Post 10: Queen of the silent treatment

Post 10 Happy International Women’s Day! (Queue Beyoncé Rule the World (Girls)) I’ve been MIA from my posts. Partly because I needed to focus on other work, partly because I really disliked writing on the iPad, partly because I’m torn on which way to go with the story. For today, I’ll start here. I spent years being passive aggressive. I loved the silent treatment as much as I liked to express myself in an outwardly, loud way. I’m telling you I’m a little bit feisty. I was passionate about earning a seat at the imaginary table I felt I wasn’t good enough to be at. I loved blasting music with a message I hoped “he” or anyone else would get. Something my mom could attest to when I was a teenager. I think she’s said something like “You knew exactly what Holly was feeling based on what music she was playing that day.” (And how loud ;) ) I had hard time expressing how I was feeling out loud in words. While it was easy for me to express in loudness, the actual words of how I was feeling weren’t easy to communicate. This might have been because I really didn’t know how I was feeling other than hurt or sad or angry. I don’t think I felt I had a “right” to feel what I was feeling. It felt petty or like I was complaining, and maybe that’s how it came across because I didn’t know how else to express it. I spent years trying to feel like I was respected for what I brought to the table, even if it wasn’t money. I waited and fought… Hindsight is interesting. How I see it now: It wasn’t Terrace that needed to change. It was me. (Blurg - it’s always me). I am the ONLY person who decides how I get treated. I am the only person who decides my worth. I am the only person who decides. My lightbulb: no one is going to treat me better than I think I deserve to be treated. No one will love me more than I love myself. Pretty shitty if you’re “letting” someone do that. Yeah, kind of sucks. I spent basically 14 years waiting for Terrace and blaming Terrace and then woke up one day and was like “shit, it’s all on you. You need to change.” This is all very hard to see when you’re in the middle of your special kind of hell. And even if I knew as a theory that you can’t change another person, that the only person you can change is you, that doesn’t mean I still wasn’t wishing for it. “If he would just do (blank), our marriage would improve. If he just said this…. If he just felt this… If he could just see it from my perspective.” If I look back on our relationship, there are pivotal moments that caused the relationship to deteriorate. They usually had the same pattern: I felt unimportant or unloved, not respected, and/or not protected. At the time I couldn’t see my part in that. I felt those things about myself and Terrace’s actions or behaviours or whatever mirrored my belief. From Terrace’s side, he couldn’t see what he had done “wrong.” Everything was justified, and he believe it was easier to ask for forgiveness than for permission. (The songs I used to play when I was really upset didn’t even have hidden meanings. My two favourites “She hates me – Puddle of Mud and “I just want to be mad for a while” – Terri Clark.)

Mar 8, 2020, 9:35 AM