We're Too Old and Too Wise Not To Choose Ourselves Over Suffering at the Hands of Others

Too Old for This Sh*t: How to Take Your Life Back from an Ageist Society

Photo by 愚木混株 cdd20 on Unsplash

Pain is inevitable. Suffering is optional. Let’s choose wisely

My friend Melissa has been having a rough time lately. Over the last few weeks she has had to choose between her love for herself and her mental health over a beloved relationship.

She’s been in this relationship effectively since the day I left for Eugene, late July of 2020. I was staying at her house right after mine had sold. As I drove away, this affair began in earnest. There was a great deal that was good about the connection and it flourished.

One of the main reasons I had sold and chosen to move was because I had been in a toxic relationship for fifteen years and had had it. That said, a move to Oregon was a long-desired dream, so there was that.

Melissa had fallen in love. I was about to fall in love with Oregon as I left behind the tattered remains of that toxic relationship, rotting beneath the floorboards of my last home.

We all do what we always do until we don’t. That sounds painfully obvious but for anyone who has tried to break a baked-in, trauma-based habit, it’s familiar.

Love is a psychotic break, say some, and I wholly agree. All too often, if we come from trauma, we give away the farm in our need to secure love from the object of our affection.

In both Melissa’s and my case, we allowed all kinds of overstepping of boundaries in order to accommodate our new love.

How much of ourselves to we have to give up to be loved by you?

Right from the start we taught them what we would tolerate in the name of love.

In doing so, we set ourselves up for disaster. Because eventually, the overstepping of boundaries caused us real pain, and inevitably got worse. When we tried to renegotiate terms, there was manipulation and pushback, including accusations that we don’t care, we “don’t have compassion.”

All the usual.

When people whom we have taught that we are doormats are met with a door, they will pull out all the stops to turn us back into doormats again.

Melissa and I were so in love with our respective partners that we missed critical signals that trouble was coming. In her case, the partner’s two sons, actually young men. One of them was deeply problematic and also resentful of Melissa’s presence in his mother’s life.

The other had PTSD from his older brother’s violence.

Increasingly the older son’s hold on his mother, her attention and time became so toxic that Melissa was forced to start setting guard rails.

Melissa’s relationship nearly ended because of the son last fall, but survived and thrived when her partner finally insisted the young man- then nearly in his mid-twenties- move out, get a job and grow up.

Finally, he did. Everything changed.

That was right about the time that I finally ended my connection, which had been rekindled by phone, with my permission. It had gone on far longer, had done far more damage.

I finally grew balls.

Everything changed.

As with so many such situations, Melissa’s honeymoon with her partner would come to an end a year later. The son (intentionally) failed spectacularly, threatened suicide -which is the one card he plays to force his mother to do what he wants- and moved back home. He wormed his way back into the womb by lying, which is also his modus operandi.

He promised to be out in two weeks. It’s been considerably more than that. Of course it has.

Photo by Markus Spiske on Unsplash

Melissa immediately set new guard rails. No, no, no, and NO.

She cancelled a much-anticipated trip, cancelled all their plans. Their weekends together ended abruptly. Every single bit of this caused her considerable heartbreak, but it had to be done. A critical agreement had been made and that contract had been broken.

The partner accused her of not caring, having no compassion.

Right about the same time Melissa was facing this choice, the BF that I had finally drop-kicked to the kerb last year was back in my life.

Okay, that’s not entirely true. His parents live in Port St. Lucie, Milton mowed through, pushing tornadoes into their back yard. As a courtesy I dropped the block on his email to ask if they were all right.

That was a mistake. Next thing I know he’s doing what he always does, trying to edge his foot back in the door by asking if I had gotten a new dog.

My stories are all over the Internet. If he wants to know what’s up in my life, he can read about it like anyone else can. This is a trick he’s long used to engage me on an innocent topic, then worm his way back into MY womb.

I’ve had a lot of years watching him do that. I’ve all too often let my loneliness and my willingness to believe the right words overwhelm my better judgment. The cost has been horrific.

“This time it’s different,” the age-old abuser’s promise, when he came back, hat in hand.

Knowing he’d repeat himself, I would shove the dagger into my own heart and let the whole thing play out again. I was abusing myself.

This time it’s different for me. And for Melissa.

We are the ones who have to rewrite our stories and stick by them. Of course it’s hard. Of course it hurts. But nothing changes until we do it.

It took me several days to craft my email in precisely the same way it took several days for Melissa to craft her response to her partner. There are great pain, considerable suffering and emotional cost when we set strict boundaries on people who cause us harm.

We both felt guilty.

I have always, ALWAYS felt as though I had no right whatsoever to say no, no to a predator, no to an abuser, no to a bad doctor. NO NO NO NO NO.

I’d apologize for the audacity, then the bad news would just keep coming off the presses. Melissa did the same.

Bet some of you can relate, too.

