Forgiving myself
Noticing shame and compassionately letting it go
I very lightly describe a traumatic experience with a former boyfriend in the third paragraph after the heading Looking at the context compassionately.
After writing and posting last week’s newsletter, I had a lot of anxiety and sadness. I track my heart rate for POTS and energy conservation purposes, and it was constantly spiking, even when I was sitting down. I could tell I was upset, and I knew it was from writing about, and remembering, that experience with my ex.
But what about it was distressing? I don’t want a relationship with him anymore. I don’t miss him anymore. I’m not even angry with him anymore1. And that’s when it hit me: I haven’t fully forgiven myself for staying in a relationship with someone who didn’t fully respect me.
Preparing myself for forgiving myself
My focus on self-compassion over the past few months had already set the stage for me. While I spent last Monday mostly sad, I let myself be sad. I didn’t berate myself for feeling emotions I didn’t want to feel. I didn’t pretend to be happy when I wasn’t. When my watch vibrated to say my heart rate was elevated, I put my feet up and took deep breaths. I brought my current macramé project2 outside so I could enjoy the nice weather and backyard garden, listen to the Blue Jays game3, be with my parents, and focus on a craft that let me titrate my emotions so they were a manageable drip rather than a flood.
I didn’t know at this point I needed self-forgiveness, but I knew the pain I felt meant I needed self-compassion, so that’s what I gave myself.
Forgiveness was the topic of my Tuesday Self-Compassion group, and I laughed in appreciation for the timing. This is what helped me realize I needed to forgive myself. It’s now Wednesday4, and I will be working through the process on the page, so we will see how this goes!
What precisely am I forgiving?
Broadly speaking, I’m upset with myself that I didn’t break up with him earlier in the relationship, although I tried twice. But more specifically, I’m disappointed that I didn’t trust myself when I knew things weren’t right for me. I have a long history of not trusting myself to leave bad relationships. I thought I had learned that lesson, but apparently not.
The second thing I need to forgive myself for is not believing I deserved better. This shame has got to go.
Looking at the context compassionately
Here is my very condensed dating history, highlighting some relevant points.
I met my first real boyfriend at the end of high school and we were together for a few years. That relationship ended disastrously, also after multiple breakups and awful experiences. Fairly early on, after we had had a fight, his mom gently suggested that maybe I wasn’t getting what I needed from him and I needed to say goodbye. That conversation haunted me for years. When a guy’s mom doesn’t think he’s good enough for you? Whew. Take that advice and run with it. But I was young, and I didn’t like myself, and most of the time he seemed to love me. I thought that was good enough.
Our absolute final breakup happened after I had an abortion and after I had to beg him to get off me while I was recovering from said abortion.
Months later, I was admitted to an in-hospital PTSD program. There I met a fellow patient I sincerely thought was brought to me by God, and at the time I did not believe in God. When he arrived at the hospital, he had a girlfriend, and I was not ready to date again. The lack of romantic pressure was lovely and we became fast friends. One day I told him that I wished I could outsource the first stage of dating to my friends and family. I wanted them to find and vet potential partners because I clearly was terrible at it. He asked if he could be on the committee and if he could nominate himself. I wondered if that was the beginning of us dating, and honestly was thrilled at the thought. I cannot adequately describe the relationship we had over the following couple of years. We never kissed and I don’t think of him as a former boyfriend, although everyone I knew assumed we were a couple. My best friend joked that we would kiss for the first time at our wedding, and I really thought that would happen too. But something changed and I never knew what. He dated other women. He treated me like an afterthought. One time he told me he would never treat his clients the way he treated me – not calling to cancel or say he would be late, for example. The mother of one of his girlfriends told me he was lucky to have me as a friend because he certainly didn’t treat me like one. I knew she was right, but it took me years before I told him to never call me again because I couldn’t take his disrespect.
My next boyfriend told me I shouldn’t date anyone ever because of my clinical depression.
My most recent ex and I clicked right away. I had an out-of-province work trip the day after we met, and we texted continuously. I came home and we had a second date that was so fun and easy and comfortable and that was that – we were a couple. Not too long after that, on the eve of his birthday, I slept over at his apartment and developed my first and only UTI. It was the most awful physical pain I had experienced, comparable only to when I was bodychecked playing soccer and one of my lower vertebrae cracked and slipped forward. I crawled out of the bathroom and wondered what to do. I didn’t want to disrupt his sleep and wake him, but I couldn’t even walk. I sat on the kitchen floor for an hour, praying the pain would go away before deciding to whisper his name and tell him how much pain I was in. After a call with Telehealth, he ordered a Lyft for us to go to the hospital.
