Ghost of my dreams (booo)

Anyone who has ever been on the powerless side of a bad or unhealthy relationship knows that you spend a lot of time thinking about how you are being victimized and trying to reverse it. Whether you’re consciously aware of it and fighting for respect or reciprocity or whatever else, or even if you don’t quite get it yet but are preoccupied with feeling anxious and worried and insecure all the time, the fundamental focus is on what is being done to you and how it feels bad or unjust or wrong. This is an expected reaction; even in the types of relationships that play out entirely on the other person’s terms, one can’t possibly avoid internalizing what is going on and processing it in terms of how it makes one feel. Even if you are making excuses for the other person’s behavior, it’s still an attempt to justify why they are harming you.

But sometimes there comes a point in relationships where you have to be honest with yourself and take responsibility for what you are allowing yourself to be put through. Most of the time when people just can’t seem to move on, the primary fundamental reason is because they quite simply don’t want to. I think a lot of times people are willing to subject themselves to these unpleasant conditions because it’s easier to justify when you can say, “this situation is bad because someone else is imposing badness on me, and they shouldn’t be doing that.” While that sentiment isn’t untrue, at some point you need to have a reality check and a stern conversation with yourself where you realize that you are allowing that person to impose badness on you. You have to give up the ghost.

When someone is hurting you it can be really easy to focus on how at fault they are, to cry to your friends and call your mom and eat ice cream and read self-help books and watch Dr. Phil and try to process a million other ways. And that’s okay and good and healthy. But at some point in a prolonged, painful situation, you have to make a decision whether you want to subject yourself to that any longer, or whether it’s time to give up the addiction, get off the rollercoaster, and get on with life. Because simply being the innocent victim doesn’t make you blameless; you have a responsibility to yourself to take yourself out of the equation when it just isn’t functioning.

Admitting defeat is probably the hardest thing to do and feels like a slap in the face on top of all of the blows you’ve already taken. But the relief of the exorcism is worth the fight.