It’s been quite a difficult journey for me over these past few months. It started to get rough when I was told at the end of June that my full-time consulting contract was being reduced to just a handful of hours per week, which meant that I would eventually need to find another full-time job in order to survive. It was a devastating way to start off my summer.
Over the past month it got even worse when I started to realize that the company I had been contracting with was ripping me off. They were trying to get me to do work but with no guarantee of getting paid. I hadn’t even gotten a dime from them since the end of June despite continuing to do work for them.
This latest realization hit me like a sucker punch. I had already gotten screwed over by another company a year ago, and now this. It doesn’t help matters that I also lost a long-term client a couple of years ago due to a new controller who didn’t like me and ruined what was a six-year relationship with that particular company.
Needless to say it’s been a terrible couple of years for me professionally. And to be candid it’s been pretty rough personally too.
It was exactly two years ago when my relationship abruptly ended when I was dumped by my then boyfriend. To say I was devastated is an understatement. Part of me is still shattered. My friends were very supportive and they also admitted to feeling relief that the relationship had ended. They confessed that they didn’t like my boyfriend and that they were worried that he was just using me and being manipulative with me.
And they weren’t exactly wrong about him.
I won’t write about the specifics, but sufficed to say it took me a long while to finally realize that my ex was a grifter. Many times it was up to me to pay for expensive dinners and nights out, and then there were other times when he would goad me into buying him expensive things that he himself could not afford. My friends were worried that if I married this guy that he would ruin me financially and that I would eventually be left bankrupt and heartbroken.
All of these losses, both professionally and personally, have been adding up over the past two years. I told my therapist last month that I wasn’t sure how much more loss and betrayal I could take. Then just when I felt I couldn’t feel worse I got a notification that someone liked me on a dating app, only to realize he was a guy that I had met on a different app over a year ago but then he ghosted me after our one single date. Here he was, acting like everything was fine between us despite the fact that he had treated me with complete disregard of my feelings.
I can’t even express how this made me feel.
It’s like I keep getting burned in all of my endeavors. I have a hard enough time trusting other people, but when I am continuously scammed or treated badly by both work clients and dating prospects it leads me to feel like I will never be able to let my guard down because everyone seems like they are out to hurt me.
Which brought me to start asking myself a painful question: is my sole purpose in life just to be used and discarded by other people?
I know that the answer to this rhetorical question is “no”, but nonetheless it has been hard for me to resist this toxic belief over this past month. I found myself sinking into yet another deep depression, and this time I really did not feel that I would ever recover. I felt helpless, hopeless, and feeling like nothing would ever work out for me.
And that’s when my thoughts took a very dark turn. And just a trigger warning that what I’m about to write next may be very disturbing to read.
I’ve written before about the fact that I struggle daily with suicidal thoughts, but normally I’ve been able to keep these thoughts reasonably at bay. This month was quite different. It was starting to overpower me. Every day the thoughts piled up and gained strength. All I could think of was how at peace I might be and that I would finally be free from getting constantly hurt and used. I felt like looking for a new job was pointless because any employer who would hire me was obviously out to use me and then dump me just as the last two companies had done.
It’s the same level of hopelessness I feel with romantic relationships. I felt like looking for a partner was pointless since every guy I’ve meet was either uninterested or just wanted to toy with my feelings and then discard me like an empty beer can. It’s like guys look at me and feel like they can treat me however they want as my feelings don’t matter.
So yeah, it’s been a really tough month.
There was a week in there where the suicidal thoughts were becoming increasingly powerful to the point where I was scaring myself. I felt like I had nothing to look forward to except more pain and humiliation. If my purpose in life was just to be used and discarded, then what is the point of living?
Luckily my therapist was there to help talk me off of the proverbial ledge.
I told her about my struggles, and she helped me to understand that because of my childhood I am more susceptible to being used by narcissists.
