When I first started talking to people about how my marriage was over, one person grabbed me by the forearm and said, “You tried to saaaavvve him, didn’t you?”

I looked at where her hand clutched my arm as it rested on the table between us. I sat across from her, curled up in the booth, knees up, feet on the bench, shoulders in and rounded. As fetal-positiony as I could get in public without fully lying down.

I’m sure I glared at her. My face is – to my chagrin – quite transparent (I’m still good at Texas Hold ‘Em, though). You see, I was “beyond that.” And I rejected this assertion out of hand, but during the ensuing weeks, my thoughts have returned to this exchange.

(To be clear, he does not need saving from anything. Nobody does. And it’s not my job or responsibility, anyway.)

Part of the work of trauma recovery is righting past wrongs. This happens (for me) primarily in relationships.

For instance, I grew up in abuse, from the day I was born. My brain and nervous system were wired for chaos and confusion and codependence. Being small and quiet. No feelings, ideas, or voice. Abandoning myself, often for the sake of survival, so much so that it became part of who I was for a long time.

As I grew up and got out of there, my brain and nervous system wanted different kinds of relationships and environments than I grew up in, but I had old, busted wiring. It’s like trying to run air conditioning in a hundred-year-old house that’s never been electrically upgraded.

This is why it is not enough to “want to be different than my parents.” There’s conscious and subconscious and unconscious work to do. Patterns and beliefs and pain that reside in our cells and neurons and tissue and muscles and bones until we see it and embrace it all. LOVE truly does win.

Since I was diagnosed with PTSD in 2006, I’ve been working on All The Things in trauma recovery. Upgrading my electrical wiring, if you will.

And as I’ve changed over the years, my brain and nervous system wiring have changed.

What I see, looking back over these last 20 years, is me trying to prove I’m lovable and good and beautiful and worthwhile through other people. And that is a dangerous game. This looks like getting into relationships with an agenda of, “THIS is the person/thing/situation that’s finally going to END DIFFERENTLY than my core relationships, my parents, who demonstrated that I was unlovable and worthless and deserved to be treated like crap.”

I wasn’t trying to save all the hims and thems –

I was trying to save myself.

I’ve been trying to right past wrongs. To finally have a different ending. And in some ways, I definitely have. No one thing is all good or all bad, including people and relationships.

If relationships have taught me anything in these last 20ish years, it’s that I can’t go into them with an agenda like that.

My lovability and worthiness and value is not up to another person / other people.

Some of my questions lately have been, “I’m a loving person. It gets me into trouble. Should I love less? Should I be alone? Isolate? Hermit? Count on being alone?”

No. I don’t think so.

I don’t need to love less.

I need to use more discernment and wisdom. I need to stop abandoning myself (already have), which is a deeply entrenched trauma response.

I need to stop trying to control outcomes, like believing if I’m good/smart/pretty/funny/etc enough, I’ll “finally get the love that I’ve been searching for” – at least the love my inner child has been searching for.

Nobody is coming to rescue me. And that’s a good thing.

This is the work of trauma recovery and healing.

Nothing is wasted. Every step counts.

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