| That's like what they said right after it happened: that I deserved to be treated like that. That it was my fault. And for along time I believed them. And I considered deeply how I could have done things that worked better. In any situation, I am okay to take the blame and responsibility. So as long as as it's fair I'll own what's mine. In this situations it took me a long time to see it wasn't fair. These people had exploited my willingness to own responsibility, and blamed their own actions on me, to disguise what they had done and avoid consequences for it. They also exploited their closeness to me, knowing that I would trust what they said, and likely shoulder blame they wanted to put on me. One reason I did that was because I just expected they would do the same for me in return, and we would each take responsibility and work out a win-win. The hardest part for me was letting go of the idea that I could rely on these people. That took me a long time, one reason is because they were so close to me. Now I've realized I need to be a lot more responsible with how I take responsibility for things, and not try to own stuff that's not my fault. And that I need to more quickly and robustly stand up for myself when people try to hurt me, and not let them dominate the narrative with lies. I used to think such things didn't matter, then I faced the consequences of being silent in the face of other people's bad behaviour and fake stories, and of trusting them to feel about me the same way I felt about them. Anyway, it's good to take this opportunity to say this. It took me a long time to get to this point. |