There's been a phrase, or a kind of concept, that I've heard over the past few years.  The idea of parenting your inner child.  Letting that part of you that didn't get things it needed, or maybe was mistreated, or neglected, or whatever the case may be, feel seen and heard and soothe it, give it what it needs, help it to heal.  On one hand, it sounds like new-age, hippie-dippy shit that is stupid.  But on the other hand...I am beginning to understand it.

I was driving this morning, going no place of consequence for a short errand.  Because my brain is often my enemy, of course it was thinking about things too deep for what wasn't, but basically was, first thing in the morning.  I started thinking about the fact that I really do, deeply and strongly, hate myself.  I have been aware of this for years.  I became consciously aware of it back in 2019 shortly after I got married, and in all honesty, it was probably being with my now former husband that made me realise that I legitimately hated myself.  Yes, he was the catalyst for the realisation (considering how critical he was of me, how me just being myself wasn't enough, etc.), but I'm pretty sure the hatred was there before he came along.  It was just his behaviour and treatment of me that was enough to make me realise it.

But I digress.  If this deep self hatred existed before him, where did it come from?  I've struggled with depression for over half my life at this point.  Depression has been called self-hatred, and/or anger against the self.  You internalize the anger, because it wasn't safe to feel that growing up, so you criticise and blame yourself unrealistically, which turns into depression/self-hatred.

And that's when it clicked for me.  Of course I hate myself.  I grew up not feeling wanted or loved by my family (there is a lot of nuance to this; I know my parents did their best, but it doesn't take away the fact emotional needs that I had - and probably all of my siblings had - were not met).  Not feeling loved or wanted or like I mattered at all taught me to think about myself that same way. 
And as we know from a psychological standpoint, we gravitate towards that which is familiar.  Which honestly confuses my brain, because at the beginning, he was attentive and sweet.  Yes, he was very controlling and insecure and critical as well, but there was some positive attention there (the bad attention far outweighed the good, but I wasn't as knowledgeable back then as I am now to know to pay attention to that and take it for what it was - toxic).  In a lot of ways, he was like my dad.  There were some things he paid attention to, attention he gave me, but he was very, very critical.  It was familiar, because it's what I had been accustomed to my whole life.

(Side note: paying attention to, knowing, and understanding your family of origin when it comes to family dynamics and relationships is incredibly important.  I cannot emphasize this enough.  Know where you come from, understand how that impacts your relationships, and use that to do better, be better, and change those patterns so they don't continue should you ever be in a romantic relationship and/or married.)

My self hatred started when I was a child.  When I had big feelings, and got punished for them, rather than being taught how to manage them.  So eventually I learned to shut off all feelings.  It stopped me from getting in trouble, which stopped the negative attention I always got...
It makes sense.  Getting in trouble for feeling things, being ignored except when I was getting in trouble, not feeling like I was wanted or valued or loved as a child...realising this when I was driving my short drive made me sad.  I try not to cry these days, but I found myself tearing up over this.  Being sad for the little girl Aimee, who so desperately needed to feel like her family wanted her, like she mattered to them, but not getting it.  She was hurt for so long; she is still hurt.  She never got what she needed, which was affection and positive attention, and knowing that how she felt mattered to the people who claimed they loved her.

It all feels impossible.  And, quite frankly, unfair.  That the damage done to me (albeit unintentionally) was done by others, but now I'm the one suffering and the one responsible for fixing it.  How do I parent the child part of me?  How do I tell her that she is loved and valued and wanted, when even I don't feel that way about myself?

Self hatred started in my childhood, but it continued into adulthood and into marriage, because the man who claimed to loved me criticised me often enough to where on a subconscious level I learned that I was not enough for him and he didn't love me for me, even though I never once hid from him who I was, and that sadness was part of my existence.  Then, because he abandoned me rather than doing the right thing, keeping his vows and growing and changing and doing his part in the marriage, it reaffirmed every single thing I grew up experiencing and knowing: I am not enough.  I am not wanted.  No matter if people tell me they love me, they don't, despite them saying otherwise.  And people will never, ever, ever be there for me.  

I haven't come to some miraculous discovery and am now healed and love myself.  Especially considering all of this was just realised this morning.  But my heart hurts for the little girl that I was, who was simply starving for love, for affection, for wanting to know that her family wanted her...and never got those things.

Maybe someday she will heal from that.  Maybe even someday, I won't hate myself anymore.  That day isn't today, but at least the awareness is a start.

 So often these days I feel as though I am going mad.

Going mad with what?
With pain.  With grief.  With the inability to understand what has happened to my life.

It's been over two year.
TWO. FUCKING. YEARS. since he told me he wanted to move to a new place alone, without me, to treat our time apart like a deployment, because of course that's what you fucking do in a marriage.

Of course that isn't what you do.  But how would he know that?  He never saw an example of a healthy marriage.  He never saw or experienced what real Love is.  You can't know what you don't know.  And he didn't know a lot when it came to relationships.