“Both of your parents were malignant narcissists,” she said to me. “Neither of them saw you as a complete person. They expected you to take care of them, even though they failed at taking care of your needs. Therefore, you developed a belief that you should take care of narcissistic people, and that means that narcissists like your ex-boyfriend are more likely to take advantage of you. Other guys would have rejected him because they don’t have the conditioning you have to take sympathy on narcissists, but he was able to prey on your emotional vulnerability due to the way your parents treated you.”
She then reminded me that because I have been willing to work on myself I can combat this tendency.
“It’s not likely that you would ever fall for someone like your ex-boyfriend again,” she said. “You would see the gaslighting, the manipulation, and the toxic behaviors right away. You’ve learned a lot about yourself over the past two years, and because of that knowledge and awareness you are far less likely to fall into a similar situation.”
I needed to hear this. I have a strong tendency to underestimate myself. Hearing these words helps me to believe that I’m not just “stuck” in this particular pattern but that I can and will avoid this pattern completely.
It’s also important for me to remind myself about all of the other people in my life that do not treat me in this way. I have many friends who love me unconditionally. None of them would ever use me. None of them would ever disregard my feelings. Dismissing these friends and their treatment of me is both wrong and unfair and does nothing but amplify the treatment I receive from those who treat me badly.
I also have plenty of work colleagues who value me and respect my knowledge and abilities. Just because I’ve had some unfortunate run-ins with some bad apples recently doesn’t mean that every professional connection is out to screw me over.
I want to learn to not be so dependent on external situations to determine my overall mood and optimism. Life is full of ups and downs, both personally and professionally. I want to trust in myself that when life gets me down that I can still pick myself up again.
All of this is important, but there is another much more important lesson I need to learn. And in many ways it’s the hardest lesson for me to learn.
It’s incredibly difficult for me to reach out to friends when I am in crisis. It’s not that I don’t trust them. It’s that my upbringing led me to believe that my emotional needs are a nuisance to others. Whenever my therapist recommends reaching out to a friend I tell her, “Why should I bother my friends with this? Who would want to hear all of this crap?”
It’s ironic, because if a friend reached out to me in a moment of crisis I’d be there for them in a heartbeat. Yet when it comes to my emotional needs I still see them as my problem, not anyone else’s, and that no one would want to deal with any of my emotional baggage.
It hurts to even write this. And I know that with some people it causes me to come off as distant or aloof, as if I have no interest in connecting with other people. Nothing could be further from the case. It’s like I have this block in my head that stops me from reaching out to people when I need help.
And during that really dark week this past month I really needed some help.
While I’m glad to be finally starting to recover from this latest episode it’s still left me rattled. Knowing how easily things can pile up in my head and lead me down a dark path is unsettling to say the least. Even after all of this work I’ve done on myself it’s painful to recognize how easily I can be pulled down into the depressive abyss.
It’s infuriating too.
As I continued my recovery I started feeling much anger towards all of those that have unnecessarily hurt me over the past two years. I didn’t deserve to be treated so terribly by consulting clients. I didn’t deserve to be used and discarded by my ex-boyfriend.
And, more importantly, none of these people deserve to live rent-free in my head.
I have wonderful people in my life now. After years of being totally isolated and alone I am grateful for my friends. My friends deserve to live in my head. And I deserve to have my friends.
And just writing this last sentence made me break down crying.
For so long I lived with so much shame and guilt about leaving behind my toxic family. For so long I felt like a terrible person that didn’t deserve friendships and love. And, to be honest, there’s still a part of me that feels this way.
This is likely yet another roadblock in my friendships which attributes to my inability to reach out when I need help. It’s like there is still a part of me that feels undeserving of my friendships. I talk to my therapist about this all the time. When people express interest in hanging out with me I am completely perplexed. When someone flirts with me I dismiss it as surely no one would be interested in me.
Needless to say I’m still a work in progress, but for now I will try to work on believing in myself and my relationships with my friends, and to dismiss those who would treat me poorly. It’s time for me to embrace friendship and love. It’s time for me to trust my friends. And it’s time for me to believe that I am deserving of my friendships.
And that’s a purpose that’s worth living for.