Granted it often starts in childhood. You see this weird looking adult coming toward you. They’re smiling. You’re terrified. You seek shelter behind your grown-up’s leg. They push you forward and encourage you to hug this weird stranger.

Your gut said, “No. I don’t want to. I don’t know them. Stranger danger.” But your adult said to do it, go against your instincts and training, and trust that they know better than you.

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From that moment on you have more situations than you can count where people encourage you to go against your instincts. Some will yield good experiences, others not so good, while others may prove tragic. But all have the common, initial request, “Trust me more than you trust yourself.”

Yesterday, I discovered that, although I thought I had thoroughly healed from a past major relationship, some residue remained and it’s been f*cking up my life.

I was driving and found myself in a deep panic. Anxiety had taken. Anxious thoughts were coming in rapid fire. As I attempted to calm down and get control of myself, I realized something jarring… I was spiraling in terror because I did not trust myself.

I. Did. Not. Trust. Myself.

I did not feel that I had the ability to handle whatever could happen in that moment. I was freaking out because I did not trust my ability to handle driving safely in snow. But it doesn’t make any sense! I have been driving since I was 18 years old. I have lived in, or near, Chicago the majority of my adult life and have driven every winter for the last 20+ years, including long distances. But I was literally freaking the eff out over a 20-minute drive.

The absurdity of the moment brought me back to my discoveries on yesterday’s podcast (“Remember Who You Were”). In short, yesterday, as a result of listening to a Rihanna song that resonated with me, I broke free of the haze and remembered who I used to be. I realized that my relationship with my ex was a pivot point in my life—that prior to being with him I was strong, independent, self-assured, and courageous.

As I drove through the snow, I began to recall all I’ve done. I remembered my nearly two hour daily commutes to work and nursing school. I remembered driving winding roads and playing “chicken” soaring past timid drivers. I remembered moving to a city where I knew no one and not feeling in the least bit concerned. I remembered the old me….

And as I remembered my past self—the real me—my anxieties became silly to me.

Why was I terrified and questioning my ability to safely navigate to a destination twenty minutes from my house? I immediately knew the answer. My ex.

It’s crazy how someone can get in your head so bad that over a decade later you’re still discovering their presence. And I’m only telling you this because I hope that by sharing my story you’ll save yourself, or be moved to support a loved one to run. I know people are tired of the word “toxic” but some relationships really are. They are like a slow poison. That’s what it was for me, that all these years later, I’m still finding residue.

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So why after all these years am I still blaming my ex? Yeah, I asked myself the same question while I was driving. And what I remembered is that whenever I chauffered my ex (because he preferred to be driven around), he would criticize my driving the whole time. “You’re driving so slow. Look at all the cars passing you.” “Why’d you take the local? You should’ve took express.” “You should’ve gone the other way.” The second guessing was constant. He wouldn’t suggest. He would wait ’til I made a choice and then eye roll and grumble about how stupid and wrong my choice was.

And it was even worse if I was chauffeuring him and a guest. He’d be talking to them, narrating about my driving, badmouthing and criticizing and laughing with them about me, while I was dying inside and on the verge of an anxiety attack.

He criticized me so constantly that I began to defer to him and let him drive us everywhere, even in my own car. Soon, I barely drove at all—just to the grocery store and back. And even then I’d return anxious that I had been gone too long. 😔

It’s really sad to think about who I was with him. And as much as it feels so icky to look back now and see myself that way, I am grateful. The fact that I’m cringing and viewing my past self with pity and disgust shows me that I am not that chick any more.

I see these moments of awareness as gifts. When I recognize these bits of residue from that relationship, I don’t ignore them, or put them to the back of my mind. I sit with them. I dissect them. I journal about them and note the patterns and the roots. And then I toss them out.

When I truly noticed how terrified I was driving in the snow, I felt sad and discouraged. Like “when will I ever be fully detoxed from the impact of this dude?” But now that I’ve had time to process, I realize he left me some clues.

Any relationship that demands you abandon who you are and what you value, and causes you to love yourself less is too expensive. Toss that sh*t in the trash. You’re going to lose so much more than you gain.

I will NEVER again put up with what I endured with him. I will never again allow myself to proceed into a relationship (business partnership, friendship, etc.) where I have to trade in my self-trust. No relationship is worth that. No promise of love or companionship is worth that.