I almost threw up from the pain, and prayed I wouldn’t on this nice man I had recently met. When I had to get a urine sample, he came into the bathroom to help me get from the wheelchair to the toilet and took my sample to give to the nurse. He handled my pee cup! On his birthday! I was so certain I would never see him again, but not only did we stay together, two weeks later he rented a car to accompany me to my grandpa’s funeral, where he met my parents and extended family. I could not believe my good fortune to have a new partner who was so kind, caring, and willing to make sacrifices for my health and happiness.
Looking back, I can absolutely see why those good early experiences clouded my judgement on what was to follow with my most recent ex. I didn’t think I deserved those kindnesses he gave me and I feasted on those feelings of being cared for. The problem though, is that I didn’t start to think that I deserved love, kindness, or respect; I was just grateful that he was someone who gave me what I didn’t deserve. So, it absolutely makes sense to me that I would stay with him, even against my better judgement. Plus, the two times I did get to my breaking point and said the relationship wasn’t working for me, he said he was sorry and promised to change. That was more than I’d gotten in my previous relationships.
In my final goodbye email, I told him “To a certain degree, I'm grateful that you wounded and betrayed me so deeply because I probably wouldn't have learned how to love myself so fiercely if I hadn't had to fill those gaping wounds. I'm not perfectly there, but who is in a society where all humans are disposable?”
I think that is true. I am learning to fiercely love myself. I would love to fall in love again, but I don’t need the love of another like I once did because I know I am lovable. I know I deserve kindness and respect and dignity. Not because I’m a good person, but because I am a person. I deserve it when I’m happy and I deserve it when I am depressed/anxious/angry. I deserve it when I have the energy for my morning walk and I deserve it when I don’t. I deserve it when I’m ugly and I deserve it when I’m pretty. I deserve it when I’m fat and I deserve it when I’m thin. I deserve it when I’m wrong and I deserve it when I’m right. I deserve it when I’m healthy and I deserve it when I’m ill. I deserve it when I have a job and I deserve it when I don’t. Never is there a time when I don’t deserve self-compassion and respect, and for maybe the first time since childhood, I’m starting to believe it.
I understand that taking in the direct and indirect negative messages I’ve received from former partners, plus advertising and society in general, diminishes my sense of self-worth. Evolutionarily speaking, we’re predisposed to pay more attention to the negative so that we can stay safe, so I won’t be too upset with my brain for believing the bad. I’m sure over the course of my life I’ve heard more negative messaging about me (and people like me) than I’ve heard good. I’m sad this is true, but now that I’m aware of this truth, I can change it. I forgive myself for absorbing these negative messages unquestioningly.
Last winter, I joined Molly Knight’s5 The Artist’s Way group where we read and discussed the book and the weekly activities it asks us to complete, which includes writing three “morning pages” each day. Part of this journalling includes writing out affirmations. I’d never liked affirmations before – they felt so fake and insincere6. But I figured since I absorbed so many negative messages every day, it couldn’t hurt to experiment with writing positive messages. Halfway through the book I came across one that took my breath away:
Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.
Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.
Treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.
I am precious. I can look back and know that at least part of me always knew this to be true. I felt hurt because I knew I was precious and deserved better. I got angry because I knew I was precious and deserved better. I just didn’t know that this was the wise part of me and worth listening to.
I’ve written before about how I’m learning to love my body.
But it’s deeper than that. I’m learning to see myself as my body. I don’t think it’s a temple containing my soul; it is my soul. I’m not a mind plus meat sack; I’m a person whose mind and body are intertwined. I’m not a robot who can be pushed past exhaustion and be expected to produce. I’m a human who is part of nature and ebbs and flows with the seasons. My body is wise because I am wise. I am wise because my body is wise. I am my body.
This switch, I think, is the key for trusting myself in the future. When I feel sad or angry or overwhelmed in my body in the future, I will know to listen to that message I am giving myself. It’s not just my “bad” body and “bad” emotions being annoying. It’s my wise self reminding me that I am precious and telling me what I need. I may be slow to decipher the message, as with the sadness that kicked off this post. But with practice, I’m confident I will get the hang of it and use these messages to ensure I give myself the respect I need and deserve, because treating myself like a precious object will make me strong.
At least at the moment!
A net for drying garlic, which involved rhythmically tying the same knot over and over. This was soothing and meant I didn’t have to dedicate much thinking energy to it.
The Blue Jays played an afternoon game for Canada Day, for which I was grateful.
I wrote most of this on Wednesday, some on Thursday, and finished it on Sunday.
If you like MLB baseball, I highly recommend subscribing to Molly’s newsletter and joining her community. We have a lot of fun in the chats!
A sign of shame?
Thank you for sharing such an honest and vulnerable account of difficult breakups. I’ve been through quite a few myself - including feeling “lucky” to have someone so caring only to realize that it was a toxic situation and struggle to extricate myself.
It can be SO hard to forgive ourselves and I think you’re doing a tremendous service to yourself and others by sharing your struggles with it 💜