Loss of Trust vs. Betrayal

Loss of Trust vs. Betrayal

This has been a hot topic on my mind for---oh---the past 7 years of my life. It started out as something I didn't understand and wanted to learn about. But somewhere down the road, I started to figure out how these particular labels are applied to my own life. How does loss of trust affect me versus being betrayed by someone?

When someone is dishonest, our first reaction is to lose trust in them. This seems like the obvious reaction, no matter how long it may last. I think of this as a chain breaking. One of the links snaps and the chain separates.
Although it takes some work, a broken link of a chain is fixable. Depending on how many links have broken, it may take a while but it isn't hopeless.
You can reattach links and even work hard to make them stronger than the last time.

But betrayal is different. Betrayal is taking that same chain and placing it on top of a bomb. When the bomb goes off, the chain is broken into a thousand tiny pieces and some of them hit you. How do you put that chain back together? How do you fix the wounds you now have?

Betrayal throws reason out the window.

Betrayal always involves a loss of trust. But a loss of trust does not always involve betrayal. 
Betrayal is an action, a verb. The dictionary defines it as "to disappoint the hopes or expectations of; be disloyal to". According to the dictionary, betrayal goes far and wide beyond lying. It is deceit. It is telling someone you're going to be loyal and directly contradicting your words by your actions.

A few months ago, a friend was asking me a series of hard questions, most of which I refused to fully answer. Questions like, "Should I stay? Should I go? Do you think there's a betrayal 'point of no return'?" Each of these questions has individual answers---not individual to the question but individual to the person asking.

Should you leave him?
I don't know. 
That all depends on how much you can handle. If you've lost yourself and are miserable, maybe you should. But maybe you have hope that you can trust him again if he is willing to make changes.

Betrayal seems like the definition of GREY. It isn't black and white ever. Ever ever.

Everyone who has felt a form of betrayal has their own unique experience.

For me, betrayal caused anxiety. I had never dealt with anxiety of this magnitude ever before in my life. Betrayal caused me to need medication to function for a while---which I am completely ok with. In fact, I'm grateful for it.

I can remember a time at the beginning of this past school year when I was waiting in the pick-up line for my daughter. It was the first time of the day where I had a quiet 20 minutes to myself and each day, as I would dwell on things I needed to get done and people I needed to see and places I needed to go, a surge of anxiety would take over my chest and I would have to close my eyes and take deep breaths.
Most of the time, I would tell myself, "Suzanne, calm down. You know nothing is wrong right now. Nothing bad is happening. You shouldn't be getting anxious." but every once in a while, I'd get impatient and angry with myself.

As I was telling my counselor this last week, kind of proud of myself for usually being patient but also recognizing that I wasn't always dealing with it very well, she asked me if my words were self-honoring to my anxiety.

Self-honoring.

She said those words and for a while, I wasn't focused on anything else she said (Sorry, therapist...) because those words were the perfect label for what I was trying to make sense of in my head.

I wasn't honoring the fact that I am dealing with a lot of betrayal trauma. I wasn't allowing myself to feel anxious without trying to shut the feelings down as quickly as I could.

I have a strong belief that betrayal trauma is real. I am trying to be more accepting of the thoughts in my head and the feelings in my heart---the good and the bad---because each thing I think and feel has a purpose. Each reaction I have, even if it doesn't make sense to anyone else in the world, is a part of my reality.

And it's ok.

It's ok to work through trauma and act super crazy sometimes. It's ok to have fears and anxiety. Because I have been betrayed and I understand why those feelings come and go. I understand why I get anxiety. If I looked at my story as someone else's, I'd tell that girl, "Give yourself a break. Don't get upset when you get anxious. You have been through a lot. It is scary. And you're doing the best you can right now."

Because I am doing the best I can. I am hanging on by a thread sometimes and thriving other times. I stay up until 2am and I go to bed at 8pm sometimes. I cook my kids a healthy dinner sometimes and other times, I hand them a piece of bologna and a banana and call it a night.

Each and every day, all we can do is try to do the best we can---not the best our sister or neighbor or best friend can---just the best we can be.

Real Writing

I want to be real. I want to sit here and profess all of my feelings and concerns and thoughts into this blog to help you and to help me.

My mother is a writer; an extremely talented write. She has written each of her grandchildren their own personal childrens book, she has written other childrens books, and she is currently writing her first biography. I feel like writing is in my blood. I've kept journals since I was a little girl. I've always gotten excited when assigned an essay in my English classes.

And now I blog. And on top of that, I still write in my journal and I still write essays for school.

