bonding over trauma and the toll it takes
every once in a while, one specific ex will show up in my dreams. in the dream we are never together again (although it sometimes feels like it), but we get along very well, something we don't do so well in real life.
i realized in the last dream occurrence that we share a traumatic bond that although we never discussed with this level of understanding, it impacted our relationship and the ways we treated each other.
we both had mother wounds to heal. and we both lacked that kind of nurturing within ourselves. we hadn't learned to mother ourselves either. we both hurt in different ways. we both attempted to nurture the other in our ways, but sometimes the pain took over. pain took precedence. healing was unknown. love was blocked and unable to be shared.
i gave so much, i took so much in... he attempted to give and was unable. so we both became drained in our own ways. he fed off what i provided. i tried to be mother, girlfriend, lover, father... all of it. i tried everything to take care of him that i didn't take care of myself. i lost myself. i drowned. i was unaware of everything i was letting slip between my fingers to make sure this other human was comfortable and feeling safe. sometimes i had no idea what i was doing and i was brash, unaware of the pain i was also causing.
we shared the mother wound but we couldn't help each other. it felt like survival, not growth and nourishment. there was so much lack in our daily lives, we took solace in each other, when being with each other was part of the lack being created at the time. we were not nourishing the way we felt we were.
and so bonding over trauma, although we did it subconsciously, built a heavy, toxic chord between us that drained more than it fed. unhealthy attachment. a benign cyst grew in my breast. i was giving too much to receive nothing in return. he was verbally abusive and i was too submissive and unknowing. i didn't know what boundaries were. i timidly stood my ground and he trampled on it when i tried. i rarely said the right thing. nothing i ever said could have been good enough to salve his wounds that were constantly being torn open again. life was harsh for him. he invited the harshness. that was his comfort zone: pain, failure, abandonment, drugs, everything going wrong was where he was fed. on survival mode.
i couldn't be dragged along. i cut myself loose, i cut him loose. he found someone else to mother him and he immediately moved in with her. i said good riddance but chords were tight and too strong. it took a long time to sift through this. it's been years, and i'm still unpacking the damage.
it can be complicated and confusing when someone makes you smile and laugh so much, feel so comfortable at times and taken care of (albeit not in the greatest ways), feel so good physically, and then you see and hear and experience their evil twin... my giant gemini man, he was funny and sexy and knew a darkness of life i had never experienced. my rays were too bright for his shadow. i blinded him and he doused me. we couldn't bond over our traumas. i was privileged and he was determined to set us apart, put me on a pedestal i never asked to be on, compete for sovereignty when all i wanted was for us to rise together. i never looked down on him but he always thought i did. all i wanted was to see him rise to the occasion, but i couldn't be dragged down.
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