I've made a decision. Or, rather, I made a decision. Months ago. And finally I'm ready to act on it. Almost.
I'm deleting the Facebook friends I have in common with my ex - our "mutuals" (a perfectly good adjective gruesomely nouned by the internet!).
That I am writing (and you are reading) this may seem unnecessary. Not so. I have realised recently how therapeutic I find the process of writing out my thoughts; forcing my brain to process them as I type can give me clarity and calm on stressful or distressing topics. And I'm posting it on this blog because it's true, and therefore I feel it deserves space.
The fact that I am giving this process more than the seconds it would take to click-click-click unfriend them all may seem the epitome of millennial self-indulgence. So, why? Why does the allegiance of my friends list give me such pause? I have a pain disorder which is disabling in terms of its impact on my mobility and energy, and I'm currently experiencing a flare up of my mental health issues which are rooted in complex trauma. The combination of these means that I'm stuck in my bed or on my sofa a great deal of the time, which makes Facebook (the only social media I really use) something of a lifeline. It needs to feel safe. I write candidly on Facebook about what's happening in my little corner of the world: my health, my grief, my politics. But recently there's been a topic which I've avoided: my last relationship.
The relationship lasted almost eight years, and its confusing, messy end broke my heart at a time when I could ill afford it. I so desperately wanted him to change his mind. In the year and a half since then, my perspective has changed: I look back on what he called love, and I see emotional abuse. Through his quiet, reserved Nice Guy facade, I now see the man who controlled me, isolated me from my friends, and gaslit me. And I wonder how it could ever have felt like anything else.
I remember the words which he spat at me, in those awful weeks after we'd split up, when I was begging him to leave, but he wouldn't: "If I'd known how crazy you were, I would never have fallen in love with you!" And I remember how deeply those words cut me, how ashamed I'd felt. I wonder if he said that to his other "crazy ex girlfriends". I remember him talking about the mental health of his new girlfriend, and I wonder if he'll tell her that one day. I remember the allegation made by another "crazy" woman: that he fetishised and preyed upon women with mental illness. I remember him telling me about this, in the very early days, before we were a couple, and I was 23 years old, being spooled in. When I was the one on the other end of surreptitious online chats, kept hidden from the woman who shared his bed. I remember my certainty that it couldn't be true, and I remember that my certainty was based on his bumbling charm and nothing else. I remember the words of a friend after our break up became public: "he made you crazier than you would've been". I remember changing so much about myself, to please him. Minimising aspects of my personality that he didn't like, and slowly, slowly becoming so much less, just to be loved. I wonder how much his new girlfriend has changed already. Sometimes I wonder whether he ever recognised his behaviour as abusive, or whether he ever will.
I don't want to censor myself on my own Facebook, and I don't want to retain any connection to him. So, it's time to start deleting.
At first glance, these mutuals fall into three categories - for simplicity: his, mine, and ours.
Those who are "his" begin simply enough: nobody related to him would believe my word over his. And I never expected to be able to maintain a relationship with any of them. I cried over that, and accepted it. And ditto, I suppose, his friends from school. This is harder. Among his oldest friends are people I came to genuinely adore. (Although we never saw enough of them - he didn't feel comfortable with them, he would complain.) No longer seeing their updates in my Facebook feed will be a loss, and I feel horrible about the idea of their disbelieving me, but realistically it is inevitable. Unless I want to continue to pretend that the relationship was A Good Thing That Sadly Ended (and I simply cannot, any longer) the only choice is to lose these people. They are kind and hilarious and talented, and I will miss them.
The friends who are primarily "mine", I obviously hope to keep. But if they don't want to delete my ex, what then? I suppose that if my explanations are not enough, then perhaps I have categorised them incorrectly...
And the friends who were "ours"?
Having spent a lot of time reading and thinking about sexual violence, and reading and listening to the stories of those who have experienced rape, assault, and abuse, I came to a conclusion: I could only ever believe these people. Perhaps this is an example of my autistic tendency to think in a binary way, but I'm always, always going to be with Desmond Tutu: "If you are neutral in situations of injustice, you have chosen the side of the oppressor. If an elephant has its foot on the tail of a mouse and you say that you are neutral, the mouse will not appreciate your neutrality."
I have a lot to lose here, but I cannot stay silent any longer. So I hope there are lots of Tutu fans out there.
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