Love and Hope: A Survival Guide

Love isn't supposed to leave bruises. There are no visible marks, no scratches or scrapes, no swollen eyes or cut lips, no quantifiable or tangible things to point to. Those would have evidenced a clear cut case that no judge or jury would deny. Obvious and visible representations would make it easy and undeniable. Instead, the facts of the case are put together in slow motion, brick by brick, until it’s proven beyond a reasonable doubt. 

Phase one:

It starts disguised as everything you ever dreamed of, cloaked in adjectives like “magical” and “romantic” and “dreamy.” It feels like “a breath of fresh air,” and you find yourself floating in a blissfully ignorant yet extremely fragile little bubble. This makes it easy for you to dive all in, heart first and logic much later. To hell with a lifevest! You’re surviving on a flurry of mindblowing affection, compliments, romantic grand gestures, constant communication, and declarations of love that you previously only read about or dreamed of. This pulls you like a current pulls you out to sea. An invisible riptide of control awaits and surrounds you. Soon enough you are drowning.

Phase two:

The honeymoon phase creates an illusion, a foundation that you build and rely on. Rapidly, and in a fever dream, you build an entire house upon this foundation. Then, in tiny fragments, the foundation splinters. Death by a thousand cuts. What once was a thing about you that brought copious affection and compliments now becomes a notable flaw to be showcased in an argument. Your vulnerabilities shared in trust and love and confidence are now used against you, weapons pointed in your direction. Sharing your deepest feelings or needs or wants is met with sentiments including “you’re dramatic” or “you’re being too sensitive” or “you’re so negative” or “all you do is criticize” or “all you do is over analyze.” Even better if sharing your feelings or needs leads to disruption and anger on their part; it inevitably does. Subtle blows. Invisible marks and bruises. This is a critical tactic and leverage that ultimately results in future manipulation. You keep clinging while the ground is caving beneath you. 

Side note: The Double-Edged Sword

This might be where the twinge of doubt arises. An almost inaudible voice that goes - something’s not right here. You ignore it. You listen to something else, something stronger and inevitably more dangerous - hope. “The moment your gut says no, it’s a no. You can unpack the details later.” (~source unknown)

In the right circumstances, hope can be your best friend. In other circumstances, hope is your worst enemy, gingerly placing rose-colored glasses directly over your eyes, turning you to face the mirror, smiling while lying straight to you by saying that this looks fabulous! In the latter example, hope has you focused on potential instead of facts and reality. In the latter, hope keeps you in harm's way far longer than when that first twinge of doubt arose. 

Once planted, hope’s roots spread quickly and vastly. It causes you to believe false promises of things “getting better” or “I’m going to work on this” or “I hear you and I understand” or “I overreacted; lets fix this.” I’m sorry means nothing if it isn't coupled with change. With hope leading the way, a dangerous pattern ensues. With hope leading the way, you are led into darkness. 

Phase three:

At this point hope has its teeth locked in. Jaws clenched tightly. There is little daylight coming in. It grips your heart and mind to the point of feeding a psychological addiction to emotional blows. You don't stand a chance. 

What began as “soft criticism” advances to blatant emotional warfare. Gaslighting. Defensiveness. Blameshifting. Lack of accountability. Dismissing or diminishing your feelings and emotions. You’ll experience one, likely all of these, in a battleground of epic proportions. You’ll be told you are acting “erratic” and “crazy” and “childish” and “negative.” You’ll start to ask yourself if you are. And the most detrimental blow, you’ll question yourself and your reality. You might even take examples to your friends or therapist and ask what you did wrong and how you can be or say better moving forward. This is, of course, all your fault. By now you’re starting to tiptoe around an emotional minefield, carefully avoiding every misstep and every wrong turn that results in utter devastation to you and the farce that “everything was ok until you ____” or “this wouldn't be this way if only you ___.”  You are to blame. You are the problem.

Anxiety sets in. Where you once felt butterflies and giddiness from new romance you now feel the painful ache of anxiety that comes from walking on eggshells. Every step gets louder than the last. Passive aggressivity ensues. Your jaw clenches. Your shoulders rise. You start treading consciously, lightly, carefully, silently begging and pleading with yourself (and with them) that you don't make a misstep. You lose sleep. Your energy is now directed at keeping the peace. You make withdrawals on energy and time, and maybe even money, that you don't have. Unlike a true withdrawal-deposit system, there is little to no deposit, no flow of time, energy, or money in the other direction. You are depleted. Your balance is in the negative. You feel the system shutting down. 

