Mediation didn’t go well. 

We will go to court now.

The internal voice started almost immediately, “Well, you know he’ll make it into your fault. You’re unreasonable. You’re unyielding. You’re never fair.”

This state was all too familiar. It was the state I fell into after every conflict in my marriage. I’d shut down, go to bed, and cry and dissociate or pour over every detail in some internal struggle. A courtroom in my head where trauma was the judge and jury and every single time I convinced myself to give in. 

Another flirtatious conversation with a stranger.

Another sexual message exchange.

Another emotional affair.

Another explanation that blamed me.

Another epiphany.

Another promise to change.

Me giving in, again.

Guilty, your honor. I sentence you to another year of misery in a marriage with someone who has never and will never respect you. 

Fool me once.

Fool me twice.

Fool twenty more times.

I might’ve escaped the marriage, but the internal dialogue still came today…

My traumatized inner child:

“Well, what’s really so wrong with just giving him what he wants.” 

(Something that made me again pay for his mistakes and oversights)

“I just don’t want to feel this way anymore.”

Grown, awake, pissed off version of me:

UM. YOU FELT THIS WAY FOR 13 YEARS AND NOW THAT YOU HAVE TO PUSH THROUGH THESE FEELINGS TO GET WHAT YOU ARE ENTITLED TO YOU’RE READY TO GIVE IN AGAIN AT YOUR OWN EXPENSE??? FUCK THAT SHIT WE ARE DONE. WE ARE DONE. NO MORE.

Will you ever learn?

Even a scenario proposed by my attorney led to my own statements, “But… is that fair?”

SINCE WHEN HAS HE EVER PLAYED FAIR, AMBER?

EVER.

LIKE EVER WHEN?

NEVER. HE HAS NEVER PLAYED FAIR. NOT WITH YOU OR THE DOZENS OF OTHER PEOPLE HE HAS TAKEN ADVANTAGE OF.

Some of us have a moral compass that we revert back to.

But some of our compasses are broken.

Some of our moral compasses are so broken they cause us to give of ourselves at our own expenses and desire to peace-keep or make someone we love happy until it almost kills us.

Some of our moral compasses are so broken that they cause use to take from the people we love the most until it almost kills them.

In too many instances, those moral compasses point to one another and an impossible bond is formed.

But in all of those instances, the victim is the same.

Why are you always on trial.

A memory popped in. 

The one I was having trouble unwinding in therapy.

The one where my mom continued to beat my ass relentlessly with a sandal until I fessed up to something I didn’t do. 

I remember the thoughts that went through my head in those moments – even though I couldn’t have been more than 8. (my daughter is 8 and I literally could never conceive beating her with anything or deliberately making her cry. When she cries it hurts me. When I cried my own mom just hit harder). 

I remember my thought process in that moment – I kept trying to recall a memory that wouldn’t come. I kept trying to figure out if I’d done it and I’d forgotten about it somehow. I was questioning my own reality, questioning myself, questioning everything I knew, and questioning and invalidating my own experience.

If she insists I’ve done it… is it possible that I’ve done it?

I didn’t even trust my own memory.

And in the same time as I lost trust for myself, I lost trust for my siblings, because while I didn’t know they did it – I was positive that I didn’t… Wasn’t I? Wasn’t I positive?

Surely if I did it there would be guilt and shame. But there was already shame and pain, was this the same thing? Had I done it? 

It didn’t matter if I had. Because I was receiving the consequences in that moment anyway. In the eyes of my mother, I was guilty. And we listen to our mothers. We respect our mothers. Even when they call us names, throw things at us and beat on us with whatever object is most convenient to her body at that moment. 

Even when they teach us that love is supposed to hurt and that belief follows us for decades after.

It didn’t matter if I did it, because it was my fault and I was facing the consequences.

And so it began. The moment I began to sacrifice myself, to question my own reality, and to believe that those that were closest to me were probably right if our realities were ever at odds. It was the moment I lost trust in myself and the world around me and came to the understanding that I cannot trust what I cannot control, everything must always be perfect, and even when it is – you can’t trust that you know what is right, you have to make sure, 

You’d think in 30 years you’d learn how to unwind these beliefs that you start to hold about yourself and the world around you as a result of the way that you’ve been parented. 

But I’m still trying, 30 years later, not to take responsibility for things that aren’t my fault and sacrifice myself to make someone else feel better. 

And it’s the worst. 

It was my coping mechanism to survive, but it never had to be.

The eternal questioning of self, the letting down of my own boundaries to please someone else… the endless situations I found myself in just trying to over-compromise to come up with a solution. 

This is where the cycle ends.

If this is where it ends why can’t I stop behaving the same way?

Why can’t I stop shutting down and freaking out internally so it fucks my entire day?

Oh my god.

The words of a friend that gave me an Akashic reading….

“You had to make sure everything was perfect so your loved ones could feel happy just so you could feel peace.”

I have conditioned myself to only feel peace when the people I love most are happy and I’ve somehow taken on that burden as my responsibility, as a result of my childhood trauma.

So when something isn’t okay with someone in my life – I internalize it as my fault and feel a guilt, shame, pain and a responsibility to fix it.

So how do you fix that?

You stop doing things to make other people happy.

And you do what the fuck is best for you.

We’re going to court.