26 January 2011

‘Of all the girls, I choose you.’

Adventure Girl puts the pieces together

A while back I wrote a post on being THAT girl. Recently, and to my horror, I discovered I can be another kind of girl, too. The girl you see on trains with a black eye, looking defeated, the one who won’t look you in the eye, the one who loses herself, her values, her family and her friends, in trying to be whatever she needs to be to earn her partner’s approval, to keep his attention, to be that special person to him. The girl who lets herself be beaten down and abused and then begs for forgiveness.

‘Of all the girls, I choose you.’

When I heard these words I was on top of the world. Finally. This is what I’d been waiting for. These were the words I craved, what I’d put up with everything to hear. Words that blinded out every lie, every betrayal, every hurt, and the complete disrespect shown to me.

I had become the Battered Woman.

Self-esteem is something both tangible and intangible. It manifests in all kinds of ways. The way we try to earn good grades, or seek praise, the way we grasp for the attentions of prospective mates. It can also make us yearn for things that are bad for us. Self-sabotage, if you like. It can mean we don’t trust when people are good to us, and seek out those who mistreat us instead, because this is all we think we deserve. It is what feels real to us, safe, and familiar.

Over the past year I have let someone close to me hurt me, lie to me and manipulate me, over and over. Every time I was ready to walk away he drew me back in. Somehow the memories of the hurt and the betrayal blurred and I was blinded by hope. This time it will be better. This time it will be fixed. This time I can heal. It never was and I never did.

In fact, each time I went back the situation got worse, because I was a little weaker than before, hating myself that much more for giving in, for being wilfully blind. Shame ate away at me until there was nothing left but a blinding, desperate need turning me into a person I despised.

A wonderful friend described it as like being addicted to playing the pokies. You insert coin after coin, blow hundreds, thousands of dollars, waiting for the rare times you put your money in and get a few dollars back. Even if you hit the jackpot, it doesn’t last, and how much money have you thrown away to get there? The coins come out eventually, just enough to keep you trying, to see each win as so much more significant than it actually is. Then the machine ticks over. No more flashing lights. No more returns. And so you insert more coins, starting over, hoping against hope for another return, another jackpot.

This has been me. Waiting for the rare times when things are good, when I’m getting the attention, the love, the security I crave. Never the respect I deserve.

Each time seems like a breakthrough. ‘He did THIS’, or, ‘He said THAT’, I tell my friends, bursting at the seams.

They look at me, uncertain, sometimes with awful pity. ‘Isn’t that how it should be all the time?’

To me, now beaten down, throwing good time, effort, love, and even money, after bad, I say, ‘But he sees me, knows me, flawed as I am, and still loves me. The others, they never saw me. Not really.’ Those others being any guy who has ever shown me love and respect, who has cherished me, who I have tested and tested and finally pushed away. Because I haven’t trusted that what they were showing me was real. How could it be? It must be cracked and flawed, or else aimed at a false image of me.

This is my trampolining love and also my leaky boat.

Finally I have some perspective. My trip gave me enough distance, enough time, to break the cycle. Working on my underlying needs, I was able to begin to recognise the situation and also see how I got into this mess in the first place.

It has meant that when I came back and it happened again, worse than before, I was able to see the situation for what it was. Recognise in myself the Battered Woman. This time I was able to walk away and stay there.

Still, I know it will take time. To not want to go back, to grieve and to heal. Time and space and reason.

I am very lucky. I have incredible friends to support me, an awesome psych to help me work through my underlying issues, and I’m not afraid to ask for help.

My biggest enemy at this point is myself. I have to stop from weakening and continue to build my self esteem.

Because not going back is only the start of the battle. I have to address the underlying need, the child in me who seeks out a partner who will treat her badly, who in her messed up way equates this to being loved, to re-train my childhood brain to seek love in better ways and to offer her the support and protection she badly needs.

Then one day when I meet someone who treats me with respect, who loves and cherishes me, I won’t cringe away, feeling unworthy. I won’t test their love to breaking point. I will be able to accept that it is real, solid, dependable, and that it is actually intended for me.

-AG

03 January 2011

Keeping the adventure alive, or ‘Homeward bound’

It’s my last morning in Buenos Aires and my last morning on this particular adventure. In less than an hour I will be on my way to the airport for the final leg home.

As I’m writing this I can’t help but feel teary. I’m not entirely sure why. Probably in part from lack of sleep (I did make it back to my hotel before sunrise this morning, but only just), but also because while I feel ready to stop travelling, I know I’m not quite ready to go home.

It’s not that I haven’t missed the people I left behind, it’s just that now I know I don’t want to go back to the way things were before.

Over the last few days the anxiety has been back, the churning horrors in my stomach and a mind that panics senselessly, and I realise in part I came away not to find myself, but to be myself again. The person who isn’t depressed and anxious and going crazy feeling trapped inside her own life.

Six weeks away and I am no closer to knowing how to change it.

On the other hand, I know it’s time. This last week I’ve been struggling to find the energy to keep going, to navigate yet another new city, to struggle to understand and be understood, to take in more sights, more explanations. I stopped wanting to find a laundry, and started finding creative ways to make my remaining clean clothes last the distance. I no longer pillage each new city for all it’s worth, instead being content to visit a handful of the same places, the same eateries, knowing I could be experiencing more.

I wish I was the kind of person who could quit their job, pack up and leave with no fixed agenda and no return ticket. It’s the kind of freedom I crave, and the kind of freedom I can’t afford.

The thing is, I know myself, and I know that person isn’t me. I crave spontaneity and freedom, but within a secure and structured framework. After this trip, I know that more than ever. It’s much easier to let go when you know exactly how far you have to fall.

On the other hand, I need to know that I have future adventures to look forward to. Already I’ve had some awesome new friends contact me, ‘Would you want to do a safari with me in Africa’? How about Mexico? Cambodia? This should feel liberating, knowing South America won’t be my last trip, but the first of many. Instead I feel anxious, trapped. How am I going to fund all this travel? How will I get time off work? I still have a mortgage to maintain and cats to feed, and…What if my thirst for new adventures keeps me tied to the security and suffocating sameness I tried to escape?

What I can say is that I have come away with an incredible array of experiences, a thirst for more adventures, a better knowledge of my abilities and more importantly, my limits. I know the situations where I thrive and those where I break down. I’m not an open-ended traveller. I’m not a raging extrovert. I like to party, but not every night. I like to meet new people and experience new things, but not every day. I’m not someone who revels in organisation and logistics, and as much as I need time alone, I also need time with people. And eventually I just get tired. Bone tired. I don’t want to keep moving. I can’t take any more in. I need a vacation from my vacation, to stop and to breathe, and then I can start again.

So I head home to breathe. Not with the epiphany and life-altering plan that I’d hoped, but with a fresh perspective and a determination to keep going, to get well and get moving, because there’s so much more of the world to see.

--AG

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