Red Flags
No one believed that I could do it. I saw the fake ass smiles feigning belief and heard the insincerity that was certainly paired with rolling eyes and smirks through the phone. No one believed that I would really devote an entire year to no dating and celibacy. Well, I’m 9 months in, bitches, with no set backs!
This has been a beautiful time for me. A challenging time, as seen in my previous posts, but a really beautiful, fruitful time of growth and expansion. I’ve had time to reflect and accept this safe space in my life that I’ve created to heal. One of the more difficult parts of this past 9 months, is all of the shame that has come up. Heavy heaps of shame seem to push down on my shoulders as I learn more about my worth and value. I suppose that is one of the many complexities of healing. As one issue is resolving, the others, like vicious vines, use thoughts and pain as snares to try to intertwine the traumas so that they stay tangled and compacted. That is, what has been comfortable for so long, after all.
Shame has come and like an unexpected guest, eats up all of my shit, and without any awareness, stays way past the party’s end. When I hear myself, when I feel myself, my gut, my instincts, my first mind, I am ashamed at how easy it was to silence that truth, that gift. I silenced myself for many years. So much of my life was spent learning how to shut down, to learn how to build a strong case against myself, a strong case to believe that I can not be trusted with myself. So I spent my life trusting that other people’s perception of reality was true. That my feelings were invalid. That it was unsafe to trust my feelings over someone else’s words. And well…we see where that’s left me. On this convoluted journey of healing that is expensive as fuck, but is worth it, nonetheless.
I’ve thought about all of the red flags that I ignored and the warning signs that I now know to look for in romantic or platonic relationships, and I’ve decided to share them in no specific order. I think it’s incredibly beneficial for us to regularly synthesize our spiritual/emotional findings, lest we become forgetful and obtuse in seeing the lessons that we have and are learning.
Many of the lessons that I have learned center around enforcing my boundaries and trusting my own experience as my guide, rather than someone else’s perception. For instance, when someone tells you that they’ll never do something again, rather it is as simple as using a word that is offensive to you, or as serious as assaulting you, I’ve learned to hold them to it. When someone breaks that promise, they are breaking my trust, and that offense will most certainly happen again and again if it is allowed after that initial promise of change. I have learned that an apology without change, is simply, manipulation. I spent so much time being manipulated by people I trusted and loved and gave all of myself to, and believed that they would eventually care more about my feelings and safety than their own comfort. The truth, is that unless you are in partnership with someone who has the capacity to not only understand empathy, but also to think and act empathetically, your boundaries will never be respected and you will never be seen. Now, when I see the first sign of someone being unwilling with their actions to change a behavior that is harmful to me, I know that person is not a safe space for me, and will without a doubt, cause harm.
A tell tale sign for me that someone is comfortable with causing me harm, is when they use their intentions as a justification for continued wrong or harmful behavior. For instance “I know you said “no” and I intended to stop, but then I thought you wanted it. I wanted to make you happy” Intentions must be separated from impact. If someone is unable to utilize this skill, to see the impact of their actions and how little their intention changes the harm caused, that person is not allowed in my life.
Many times, people who cause significant harm do not recognize and/or care that they are causing harm because there are no real consequence to their behaviors. This is particularly true in long term committed relationships. A lesson that I’ve learned in validating my own feelings and experiences and worth, is the understanding that someone can be known as being an empathetic and caring individual, and can simultaneously, be incredibly uncaring and negligent to you. Your experience is valid and real, regardless of how unbelievable it seems to outsiders or those with different relationships to the same person.. AND! When people are uncaring to you, it is not a reflection on you, your worth, your deserving-ness of kindness, compassion and being seen; it is simply, a reflection on their inability to love. They may even WANT to love you, to be kind to you. To respect you and see you, I don’t know. But…it’s like tryna eat an apple without hands. Chile, it’s just hard. What I’ve learned to do, is simply accept that person as they are, and to know, that they are not compatible with my needs or my worth.
Walking away from someone who has that type of duality, makes us lock on to the potential. We believe that seeing the potential is enough. That the potential will blossom into action. Friend, I have done the research through a very thorough experiment. Trust me when I tell you, that this type of relationship is not worth your time, sanity, or money, because you will definitely need therapy at it’s end.
“The greatest of these is love”. I grew up religious, so I have heard that and believed it deep in the innermost parts of my being for as long as I can remember. And I’ve gotta say, after years of experience, as we commonly interpret the thought, I believe it’s incomplete. In my opinion, love can only do so much. Circling back to intentions, that realm of feelings, of inner working thoughts and emotions; it is not enough for this Black woman any more. I refuse to be manipulated by the concept of words and feelings without an outward display of proof. It wasn’t until last year, while rewatching a Black classic “Boomerang” that the words of the famous scene between Halle Berry and Eddie Murphy really resonated with my millennial heart. “Love should’a brought your ass home last night.” FACTS! Love is action. It is planned efforts that conclude in compassionate and considerate actions that acknowledge the whole of a person. The first time my dating partner said that he loved me, it was a red flag. He didn’t know the whole of me. He was feeling things that I knew for a fact, would, without a doubt, fade. He would soon become less fascinated by my playful goofiness. If we ended up in long term partnership, we would be googling new sex toys and positions, the novelty would wear off and what would be left would be, simply me. Without the endorphins of new attachments and lovemaking and discovering each other’s quirks. I knew he didn’t know the whole of me, enough of me to decide how to move forward in action. Part of that was because I intentionally reserved so much of me for myself. And my thinking that his profession of love was and is in no way a self deprecating conclusion. I am just aware that it takes more than infatuation to love me well.
One of the things that helps, is curiosity. When I have conversations with potential partners, now, I don’t give everything freely. I am (as we can see from this blog) a person without secrets. I don’t have any issue revealing the awful parts of me (like the fact that I will go fucking psycho and have definitely made legitimate threats/promises when I feel like my babies are being disrespected or uncared for), and I love giving the beautiful parts of me freely. But I’m learning, that I’m worth the work. I have experience with being in a partnership where there was zero curiosity about me as a person. This person never asked about my fears or dreams or goals. Never asked how I was feeling or honestly, wanted to spend time with me. I licked the wounds of my hurt by reminding myself that this person told me they loved me and had a full plate of their own career to think about. But what that did, that lack of curiosity, it taught me that I didn’t matter. It showed me that there was not much to me, that I was not even worth a conversation or a date night. There was nothing interesting about me. And honestly, I know that that is just not true, now. I’m aware that there are different conversational styles, but because of my past experiences, I need someone who can take the lead in a conversation, because I certainly can. And I need someone who is genuinely interested in me and has the conversational maturity to know how to ask questions. I mean, honestly, it all goes back to empathy, right? Because if we hope to truly understand someone, to feel for them, we must figure out a way to get to know them. Fully.
I’m writing all this shit out, and it just seems so damn simple! Why are people so people like? SMH.
I have been with myself for as long as I have existed, and yet, I am just learning what it feels like to be loved by me. Isn’t that wild? And that realization is confirmation that I need this time to become wildly and madly in love with myself so that I know what that feels like. So that I am able to recognize what it looks like to with great effort, love the whole of me. But honestly, it’s not something that I am in a rush to experience. I’m in this weird Kumbaya state with myself where I love the love that I am able to give myself when I am at my best. When I am practicing good self care, and immersed in the healing environment that I need to be well.
Truthfully, I’ve never been loved like this before. And it’s perfectly ok if this is the best and most perfect love that I ever experience.
I hope you know that you are loved, your feelings are valid, you are worth the effort. You can trust yourself. And you, are more than enough.
Love, Tereva.
