HUGE!!! EPIPHANY!!

Man!  I seem to get the best epiphany’s when I’m on the treadmill!  This one may be thee most ground-breaking epiphany I have ever received!  I know someone else could benefit from this too!

Background…

I mentioned yesterday that a guy I was speaking to briefly ended up making really bad choices.  Due to his choices, I finally judged someone by their ACTIONS and cut him off.  His response to that was intense.  I quickly discovered he could do, or say, whatever he needed to get a reaction out of me…. even an ugly one.  Yet, I couldn’t seem to block him from my phone.  Mind you, I kept clear boundaries and hardly talked to him, but I wouldn’t block him. It was baffling to Julie why blocking someone on my phone is so difficult.  I didn’t know what to tell her…

Today, as I walked on the treadmill, he begged me in text to be able to see me.  How unfair he didn’t get that opportunity.  How desperate he was to prove to me we were meant to be together.  He even said that he would take off a day of work to meet me for lunch.  The thought of seeing him made me feel genuine caution and fear.  The feelings of fear actually surprised me.  I had never labeled those feelings as that.  And, as I jogged, I started asking myself WHY I didn’t cut someone off that scared me. I felt myself cycle through my brain trying to identify when I felt that before.  I wanted to know why I kept talking to someone that I felt concern/fear over.  And, at that moment, I realized WHY!  It’s because of this insane feeling of immense GUILT.  I didn’t want to hurt anyone like I had been hurt.  I thought by keeping him around that it would soften the blow and I wouldn’t be punished.

THEN I asked myself when I had felt those feelings of guilt before (trying so hard to make sense of all this) when it hit me like A TON OF BRICKS!!!!!!!  HOLY SHIT!  I felt these SAME feelings with MY MOM!  Nothing stopped her from hurting me either.  She was going to have her way no matter what.  Her insane paranoia and inability to apologize wounded so many… but especially me.  Yet, I took her back repeatedly because I thought that’s what “good” children do.  Her insanity never stopped until I cut her from my life.

Yet, I am still repeating the cycle with relationships!  It is FAMILIAR to me!

How many of us stay with abusive people because we still allow our parents to abuse us?  I mean heck.  If that door is ‘’open’ and acceptable then isn’t spousal abuse?  Our mom/dad/brother/sister tells us we are fat, useless, and a problem… so what’s so wrong if a partner does it?

Or how many of us have drawn boundaries with our families… yet we find ourselves in similar relationships?  Lies and abuse is all we’ve known so why expect any different in our relationships?  It’s acceptable and normal.  Even if, to the outside world, it’s insanity.

Here’s my Truth – and Hopefully Yours – You do NOT have to keep ANY doors open where abuse resides.  I don’t care if they birthed you or share your DNA.  Cut them out…. Or at the very least stop apologizing to THEM and draw a clear boundary.

God does Not want us to be susceptible to ANY form of abuse.  It is Not okay to be afraid of someone’s reaction.  It is Not okay for ANYONE to make you feel less that who you actually ARE.  You don’t have to be with another version of the parent that wounded you.  You can say no.  It’s called a boundary.  It’s called growth… and it’s called loving yourself.  Brian’s choices led me to blocking him.  I have nothing to feel guilty about.  My moms paranoid abuse led me to blocking her out of my life.  It doesn’t make me a disappointment or a bad child.

Where are your open doors?  Where are mine?