I miss him, like the idiot that I am.  Like a fool, because no matter how often he hurt me emotionally, no matter how often I felt dismissed or undesired by him, I still loved him.  Unconditionally.  (I still do.)  He will always be loved, by my family, by me.

In these times, I also remember the bad.  Most of it was bad.  Why wouldn't it be?  He didn't pay attention to the relationship, to the marriage, to me.  He told me he didn't like being around me when I was sad, which was the baseline of my existence.  Something I never hid from him.  Even worse, he told me (shortly, before he deployed, so I lived with that knowledge the entire time he was gone) that he didn't like having sex with me because I was me.

...and you wonder why I want to hide who I am completely from everyone new that I meet from now on.

I don't understand.  I don't know if I will ever be able to truly understand or comprehend what is now my reality.  Because to me, if someone gives their vow, that's it.  End of story.  You keep it or you die.

But he gave his vow.  He said for better or for worse, until death do us part.  But he never truly meant it, because when things were worse, when he wasn't doing well (completely ignoring how I was doing), he quit.  He gave up.  He showed his true colours.

Colours that were there the whole time.  That were evident, even from when we were dating.  But colours I never noticed, because of my lack of experience with dating, because of my blind trust that he meant what he said, because I ignored how he lived and his actions and how he treated me, and paid more attention to his words, which ended up being completely worthless.

My world has turned upside-down and inside out.  It has been that way ever since he confirmed he wanted to move to a new city alone.  And even now, after all this time of being separated, and now no longer being married, I still cannot comprehend or understand it or make sense of it.

It's like my brain refuses to accept what is right in front of my face.
That even though reality is showing me he was a coward, he quit, he gave up, he was a liar, that somewhere in there, those things are not true.
That this is a bad dream I will someday wake up from, and the man who told me he cared about me when he didn't really care for anyone, will still be by my side, will love me in all the right ways, will show me that he meant what he said.

Except that's not true.

What is true is that I meant very little to him.
For all his talk of saying he wouldn't know what he would do if he lost me, he walked away pretty damn easily and quickly.
For all the times he asked me "just give me a little more time" and when I asked "what for?" and he couldn't give me an answer, I still gave him time.  Believing, somehow, hoping against hope, against history that repeated itself, that maybe this time things would change.
For everything he said to me about me being the love of his life, about how he loved me, and wanted me, that all of that turned out to be lies.

Even after we separated, even after the divorce was finalized, he was still lying to me.
In the random times he contact me, he probably still is lying.
Because if history has proven anything, he can say all the words he wants to say, but I should know better by now.  Nothing he says is worth trusting.  Nothing.

How he wanted a divorce because he realized he wanted to be alone?
That was a lie.
How the girl he was talking to at work was "just someone to talk to?"
That was a lie.
Every. Single. Thing. with him has been a lie.

I am an idiot for having ever believed him.
EVER.

And I am not going to make that mistake with him ever again.
Not with him.  Not with anyone else.

No one is trustworthy.
No one tells the truth.

And his actions have only proven to me what I have known my entire life.
I am not wanted.
My love is not enough.
I am not enough.

I have finally learned my lesson.

 I can't stop thinking about him.

I am an idiot.

I thought I was doing better.  Being back home in California, back in February, helped, even though it was because of the death of someone so dearly loved.  But I was able to go to places that were familiar, that I loved, that were mine.

And then in March, things started to go downhill.  I started thinking about him on a daily basis again (when I had started to go for a few days at a time of not thinking about him).  But out of nowhere... wham.

The body keeps the score, right?  March marked two years of being in this fucking state I never wanted to actually live in.  March marked two years of being separated from the person who was supposed to be my person.  Additionally, going back to the gym, a place where I may not have had personal ties WITH him physically, but certainly spent every waking moment and thought on him when I was there in the past, because everything was so raw and fresh and unbearable...that those things are tied there, too.

And now it's June, but this downward slump hasn't stopped.  Seeing a person I love marry someone who loves her and loves her so well she is secure in that love and doesn't have to question it, made me happy for her, but just reminded me of how I was never secure in his love.  I think deep down I always knew he would eventually abandon me...I just wish he would have done it sooner.

If someone tells you you deserve someone better, maybe believe them if they don't put in the work and effort to become the person you think they deserve.  Because eventually they will abandon you, betray you, destroy your world, cause unspeakable trauma, and make you wish you had the courage to not be alive anymore.

Because the one person who was suppose to be your person, the person who made vows for better or worse, that you wouldn't part until death, the person who wrote you and said they chose you now, and always and forever, ended up being a liar.  They only wanted to be with you when things were easy.  When you made them feel good.  But when things got hard, they didn't want to keep their vow.  They didn't want to put in the work.  They didn't want to prove to you that they could be the "better" person you deserved.  No.  They gave up, they quit, and they proved to you that you are worth nothing.

That no one loves you, that you are not worth the effort, that you are pointless and worthless.

I don't know why I'm still here.

(I do.  It's because I'm still a coward who can't find the bravery to no longer exist.)