I am so grateful that I survived that relationship so I can tell you to run… fast. It doesn’t get better. It just gets worse.

I say this all the time and I’m going to say it again… “Love feels like love.” You should never have to stop loving yourself to be with someone else. If anything, their love and appreciation for you, should cause you to love yourself more.

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As I continue on this journey toward feeling safe to welcome love and companionship into my life, I realize that restoring self-trust is an immediate next step.

And a gift I decided to give myself is to stop believing I can’t trust my judgment because of my past relationships. Instead I am allowing myself to look at those past relationships (and situationally) and recognize where I ignored my gut instincts. I’m looking at how early I recognized red flags. I’m noting what I saw (and ignored) and allowing myself to learn from those past experiences, rather than continue to use them as evidence for why I shouldn’t trust myself.

I don’t need to “blame the victim.” Their behavior proves that THEY are the ones I shouldn’t trust, not me. I get to learn from my past relationships, and from the experiences of others, to know what to avoid.

I get to raise my value. In our careers, we recognize that more experience means more money. But in relationships, with each experience, some of us lower our value. We feel like “damaged goods.” But that’s because we’re stamping ourselves as damaged rather than those who did us wrong.

I get to continue being my kind loving self. There’s nothing wrong with being myself. Being me is not the issue. I just need to get better at choosing who gets to experience my awesomeness.

Our relationships that didn’t go well provide us some great clues for recognizing who we invest our love and time in. I recently was in a relationship (we could even call it a partnership), and after a while of pouring myself fully into this person, I started to notice similarities between them and my ex. At first, they were so awesome, but little by little, I started to see familiar traits. I didn’t ignore them, even though I did continue the connection. But I began to be vocal about noticing their manipulative tendencies. I began to watch their behavior and conversations, and I soon realized that I was repeating a cycle with a new person.

Due to all the initial love bombing, I was initially confused. The behavior didn’t match a good natured person, so I had to be viewing it wrong. But then I stopped gaming myself. As I continued to observe, I realized I was dealing with a “wolf in sheep’s clothing.” I had unintentionally snagged another narcissist.

I’ll be honest, I felt stupid. I couldn’t believe I fell for that sh*t again. But after a while, I gave myself grace. I realized that I had clearly grown, because this time I saw it, while it was happening. And I got out. With my ex, I didn’t even know what happened until 10 years after we broke up! This was progress. I recognized it. I had to celebrate myself for that.

And that’s the “gift” of our past relationships. If we don’t take the time to notice what was off about the relationship, or about the person, or about how we changed as a result of the relationship, we miss a HUGE opportunity.

If we note the signs that the other person was not a healthy and safe partner (or just the right person for us), we can use those lessons to make better choices in the future. We don’t have to swear off relationships, or call ourselves stupid for not knowing what we didn’t know. We can use our hindsight to recognize attributes and behaviors that we overlooked and ignored so we can make better choices in the future.

We can see that having mutual interests is important to us, so we know not to get involved with someone where we have nothing in common. We can see that being in different tax brackets creates too much of a strain for us, because financial stability is a major consideration and not get involved in a situation that is doomed to be a problem later. We can notice that how a person treats their server, or their views on women’s rights, or their connection to spirituality is too far from our own beliefs and just let it be okay to not get further involved. It’s not always running from a narcissist. It can be deciding to not begin a relationship that is so strained from the beginning.

Our past relationships that tanked can help us identify our dealbreakers and recognize traits that are unhealthy, or just not a good match. And the cool part about using this information as a guide is that we can begin to restore our self-trust. We can enter with information to use to support ourselves to avoid repeating the same mistakes. We can stop dating the same person with a different name and begin to trust our judgment again….

Be kind to yourself. Forgive yourself for not knowing what you didn’t know, for not seeing what you didn’t know to see, and for the pain it caused you and even others.

We’re human and growth requires discomfort, stretching, and moments of not knowing better. It’s all about what we do with it. And I’m asking that you join me in a decision to no longer turn against yourself… to no longer trade your self-trust for companionship.

I’m done falling in love. I want the kind where I can walk in freely, with my eyes wide open.

Thank you for reading. If this resonates, please like and share.

Blessings!

Marlene Dillon Empowerment Specialist