By now you’re sucked into a relentless pattern: the emotional battleground that delivers psychological blow after blow, followed quickly with the reminiscent romantic phase that got you here. The latter is deadly as it creates confusion and feeds false hope and potential, a hook meant to keep you locked in. It works. That is, it works until it doesn't. 

The attempts to exit is as ugly as the familiar and frequent battle itself. Your attempts to call it are labeled as “giving up; I would never give up;” a tug meant to manipulate and guilt trip you. So you question yourself again. You convince yourself to try, and try and try and try some more. I’m the flawed one for leaving. Maybe if I change this or if I do that. It could finally be different this time. Useless. The pattern repeats on a lifesucking feedback loop. Your heart is throbbing from months of painful and ugly fights. Your ears are ringing from words you can't unhear and can't believe came out of the mouth you trusted and love most. The light inside of you that once burned with a fury so unapologetically is now a flicker at best. I feel dead inside.  

The Rising:

“Sometimes you fight, and; Sometimes you walk away in order to survive” (~ Kelly Clarkson, lighthouse)

Exhausted. Depleted. A shell of myself. Mentally and emotionally bankrupt. Unsure of myself, who I am, and what my reality is. These are some descriptions that result from emotional abuse. Read that again: emotional abuse. These are some of the marks, the bruises, the representations of what’s left behind, the aftermath and devastation. You’ve stayed and fought and tried, and tried and tried and tried, until you’ve finally lost yourself in the trying. Despite your best efforts, you would be repeatedly gaslit, dismissed, and blamed for your reaction to their actions. “I’m sorry” is meaningless. “I love you” holds no weight. Your will to try has run out. Your voice is gone from countless attempts to beg for things to be different and to explain yourself and your needs. Your self worth, confidence, and self trust have all but completely disappeared. 

It takes several futile attempts to leave. The twinge of doubt is no longer an inaudible whisper. All of you now screams to get out - no, not to get out, but for the pain to end. Truthfully, you don't want to go; you don't want this to end. You want to fix things. You want the pain and pattern and emotional blows to stop. Please hear me this time. Please hear my begging and my hurt. Please let it stop. Contemplating the agony of leaving, you see two paths: facts and potential, loss and possibility. Having chosen the latter time and time again you know this means a future of walking on eggshells, distrust, anxiety, insomnia, staying small and quiet, keeping the peace, pain, disconnection, loneliness, heartache, control, and manipulation. This is not the stuff that romantic dreams are made of. By choosing potential over facts this is the future and the life you are saying yes to; this is the future and the life you are choosing for yourself. 

Your feet and heart are heavy when you try to walk away. Despite the painful and heartbreaking pattern that you’re both in, you’re hooked by familiarity and certainty. The human mind loves certainty. A destructive pattern, no matter how abusive, will still bring comfort in the familiar and known. Your system becomes accustomed to the blows, false hope, and short-lived reconciliation. Your body now knows how to handle this stress. Closing the door, breaking the pattern creates uncertainty. And uncertainty is the enemy of the human mind. Uncertainty is terrifying. At least in the pattern you know what to expect and what and where the threat is. This is a false sense of safety. 

“We hold on so tight, but I don't wanna die, no; I don't wanna die, I don't wanna die.” (~Sia, Bird Set Free) You stand on the edge, willing yourself to jump off the foundation that is actively crumbling beneath you. Soon enough you will be taken down with it, sucked into the very thing you once believed would last and delusionally clung to. But the countless tears you’ve shed that watered hope have been used up. You’re forced to build a strength that feels insurmountable and impossible - the strength to walk away from love, even when it’s hurting you. But you sadly and finally let yourself realize it isn't love, it’s survival dressed up as love; it’s manipulation and control; and it’s pain wrapped in false hope. 

The truth will set you free. Gritting your teeth, tears streaming down your face, you forge a strength you don't know you have or are capable of. Yes you can. You choose to live. Eyes closed, you finally step off the ledge and leap, into the unknown, but also into peace and safety. If you haven't already, you will land back with yourself; you will land back home. 

No, I don't care if I sing off key

I find myself in my melodies

I sing for love, I sing for me

I'll shout it out like a bird set free 

(~Sia, Bird Set Free)