“Staying, when you know you need to leave, is not a kindness to anyone. Least of all yourself. But leaving, when everything in you wants to find a reason to stay, requires more kindness than you can possibly imagine.”
― Jeanette LeBlanc
When I ended a toxic relationship, I had to be willing to be seen as selfish, and as a villain.
To defend or explain myself, I would have to divulge things about my ex and my relationship that I didn’t want to reveal. I would have to face invalidation and dismissiveness from countless people. But it was and is the price I paid and as painful as it has been, it was worth reclaiming my sense of self.
When after a horrible fight post break up I told him, “I choose myself,” I had to be prepared for backlash.
When he texted me, “So you do you ever regret just walking out on us?" I said, “I miss and love you both. But I know I did the right thing.”
He could not understand how I could leave someone I still love. I got exasperated trying to explain to him that two things can be true at the same time. You can love someone and still know that you have to leave them. I could never get him to understand, so, I gave up.
At first I took all of the blame as way of trying to protect him: “Hi. It’s me. I’m the problem it’s me.” I’m crazy. I’m unwell. I need time to heal. I have BPD and I can’t be in a relationship. I don’t do traditional relationships.
I finally tried the absolute truth which was that I felt like I had lost all my autonomy, I felt unseen, I felt rushed, I felt controlled, and I felt emotionally unsafe. But when someone challenges your reality over and over again, there’s no amount of truth that will get through to them.
Our relationship only lasted seven months. I knew it was better to end things after a few months than martyr myself and become bitter and more miserable. That would have been the truly selfish choice, and that is something lots of people, including him, will never understand.
To him, he was disposed of and abandoned. I told him he had a right to feel however he felt, but he didn’t have a right to harrass me.
Hurting another person, especially someone I still loved at the time, completely wrecked me. He kept asking me to come back repeatedly, regardless of how many times I told him it was over. He forced me to essentially break our hearts over and over again. He didn’t understand that I had tried for months. I had tried so hard it made me sick physically and mentally.
The truth is that love isn’t enough. You have to listen to that little voice inside your head regardless of how quiet and faint it is that keeps telling you something is very, very wrong. You have to stop gaslighting yourself, and convincing yourself how wrong or selfish it would be to leave, telling youself to only focus on the positive, to only post the highlight reel.
Leaving is a kindness, even if it doesn’t look like it to anyone else.
On Sunday I Said Goodbye
Just because you leave
doesn’t mean you forget
the night he didn’t sleep
and stroked down your
eyelids while you
twitched from
nightmares.
Just because you locked
the door and blocked his calls
doesn’t mean you don’t miss the
late night ice cream runs and
falling asleep to true crime shows.
Just because you know
better than to try again, to
suffer little agonies that turn
panic into ulcers, doesn’t mean
you don’t miss his arms around
you, falling asleep to whispers
and garbled speech.
But still, you leave.
Because your body is
screaming, and your raw
skin wills you to return,
begs, Come back to yourself.
You leave even though
it will hurt and you’ll feel the
sharp, angry words at your back,
a hornet’s nest drowned by the bile in
your belly, and the question he asks
a hundred times is a net you can’t
break free from.
But you do.
You do because you
have to. Because you choose
a life without the razors in your chest,
never knowing which string you pull
will turn into a knot in your throat
he can’t untie.
Just because it hurts
doesn’t mean there’s a sinkhole
that swallows up everything you
felt, from the first cup of coffee to
the night you tossed out a box
of his love notes.
Just because you know the ladder
back is splintered and broken and
the fall will kill you, doesn’t mean you don’t
sometimes stare up at the
foggy window.
It only means that now
you are fiercely rooted to your
Self, even with the restless wings
bound to your feet.