Hi.

By | July 16, 2010

Clearly, I’ve been a little reclusive. Getting dental surgery (separate entry about that hot mess will be coming soon) and dealing with baggage and bullshit has all taken precedence. You know how it is.

I’m a little drained and just going through one of those completely unmotivated phases. I’ll think “hey, I ought to blog about that,” but I stop before slapping together a piddly three paragraphs of “LiLo a LOLA? LOLWHUT?” (Though now that I have a title for that blog post, maybe I will write it!)

Yeah. So I’ve been spending my time playing around with Perler fuse beads, rearranging my apartment, and dispensing my wit and humor around the tubes. Oh, and doing a bunch of navel gazing. We can’t forget about the navel gazing.

For a really long time during horrendous breakups, as in breakups from horrible relationships where the aftermath was almost bad enough to wish it never happened, I’d get pretty pissed about friend fallout. It holds true even if it’s a platonic or friend “breakup.” I thought I’d have more to babble about this, but I’m going to leave it in the ever capable hands of “Harriet J.” from fugitivus.net. (And yeah, I know that I now run the risk of her getting her blog trolled. Full disclosure: I generally agree with everything she’s said, specifically on abuse, leaving abusive friend/relationships. If you feel compelled to comment to her, don’t act like a douchebag.)

Anyway. This is important shit. Read it. Emphasis throughout is mine, not hers:

I want to tell the full story of what propelled me to start this blog in the first place.

After I left Flint, I had to deal with friend fallout. Everybody does after a break-up, no matter how good or bad the break-up was. It’s crap no matter what, but there’s this narrative that you can avoid most of the bullshit just by acting with dignity: don’t talk heinous inappropriate shit about your ex, don’t “force” your friends to choose, and just generally move on with grace. That all sounds reasonable enough, if what you had was a reasonable relationship and a reasonable break-up. If what you had was years of abuse and a rape to top it off, doing something reasonable like seeking out crucial emotional support from friends is seen as talking heinous shit, forcing them to choose, and refusing to move on – which also makes it easy for your friends to dismiss you as a vengeful lying bitch, fucking up their ethics. All your rapist has to do is cry a little and say, “I really hope the best for her, she’s a great person,” and suddenly he’s this awesome guy that you, the rape victim, should really shut the fuck up about.

[...]

How I did it was ugly. I used a lot of kinda sort maybe could you I guess the thing is not that I’ saying you would and I don’t really care but what I mean is you know? I had almost no skills in standing up for myself, and didn’t really feel like developing them during an argument about whether or not I was really raped, and if so, whether or not I ought to just shut the fuck up about it already. I was determined to be some dignified picture of you-can’t-tell-I’m-a-rape-victim-because-I’m-so-strong, hoping this would gain me some kind of foothold against Flint.

I mean, I had no interest in playing little power games by trying to steal all our mutual friends away, but Flint did. Fighting back by not fighting sounded like the noble way, but it also sounded and felt a lot like abuse.

More located here. A lot of her posts have resonated with me since I started reading her blog about a month ago, and finding it gave me one of those “ILU INTERTUBES, LET’S NEVER BE APART EVER AGAIN!” moments.

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  • Idwal Brugh

    I think that depends on what "seeking out crucial emotional support from friends" means. Does that mean you need rant repeatedly or just bond over ice cream and wine (comfort foods!) and sad songs for day? I could be wrong but I suspect Harriet J had some seriously deep-reaching issues that no amount of friend time could correct…it sounds like she needs intense professional help…so her equating emotional support with talking heinous sh!t gives me major pause.

    One paradox of our marvelous intertubes is that we are simultaneously more connected and more detached- one click or button press and you no longer have to deal with many issues and your ego is "free" to follow its whims (or it becomes slave to its whims). What this means is that you may need to reach out yourself in a time of need…as well as risk many shallow people tuning you out. Never nice, but that's our culture at times.

    In that or any similar case, I suggest rage therapy.

    Make a list of every thing you've ever wanted to call/say to the ex. Even "minor" things like how you hate the way they, say, chomp on ice cubes. Cruel and unusual insults and curses? Absolutely! Anything goes. ANYTHING.

    Then take something that reminds you of that person (old clothing is great, as is any gift they may've given you) and keep it with that list.

    When you have a good hour or 2, turn off your phone(s), lock the doors, and put on music that reminds of the ex. Go with the ex-reminder and the list to a comfortable room and basically unload everything on that memento. Read from your list if you need to and scream everything you need to at it. Kick, choke, stab, throw it around the room while imaging you're really doing it to the human. When you're exhausted or satisfied, tell the ex they're dismissed, throw the memento away along with the burned or shredded list and put the bag in a dumpster. Then have some ice cream and wine.