Finding Love is like a Buffet-Themed Escape Room.

This here is about to be the kind of read that is about 95% metaphor. Just to let you know...

First, allow me to define Buffet Room and Human Relationship talk, so you can get a good feel for what the rest of this piece has to entail.

Buffet Escape Room talk - When you eat a meal that you will never ever... ever ever eat again, then you find yourself going to a buffet where you taste test all sorts of dishes and find that certain seasonings, textures, or even names remind you of that one dreaded meal you once survived on for years? Might make you gag and lose your appetite, right? So, you go on a diet to avoid all of that.

Human relationship talk - Ever been with a covert narcissist and dealt with gaslighting, manipulation, mental, emotional, and verbal abuse on the near - daily? Nowadays, do you ever feel like you're so stuck in your past that it's hard to open your mind or heart again? Have you ever bricked up a wall to avoid getting hurt, manipulated, or taken advantage of again?

Then, when you slowly start to take down that wall and you behave in ways that you normally wouldn't you end up hurting others in the process? Metaphorically-speaking, do you just start gagging, puking, and having mental and verbal diarrhea all over your new diet?

I definitely have, and more so this year than I ever have. *Thanks COVID!*

As we all have one way or another, I have lived and grown more as a human in the last 9 months than I have in my entire life. I literally feel like I've lived a lifetime in one year, experiencing moments that I should have in my twenties, maybe even adolescence.

I've been flying around with so much expensive, heavy baggage and didn't even realize it until people started unzipping it for me and helping me recognize the crap inside.

I've gone on some superficial dates where I would window shop for certain behaviors and attributes as if I'm picking out a meal on a menu with all of the complicated restriction... like fast food shopping for gluten free, fat free, low-carb, low-sodium, whatever... without knowing what I'm actually hungry for. Then it took 30 years and 6 months for me to realize that if I plant my own garden, I'll always have everything I need.

Shit, I can plant whatever I want in that garden! I can nurture it however I want, and can keep myself satisfied forever... I'll run into trial and error, but won't have arguments about it... even though it takes more self-awareness and effort. In other words, I learned that if I can get that validation, esteem, and satisfaction within myself, then I won't need to rely on grasping that feeling from somoene else. Easier said than done I must say!

I sure as hell know what I'm not hungry for, that's for sure. If there was something offered that I didn't like, I would have zero problem expressing such feelings. I would say it professionally as if I'm at work and someone isn't doing their job. I would even bring a disclosure to the table and express that I know I'm over-analyzing and having a hard time connecting.

Now the hard part is ruminating when the guy doesn't respond, gives you grief, or recognizing gaslighting behavior (when they twist and turn it on you to blame). That's where self care, positive and real simple self-talk come in handy.

All of that seemed so easy, until it came time for me to dig into a meal created by this super charming & sexy chef, that I was thoroughly enjoying and savoring. Every now and then, there would be a little piece of unexpected bone, fat, shell, even a few moments where I'd tase some old seasonings from that dreaded past survival meal (the ex). But the more joy that I found in the savory, delicious, juicy meal the more I kept ignoring the bones and fat and old seasonings because I was so in love with how full and satiated I could be later on.

I started attaching myself to said diet because of the fact that I was finally receiving the bare minimum from a dish.... then to find out later, that it wasn't even the bare minimum, it was just a basic human need being met from an attractive chef.

Why was it that before, I could have no problem respectfully discarding meals that I knew wouldn't be healthy for me, but with this one - with all of the hints of unhealthiness that I still had yet to digest - I could not stop.

It all tasted so damn addicting and good... it made me smile, made me feel comfortable in my own skin, made me feel feelings that I had always wanted to feel (that my feelings actually matter, that my story matters, and that I matter)... yet, there was a night where this meal took a turn for the worst. The chef and I mixed waaaaaay too much wine, and it led to a night of diarrhea, pain, lingering gas, confusion, and throwing up all of the parts of my 3-month diet that reminded me of my old nasty survival meal. That night even the chef seemed to forget all of his recipes that had me so attached to his cooking skills. It was all bones, dried up, way too spicy, and downright the worst food since my old nasty survival meal.

I could have ended that diet, I could have moved on. I could have realized that that wine-induced meal brought me waaaay back to all of the red flags of a dish that I swore I'd never touch again. But nope, I blamed it on the wine and kept pressing forward.

From that point forward. I approached every bite of every meal on this diet with a little more caution. I start letting things slide... maybe the chef slid his thumb into my plate. Maybe the temperature was too cold. Perhaps he'd throw in some extras that I didn't ask for, and also didn't want to bring up my discomfort for because I didn't want to upset him. Perhaps I started craving more but there was nothing more to be offered, yet I'd start acting like a subtle Karen and demanding certain pieces of attention and satiation... all pretty toxic behaviors I must admit.

I had the luck and blessing of good, true friends who listened, pointed all of that out to me, and even recommended game-changing books like:

Whole Again by Jackson McKenzie

THIS book, is literally life-changing. It analyzes people like me: over-achievers who just want to feel worthy, people who engage with negative self-talk... all those things that result from years of emotional neglect and abuse.

He's Just Not That Into You by Greg Behrendt & Liz Tuccillo

THIS book, I swear... keeps it real. If you read this, it's super important to have an open mind and really absorb what they say. Don't be sensitive, and don't be in denial. I read it all in one day and it made it 100% easier to recover emotionally.

But why... WHY did I exhibit all of those traits that I worked so hard to hide behind my walls?

Turns out I have Complex PTSD, more commonly diagnosed in people who have lived in prolonged chronic states of mental, emotional, physical, and/or verbal abuse and/or neglect. I started exhibiting behaviors that I needed to survive not just during my marriage (my old nasty survival meal), but also my childhood. So I went back to therapy for that specifically, and boom, my life makes sense. So if you could relate to any of this, bring it up to your therapist. Research it. Look up the Complex PTSD Workbook (which is worded for childhood emotional neglect, but works for relationship-based emotional neglect also).

HEAL YOURSELF because just as Aaron Burr said it in Hamilton: "I am the one thing in life I can control."