The day after d-day (the day he moved out), I sat on my bed sobbing and ferociously scribbling words into my journal. My journal became my safe place. It contains so many of my emotions from the past ten months and I'll cherish that forever because in a few years, I doubt I'll remember all of these feelings. I'm pretty good at forgetting really painful things and I hope that my journal will be a reminder of how strong and brave I can be in the midst of some pretty painful trials.

Divorce has been pretty hard lately. It has been one hard lesson after another after another. I feel like I'm often being taught these new principles, some of which I doubt I'll ever fully grasp.

How do you just get used to the knowledge that people you loved so dearly now view you as crazy or manipulative? How do you get through the day without shouting the real reasons for divorce at everyone who has ever doubted your decisions?

Months ago, a friend had approached me and asked me about my divorce. We were talking and she said, "So did you just leave him because he stopped going to church and it got too hard?"
I was kind of shocked.
She only knew the story from my blog.
Did I make it sound like I left him?
Because the thing is, I didn't leave him. And oh my heck, I wish the only thing I was dealing with was an ex-husband who didn't go to church. Can we go back to the time where that was my biggest struggle? Because as hard as it was, it wasn't as hard as the divorce.

The thing is, I'm a good person. I'm finding my confidence---the confidence that left the day he did. I'm getting to a point where I can say with a certainty that I am worth something to my God and to other people on this earth. I know my intentions are good. I know my heart tries to love everyone.

I don't have hate for the man I am now divorced from. I don't have hate for his family or the friends he associates with. I don't carry hate around with me when I go about my daily routine.

I'm not as crazy or emotional as people think. I might be crazy at times and I am not denying my emotional capabilities but they aren't abnormal or psychotic.

I don't know if I'll ever get used to the fact that people believe really horrible lies about me. I know it's something I can't change but that doesn't make it any less painful. I promise I'm trying to act like a daughter of God. I promise I'm trying to serve and smile and love others.

I'm not perfect but I'm trying and I hope that the people I continue to trust believe in me also.

Because trust surely has been a hard thing to re-learn and re-gain. That was one of my flaws before divorce. I don't trust very easily. I often would make assumptions about my marriage and would act crazy because I truly felt crazy. And the worst part is, almost every thing I doubted in my marriage turned out to be full of lies---and the crazy feelings I felt have answers.

And this isn't me saying, "Neener, neener, I was right!". I didn't want to be right this time. I just hope you'll understand why I don't trust and why I'm afraid of the future a lot of the time.

A year ago, I was only a month away from one of the biggest changes and heartbreaks I've ever experienced...

...it's not that I want to warn the girl in this picture from July 4th, 2013 but I sure do ache for what lies ahead for her.

Because it isn't always pretty. It isn't full of sarcasm and laughing and smiles like I wish it was.

But through it all, she will learn. She will learn how to trust herself when she feels she can't trust anyone else. She will learn that God is aware of everything. She will learn that motherhood and sisterhood and just being a human being isn't perfection and it gets messy sometimes.

She will learn a lot of good things that will someday overpower the bad.

And with that knowledge, she will teach and serve and love the people around her so much better than before.

And that will make this all worth it.

We Could've Done This

I used to blog with tons of pictures and hardly any words---funny how that changes when you feel the need to process and write because you have SO MUCH to get out. People tell me I'm "so good at blogging" but the thing is, without blogging, I feel like I'd go crazy.
This is my space. It is the place I share what I am going through, what my family is going through, and where we are. I tell you things I don't always like telling people in person because talking about the hard in person is awkward and guess who is the world's most emotionally closed off individual? THIS GIRL!

Ask me to be funny and I'll do it. Ask me to open up to you and I probably won't do it. Because I've been taught through life experience that trusting individuals is hard and scary and my emotions are really vulnerable and messy.

I've been burned to the core by a man who should be in my house right now, laying next to me on the couch, watching our favorite shows. I have a hard time watching The Big Bang Theory or Scrubs because those were our shows. Those are things we should currently be doing together. And yet, he is there and I am here. I have a hard time with this even though I'm going to be ok. I have a hard time wrapping my head around the things that went wrong because I am trying to convince myself that although there are always things I can be working on to be a better person, I couldn't have made him stay. I couldn't have changed the decisions he was making for years prior in our marriage. I couldn't have made myself more appealing to him to keep him here.
But ask me if I really believe that. Ask me if I really believe I could've done things differently. Ask me if I blame myself for the things that were essentially out of my control---because I do. I'm just trying really hard to get to a point where I don't.

I know he occasionally reads this and I know his family members read this but I'm so sick and tired of not being more real with how I feel. Because the truth is, he made choices. He made choices that essentially ruined a huge part of my life and his own life---and I say that because I wholeheartedly believe this could've been great and I 3000% believe we would've been a family for eternity.

