🗄️ The X-Files (Part 2): The Empathy Trap and The 18-Month Wait

Before I go on, I want to make something extremely clear. Making the choice to write this blog has been 18 months of thinking.

• 18 months of waiting to see if my belief that if people understand how their behaviors affect others, they will choose to act differently.

• 18 months of studying psychology, narcissistic abuse syndrome, dismissive avoidants, not to mention my own issues of CPTSD, Trauma, Trauma Bonding, Co-dependency, and emotional abuse.

• 18 months of waiting, praying, and hoping that a lightbulb would go off and click.

• 18 months of experiencing mixed signals, mixed boundaries, discards, deflections, blame-shifting, and gaslighting.

• 18 months of learning what TRUE ACCOUNTABILITY actually means.

• 18 months of hurtful personal attacks anytime I attempted to express myself and work through my shit. (Of course, I was doing it publicly on my podcast “Gulf Coast Healing”—but last year on my birthday, I was getting ‘responses’ to my podcasts. I actually even called the police because I was trying so hard to just process what I was going through, only to CLEARLY offend my ‘friend’.)

It was as though 20 years of friendship never even existed.

I learned the why. I understand all the actions now—by both parties. I didn’t actually WANT to write this blog because I worried constantly about how it would affect my friend.

📁 Why “The X-Files”?

Now would be a great time to explain why I call this blog the “X-Files.”

When my book series, Siren Stories, was being developed, originally the plan was to produce a graphic novel crossed with an autobiographical novel. I anticipated “Telling a Story,” and taking every precaution I could, I created a whole library for characters—including name changes. The names I picked were very specific for what they actually meant. In the case of my best friend? His name was changed using the derivative of “Charles Xavier”—so I had named him “Xavier.”

When the book switched to a memoir narrative, I decided I could easily just speak in terms of the relationship between myself and the other characters. He would always have been labeled as my “MBFF” because that’s what I had called him for years.

SO—"The X-Files” isn’t about the fact I consider him an “ex” anything. It is because this blog is going to be detailing all my processing of the abuse he didn’t understand his actions had caused me.

🛑 The Empathy Trap: Protecting Those Who Hurt Us

TO BE CLEAR: I don’t believe there is any malice. In fact, I still believe “X” is very much a victim. That has been the hardest thing.

A lifetime of living to help others, learning how my actions and behaviors stemming from my childhood hurt others. A lifetime of recognizing how hard it is to heal, and wanting to be a better person who could help others find that inner strength.

I do not HATE “X.” Actually, the contrary.

To reach a point in healing where I recognize that processing my grief, trauma, and life events has ALWAYS constituted writing and publishing those feelings... I worry deeply about how writing this may affect him, despite taking every possible precaution to not hurt him (or provide others I believe may want to hurt him with information capable of that).

The point of healing is learning. As a people pleaser who has spent their whole life never making a choice SOLELY for my own benefit—like EVER—this blog is that. My acceptance that I haven’t moved past something that is 3 years old. The realization that most likely, the emotional damage combined with my “protection” in regards to “X” is actually doing more damage to ME and causing me to STAY STUCK.

BUT I AM—AS I SAID—SO ANGRY.

🔥 The Anatomy of My Anger

I am angry at the fact that I am a person who has an obsessive need to understand the ‘why’ of things. Like a four-year-old who says “Why - Why - Why.” I actually raised my kids to believe this is the best question one can ask, and would answer the string of ‘whys’ until I couldn’t—and if it warranted, we would then google the question.

I spent 3 years learning the psychology of myself, the psychology of his actions (because he gave me NO information, ghosted me basically, and wouldn’t answer any of my questions). I’m not a licensed psychologist, or licensed in any form of mental health profession. I am, however, extremely educated.

I have sought out “second opinions” to my perception of many interactions with “X,” and it is extremely important to note (at least it’s important to me) that he is a Dismissive Avoidant who married a Narcissist (more common than you’d think).

The biggest thing the extreme level of trauma taught me—the realization I suffered through because of the perfect storm life hit me with?

No one can save ANYONE. You can ONLY save YOURSELF.

So I am ANGRY.

• I’m ANGRY I can’t help him see.

• I’m ANGRY he doesn’t understand.

• I’m ANGRY he has such a low sense of self-worth when I see such a gentle, loving, deep-thinking soul worth so much more than he gives himself.

• I’m ANGRY that my own healing took me out of his atmosphere because I am strong enough to see the toxic behaviors—and couldn’t do what I had in my marriage (change my behavior, keep that in mind, and not take any of the behavior “X” exhibited personally).

• I’m ANGRY at all the loss around me—there is JUST SO MUCH.

• I’m ANGRY that he was capable of doing what he knows to do—as a dismissive avoidant—to make sure he is okay, but my world feels SHATTERED at times. Not just the relationship, but MY WHOLE WORLD.

• I am ANGRY that someone who could treat me the way he did actually doesn’t make me as angry as it likely would others. Rather, I’m angry that I can’t just accept it for the pain and devastation it has repeatedly caused me.

Most of all? I’m ANGRY that I absolutely know this story is imperative for me to tell so that I can move on, and become the person I am going to be after all this. Because in order to accomplish that, it feels like throwing someone I can’t even stay angry at, someone I don’t hate... but someone who, to be blunt? I’ve already sacrificed enough of myself for.

🗺️ The Roadmap Forward

In the coming publications, I’m going to break it all down, sharing my experiences in a manner that is raw—which is contrary to the narrative of telling the ‘story’ in my memoir.

I have to do it. It’s the only way to ensure no residual hurt and anger fuels the writing. I want to write my book series with the capability of seeing things from all sides and not allow my anger to fuel it. It can never be about ‘vengeance’ because that’s not the person I want to be. It’s a fine line to walk—especially with undealt-with anger—and the only way to be sure that I’m not doing that is to get it out.

I thought, why not just journal it and leave it private? Well, the thing is, publishing makes me feel like I have said it to SOMEONE. And I don’t have unlimited therapy sessions to have my mental health professionals understand something that is working out to be a 6-book series.

In fact, the mental health professionals really thought “X” was a narcissist. They told me I was suffering from Narcissistic Abuse Syndrome. Having a father with an official NPD diagnosis, I just couldn’t believe it. I brought ‘Dismissive Avoidant’ to the board after educating myself (like I do). Even though I was chasing a closure and validation that may not have been healthy, I was confident after the end of a 20-year friendship that I was right.

Eventually, I got that validation, and it led to a lot of realizations.

I was protecting a friendship that didn’t even exist and sacrificing myself for someone that I believed in more than they could believe in themselves.

So, I’m going to break down the actions, my reactions, the feelings they caused within me, and how I imagine my behaviors affected him (based on psychology, because he’s never actually had in-depth conversations with me in this regard). Then I will share what I have learned from each interaction.

With every blog shared, the pain I carry will lessen. I know it will. I pray EVERY NIGHT that my content won’t cause anyone additional pain, but I’m sick of my state of mind, and it’s up to ME to change it.