I don’t know how my brain processes things, honestly. It’s like I get better after having a negative experience with my ex. I found out the other night that he’s in a new relationship and went through the following thoughts:

1. I hope he doesn’t traumatize this new girl like he traumatized me.
2. He doesn’t deserve to be happy after what he did to me.
3. He literally drove drunk with me in the car and risked both our lives.
4. He didn’t learn anything from our relationship because he’s still acting the same.
5. It’s only the first few months, it’ll deteriorate into another toxic relationship like we had.
6. It’s not fair. Why does he get to traumatize me and move on when I’m left with the emotional damage that I have to work SO hard to get over?
7. It’s not fair.

But for some reason, after going through these thoughts and even telling him these thoughts, which were not well-received (I would be surprised otherwise), I am now feeling better? Lighter? Even when I think of him now, I don’t have bitter thoughts. Did I just need to let it out? I remember going through something similar earlier in the year, which is when I started branching out because I saw that he was moving on with his life and being happy – which I felt also wasn’t fair at the time – which pushed me to work even harder to move past the trauma. I don’t know if it worked, or if I just strong-headed it and it’s catching up to me now. It feels like it’s a cycle where I get triggered by him, lash out, feel better, and move on until I get triggered again.

There is something called the CBT cycle which states that your triggers, emotions, and body are all connected and related to one another. I haven’t gotten far into the module yet for it, but I’m hoping it provides me with methods that can prevent my triggers from causing negative emotions. One of the methods I’ve seen through therapists is exposure therapy – so maybe it has to do with that. My lashing out this time was not as dramatic or big as last time, so I guess this is life’s own exposure therapy for me. But it kind of sucks how life works that way. You really have to put in so much hard work to undo the things that were done to you, without your consent. Life really isn’t fair.

Why does he get to be happy and in a new relationship when he hardly deserves it? How can anyone find him attractive after they know everything that he did to me or how he behaved in all of his relationships? After they find out he cheated (and not too far in the past either)? No one really gets to know the depths of a person until you have a relationship with them, so of course, no one knows his worsts except me and his exes. And it’s completely unfair. He traumatized me, adding onto my already compounded and existing trauma and stress, pushing me farther back into my recovery by giving me something new to recover from. But I didn’t scar him like he scarred me, so he doesn’t have to heal. He can just move on and label me as the ex with mental health issues and that’s why the relationship didn’t work out. But my relationships are the reason I have mental health issues in the first and it’s just completely not fair. The perpetrators get to walk away while the victims are left licking their wounds and just trying to learn how to exist again.

Life isn’t easy. Life isn’t fair. Especially now, with inflation, the current society, and the current political climate as well. I don’t have thoughts of suicide or that everyone would be better off without me, but I do constantly wonder what do I have to live for? Constant debt? Climate change getting worse? The positives have not outweighed the negatives yet, and I have no hope that they will, ever. It seems like every day, something is getting worse and nothing’s really getting any better. It’s kind of felt that way ever since COVID. Everything is still recovering from COVID. Will it ever go back to the way it used to be? Will there ever be hope for our society or world again? What is there to live for?

It feels like my body has reached its threshold for trauma and stress and is just existing and trying to get through each day. I wish we could just refresh or restart or get new bodies. Instead, we have to carry all of the weights of our past and learn to live with them. It feels like a boulder. But hey, maybe this is the worst it’ll ever get. Maybe this is the peak and it’s all downhill from here. I’d like to hope so. Of course, I don’t want victim mentality. Of course, I do things to actively change my circumstances, but like everything, it takes a lot of hard work and a lot of time and nothing’s immediate. Combined with my impatience, it’s a long waiting game with very little reward along the journey. I hope, I really do hope, that one day I am able to be happy. I hope one day I am able to feel – truly feel again.

I also read an article recently that talked about post-traumatic growth and how trauma is unique when it comes to therapy. Some methods of therapy feel more like band-aids on how to get through each day without truly unraveling the underlying trauma, and that really resonated with me because that is exactly what it’s felt like going through therapy. I can get by day to day and do all the coping mechanisms given to me, but they’re all just temporary fixes. I want to truly unsheathe and let go of the underlying trauma and resentment. The article I read about post-traumatic growth also indicated that post-traumatic growth pretty much only happens when you’ve hit the bottom of the barrel, and it takes a lot of time and energy. Can I please have my post-traumatic growth phase now?