If we would've been damned from the beginning, I think I'd feel a little bit better about all of this but we weren't. We could've done this. We could have done this!

And it sucks to feel so out of control and to be so angry at a world that I still long to find the good in. I want so badly to see through rose-colored glasses once again. I long to see others as my Heavenly Father sees them, instead of looking around and seeing the heartache and pain that is so deeply embedded into the world around me.

It gets better, right? I will once again believe in humanity, right? I sure hope so because I want to. So badly, I want to.

In the meantime, I'll be over here doing what I normally do, dreaming of the day when I am capable of more. Because someday, I will do more and I will change the world---or not---but I'll try.

Bravery at it's finest, my friends. I can do hard things.

Little Me

I go back to the pictures of Little Me and I want to tell her to run! I want to tell her that it gets worse, that people are not to be trusted, that life is rough as hell.

Because tonight, that is how I feel.

Her smile was real. She didn't know what life was going to give her. She was chubby-cheeked, curly-haired, and invincible.

Oh how I wish chubby cheeks were cute at my age.

Trust is such a hard thing, my friends. Trust feels like blindly walking through a room full of scorpions. You can get stung at every turn, with every choice. But maybe you won't. Maybe you'll walk past every scorpion, dodge every sting. It's a gamble every time because we are only in control of ourselves. Anyone can let us down, anyone can lie.

Bad analogy? Sorry, my brain has been going a mile a minute for the past week.

I often wish I were that little girl. I wish I could be her with the knowledge that I have. I know that isn't the way life works but I'm kind of burnt out with big decisions and being a grown up. Navigating through this adult world is harder than I ever imagined it would be.

I want to trust life again. I want to trust people again. I want to look around a room full of people and see mostly good. But I don't. I'm afraid of fully living because letting go and giving my all to people is scary.

Anyone can leave me.

Trials open your eyes to reality and the reality is that life is imperfect and messy and scary.

It's hard for me to feel so negative because this doesn't feel like the real me. But I've been told to just let myself feel what I'm feeling instead of keeping it all inside of me so that's what I'm trying to do.

I'm trying to be real without being sad on here all of the time. I'm happy sometimes. I'm doing well sometimes. But other times, this is so hard. Other times, I struggle to keep my head above water.

Today's good news? It's finals week and I decided against taking any summer classes so I'm almost done for the next 3.5 months!

Dear Divorce, You Suck

Dear Divorce,

You suck. You really really really really suck. You have brought way too much pain and way too much loneliness. No one can fix you because you're a constant dark cloud. You'll always be there. I'll always have your label, no matter where I go and no matter what I do.

You make me angrier than angry. The choices that caused you make me angrier than angry. You make me feel stupid and vulnerable and out of control. Some days, I lose hope because I've seen what you cause and I've seen what you can do to a family.

You are a liar. People look at you and think you might be easier but I am on the fence.

You have caused me to lose family that I loved. You have caused my children to miss out on being close to family they love. None of this seems fair for the people who didn't decide to lie and deceive. But life isn't fair so now we just get to decide how we will make divorce the best possible situation it can be...even though my sarcasm wants to speak up and laugh at that thought.

It isn't actually you, it is the person who listened to you. But you still suck.

And Dear Lying,

You suck. You really really really really suck. Shall I copy the rest of the above here?

I think you all get the point.

If you have a hard time telling the truth, get help. I'm not being mean but I am being harsh. Get help. Compulsive lying is so harmful to you, to your relationships, and to everyone you are around.

Compulsive lying just ticks me the frick off!

What if it were you? What if you had spent almost a third of your entire life building up something great only to find out everything was based on lies? And literally the day your marriage fell apart was the day you started to find out about these lies, one by one, little by little. You'd probably feel about as stupid as I felt. It's one thing to trust someone you should but it is a whole different ballpark when you find out you've been trusting someone you shouldn't have.

Yeah, that's where I'm at today.

Do I think you're a bad person if you can't stop lying? Not necessarily. I believe compulsive lying can be an addiction. So get help.
Manipulating the people you are supposed to love is not an actual relationship, it's a power struggle.

So if you can't stop lying, take a step back and try to figure out why. Are there choices you are making that are causing these lies? If so, get help.

And seriously? Can we just set this debate straight? Intentionally deceiving someone is the same thing as lying. It's the exact same thing! So don't do it. And if you can't stop yourself, get help.

Marriage, relationships, life in general would be better off if we were all willing to be truthful. Keep that in mind the next time you think of telling a little white lie to cover your tracks. Because little lies turn into medium lies that turn into big FAT lies.

I think I'll go fold some laundry now and calm down.

Truth.