The good news is that we talk six days a week with rare exception. We sit with our feelings, our compulsions, our failures. We support each others’ big or baby steps to set healthy boundaries. When we set them, and stick with them, those are cause for celebration.

Above all, we don’t berate each other if we fail. That’s part of growth, too.

We did set those boundaries. We sent clear, brief, crisp statements, steeped in love and self-respect, and said NO.

Photo by Madalyn Cox on Unsplash

Still, we both felt guilty. For taking care of ourselves, for once.

Melissa and I are both incest survivors and family scapegoats.

Here’s where I’m going with this:

Rebecca C Mandeville LMFT CCTP

wrote a potent article on setting boundaries which applies to those of us who are/were the family scapegoat. Even if you don’t think you were, if you have feelings of guilt when you say no to something that causes you suffering, this is a most worthwhile read:

Challenging Misperceptions Regarding Empathy and Asserting Boundaries

Here’s the key quote from Rebecca’s piece:

Empaths and Boundaries: An Impossible Double Bind

Establishing boundaries is essential for mental and emotional health, and this is especially true for empaths. Boundaries allow empaths to protect their energy and maintain a sense of self amidst the chaos of others’ emotions. However, in families where scapegoating is prevalent, boundaries can be perceived as rejection or a lack of caring. This can lead to a vicious cycle where the empath is seen as unfeeling or distant simply for rightfully prioritizing their own well-being, which is essential if we are going to be there for others. (author bolded)

Such dynamics create a double bind: When empaths assert themselves or withdraw to protect themselves from maltreatment and abuse, they face backlash. They may be accused of being cold, selfish, narcissistic, or lacking in empathy. These criticisms can feel particularly painful for those who identify strongly with their empathetic nature. As adult survivors of family scapegoating abuse, this reaction may also echo their childhood experiences, reinforcing feelings of inadequacy and confusion about their identity. (author bolded)

There is great power at play here. I have too many times gone back to a bad man, returned to bad doctor, forgiven a parent for profound abuse. So has Melissa.

Many of us choose the dysfunctional relationship, the hell we know, in lieu of the heaven that can happen when we set non-negotiable guard rails.

We’ve both been in therapy. We’ve both done hard, deep, personal work. We both know how hard it is to reset the emotional patterns. To redraw boundaries and set NO in stone.

NO is a complete sentence.

It doesn’t need embellishment. It sure as hell doesn’t need an apology.

Either path- stay and suffer, or set boundaries and experience pain- involves pain. One perpetuates the pain because at some powerful level we know we’re doing this to ourselves. We are out of integrity with self-care.

To set boundaries causes pain, too. But in choosing ourselves, we choose to end suffering. That’s the real choice. Having integrity also costs, but it’s fleeting, and it builds essential emotional muscle.

Saying no, choosing our own emotional health, gets easier with practice. We learn to trust ourselves.

The guilt we both felt in setting these boundaries is passing.

And one more thing.

I just had an horrific experience with a nerve test at a pain clinic. It went horribly wrong and caused me great distress. They want me to come back and get it done again.

NO. You don’t subject a patient who is dealing with chronic pain to even more extreme pain just to diagnose where the pain is.

That’s torture.

Worse, when the technician said, WELL, nobody ELSE has had that reaction, that was the end of it for me. You don’t shame the patient for the pain that your procedure caused.

That’s abusive, on top of torture.

NO NO NO NO NO and NO.

Setting healthy boundaries applies to how we’re treated in medicine as well as how we’re treated in love as well as how we’re treated in families.

When I told my father he couldn’t verbally abuse me any more he wrote me out of the will. You can expect such tactics.

This work never leaves us. The habits are baked in early, and we are tasked with dealing with trauma-informed habits the rest of our lives.

We are not enslaved to those habits. We are not victims unless we choose to be.

Nothing is free. There is pain in all of this. But the pain of birthing a stronger person in ourselves, the self WE can rely upon to stand up for us, is worth it.

Rebecca’s article has advice on how to move forward if you deal with some of the same issues. I heartily recommend it, and I strongly recommend getting therapy and building a community. Because we are both committed to evolving, Melissa and I supported each other through an emotional time.

This kind of pain is more easily borne with a caring witness who doesn’t try to fix us, but who knows that pain is part of the price we pay to live a better life.

Those who love us completely stand with us as we deal with the pain of personal growth. They do not try to protect us from it.

We can experience the pain and move on, or we can choose to continue to suffer.

The more we walk towards such challenges, the more we can play.

I’m all in.

Let’s play.

Thanks to Rebecca as always for her wise writing, and for the push to put this story in an article.

Photo by Nik on Unsplash

This kind of material is never easy. I get to reveal pieces of myself about which I’m not terribly happy, but to keep those hidden is not only dishonest but it also doesn’t allow Dear Reader to understand how universal such things are. We all deal with something. The more we address it, the less of a grip it has on us.

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