u/Aggravating-Drink316

You know that story, the one where people describe how they gave up on life or their career or their relationship or whatever and some random act of coincidence or kindness from a stranger or something they read or hear redirects them and now they’re like glad they stuck it out or left or fixed it or didn’t off themselves? Has that happened to you? When/where are you now in comparison? Please feel free to RAMBLE. details. whatever it was

not posting to ask for advice as i already knew what i would do. it’s so interesting to me, having been in a psycho abusive family as a kid, that it was so surprising? i guess because i got the fuck out as soon as i turned 18, went to college, moved cities, and generally never tolerated anything close to what my family was like in my friendships/relationships etc. like i just thought id gotten so much foresight, i just wouldn’t pick that person.

he’s from a completely different type of family, his parents and siblings are genuinely lovely. he’s well-loved, both parents still obsessed w/ each other even as empty nesters. he used to complain to me how annoying having family rituals/traditions were, how “invested” they were in his happiness. if he dropped out, they were disappointed but ultimately supportive, if he stayed the course, they just hoped he was having fun while learning. he seemed constantly dissatisfied with having unconditional love - nothing would upset them outside of, say, committing an awful crime. he’s of course a “creative” and sometimes would tell me that i was squandering some of my “lore” by not using it for my writing. he said things like this about my past a lot, almost like he thought it was a gift to me, the same way i thought his family was such a gift to him. i ignored it.

i loved and still love his mom and sisters. i think his family is what i will miss most, because i have been trying to find a proxy-family all my life since getting free from my own. i realize now that i have prided myself on being a good friend, being the listener, overextending myself for everyone, because i know that’s what family does. that’s what i wanted to create in my life. if i didn’t have friends as family, i had nothing, because i can’t rely on my own. even if i wanted to, i couldn’t, the only non-abusive parent i had is dead. so i guess that made me vulnerable in that it made me too eager? i don’t know.

sitting at home and icing my face with a bag of frozen peas and carrots. i’m not even mad at him, i don’t even think it’s that big of a deal as a thing that happened. it is not even close to the worst thing that has ever been done to me. he’s blowing up my phone, he started crying and seemed horrified by himself as soon as it happened. i’m not dumping him to punish him or to teach him a lesson. i’m just dumping him. i think i find the inability to control oneself in that way, where you physically can’t help it, so grotesque that i’m put off in a way that he can’t bring me back from. even when i had roommates in first year, when they would openly scream and sob in their rooms over being dumped, waking up the house, i thought it was incredible that anyone felt so unashamed at being so openly… i don’t know? needy? in one way, it’s my childhood. i could never tell anyone what happened, so despite being empathetic and giving advice all the time, a sliver of me is maybe judgey at people being extremely open about their pain. maybe because i want to be? but on the other hand, my disdain for my family and the pain of that time of my life has kind of saved me. there’s no question for me about going back, if he can change, etc. i know violence. it’s very boring, it’s always the same, and i’m too used to it to confuse it with passion. i’m not taming some passionate, unbridled beast. he was just my boyfriend. pathetic.