Feelings Don’t Have To Be True

WARNING: If you are not sure if you're in an abusive relationship, are in one or are fresh out of one. Please DO NOT read this article (yet). This would've been incredibly harmful for me in the early parts of leaving or while I was in my abusive relationship. Go here instead. https://www.thehotline.org/

If you're past the initial leaving, returning to yourself, feeling solid in yourself and your ability to stay safe and away then proceed as you wish. Of course leave at any time. Your safety matters most.

One of the unexpected byproducts of thriving out of a toxic relationship has been the ability to deeply understand the nuance between what is true and what is honest. That contradiction doesn’t just sometimes show up in our lives, it’s always there, especially in our emotional landscapes.

I can't speak for everyone, but for me, I was never comfortable with that kind of duality. It made decisions too hard, asking me to trust the universe or my own knowing instead of a clearly laid out path to proceed based on facts. I like the clarity of something being right OR wrong, not both right AND wrong.

One of the things I’ve been navigating in my current transformation of self is not only creating space for opposing or contradictory truths, but to hold them both gently. In my last relationship that absolutely can be defined as abusive also held within it some pockets of deep giving and gentle love. I was both supported and destroyed. I was trained into behaviors and liberated from others. One of the greatest gifts in the aftermath has been how to hear myself again. How to give power to my knowing. How to cradle the spaces for opposites to live inside me:

He loved me as best he could AND he was my abuser.

He made me feel like enough AND never enough.

I knew I wasn't responsible for his actions AND felt responsible when my influence wasn't enough to prevent a certain outcome.

I can hold compassion for him AND not excuse what he did.

I can love him AND know that I’m never going back.

I can wonder about him; hope he’s doing well AND care enough for myself to know not to ask or open communication.

I can know it wasn’t my fault AND feel guilty.

Everything I've stated above is honest. My feelings of guilt and responsibility for him are honest, but it is not true.

Which brings me to the real point of this entire article: Feelings don't have to be true to deserve to be felt.

Immediately after the relationship ended I couldn't hold space for any of those contradictions because the cycle I was breaking was too powerful. Power and control cycles have a emotional gravitational pull. If, at that juncture, I gave thought to the times he did love me or that he could both love me and be my abuser. I would've stayed. Because I believed in right and wrong. I believed in if this, then that. If love is present, then hateful actions can't win. That's quite simply not true. It feels true, but isn't. It's okay to feel that, it's not particularly wise to act on it.

Often I think we try to use what is true as a way to say we can just ignore our feelings. Love is powerful. Abuse isn't love. So, if there was abuse then there wasn't love. He abused me, he's bad and didn't love me. I needed that to be the initial narrative so I could return to myself. So I could realign myself with my higher power and learn the art of inner knowing through stillness. My feelings of wanting to stay were honest and true. My need to leave was true as was my fear about what my life would be or if I could do it. We want to say 'of course you can! You're strong and amazing!' because that is true. It's also true that you can be strong AND struggle to leave.

It felt true, and logical that someone who abuses someone else doesn't love that person. The truth, as I know it, is this: He did love me. He did a lot of loving, generous, sweet things AND he abused me. He made me question my own perception and reality, training me, not unlike a pet, to behave in ways that suited him with no regard for my wellness if his preference, want, or need were on the line. I believe (though cannot confirm) that he did this AND didn't know he was doing it. Both can be true.

The difference now is my inner knowing is back. I know now that love is not enough. I can allow for contradictions to exist, for duality, for feelings to come up and want to be honored and felt but not be true. I can feel the desire to want to comfort him, even now AND immediate panic at the thought of talking to him.

I can look back now and see, not the half dozen times I actually tried to leave and finally did succeed, but the thousand times I thought, wondered, worried, talked to friends, talked to him, and eventually stopped talking to friends because I knew I should leave and I knew I couldn't yet. If I acted just right things were mostly good so maybe it wasn't so bad. The famous experience, when things were good, they were very good, but when they were bad, they were awful.

Want to know the scariest dual truth I currently hold? I both miss him AND want to go back AND get high anxiety at the thought of living that life again AND excited about my new life that's unfolding AND know my best life, best version of myself, and greatest love stories are out into the unknown of my future. It makes my heart pound to admit that. It scares me because I worry about what it says about me. Do I think I'm worth so little? I don't think it's that easy to simplify. Here's every emotion that last duality brings up inside me:

Fear, anxiety, worry, panic, melancholy, confusion, self-doubt, insecurity, ego AND happiness, longing, joy, nostalgia, courage, excitement, strength, self-assurance, confidence, stability, trust, faith, and hope.

I can feeling longing to go back and feeling strongly that I never want to go back of forward into a similar situation. It doesn't mean that longing needs to be ignored. I've found the most liberation in the aftermath has come from allowing all my feelings to exist. Like an aggressive herd of eager baby care bears and baby hate bears on a sugar binge high. They're gonna bounce around, wanting attention, and once you pick it up and look at it. Nestle little 'longing for my toxic-ex' bear in your arms this counterintuitive thing happens where all the jumping around the feeling was doing before begins to dissipate. Then it's not so scary to hold the feeling, once it's tuckered out and soothed you can just set it down and pick up the next feeling. Turns out, regardless of what's true, they all want to be honored; seen. They don't demand understanding, just validation. Once you pick up panic bear and hold it, assuring it you see them, and set them down, they're no longer beating up excited about the future bear and pretty soon you've got a sort of inner classroom management of your emotional world in which no feeling is shouting for top billing anymore and you can listen to your higher power, your inner knowing, and move forward aligned with the universe, trusting yourself, doing what's best for you and confident you'll be better than okay, you'll be living your best life yet, not despite feelings, but because of them.