painful, it is way better than letting a shitty story become the foundation for every other ones. #tellingstories
A part of the answer to me, and I am very curious to know your answers for those who’ve been in toxic relationships, is freedom. The freedom I give myself to be who I am in a new relationship, with my dirty socks and maybe my bedbugs. It’s annoying but it can be treated, right? (Is there a bedbug specialist out there?) #bedbugs
Because I have been in a relationship where I was not free to be myself, where I tried to suffocate everything that was me to be loved. Clearly suffocating everything that is who we are is close to dying, let’s all agree on that, it’s dying slowly, from the inside, invisibly. I wish I had another story, but I chose and I live the consequences. It’s true that consequences like going into a relationship thinking “how do I not die,’ that’s a bit tricky.
You can only imagine the twisting and squirming involved in avoiding everything that reminds me even a liiiiiittle of feeling suffocated. This is quite complicated to be close to someone when you want that person to be as far as possible at the same time (for your safety, of course, #covid19)
I don’t have answers yet, I just watch lately. (Is it just me or it’s super hard not to jump of the first action that comes to your mind when intensity surfaces?)
What I see it that considering a relationship from that point of view doesn’t help me get where I want to go, it makes me react in really shitty ways for me and others. #sorry
I wonder if I can learn that I won’t die in a relationship only being in one or if I can only go into a relationship knowing I won’t die in it? Probably a bit of both if that makes sense. Anyway, I’ll keep thinking about how not to die in a relationship, we’re still in lockdown so. xx