One of the hardest things to learn, or re-learn, after any sort of emotional abuse or gaslighting, is how to change your mind.
You put so much energy and so much will into the idea that who you are isn’t bad, that you are capable of making sound decisions on your own, that the things you value aren’t dumb. There’s a lot of compensatory anger - a lot of choosing and doing things BECAUSE YOU CAN. Where material resources allow, there’s a lot of need to control your space and surround yourself with identity-laden things.
So what happens when you’ve bought a thing or gotten into a routine or whatever that was YOU and THE THING YOU ALWAYS WANTED / WANTED TO DO / WANTED TO BE, and then … it’s not exactly working out? You see something you like better?
For most people - again, resources allowing - this is not a fraught thing. Oh, you’re feeling kinda meh about those curtains, actually, and you LOVE the ones you just saw at Target? When and if you can afford it, you then donate the old ones and get new curtains. This is not a big deal. This is not even a blip of a deal. This does not have emotional significance.
Thing is, if getting that first set of curtains had been an exercise in self-expression, an assertion that you can choose things you want and not the things someone else told you to want - it gets weird. Also you spent money on those curtains that you now don’t like. You wasted that money, if you replace them. And wow, are you just going to go around replacing your curtains every few years, and like, NEVER BE HAPPY WITH WHAT YOU HAVE AND MAYBE YOU ACTUALLY DON’T KNOW WHAT YOU WANT AND SHOULDN’T BE TRUSTED WITH DECISIONS AND DON”T KNOW WHO YOU ARE BECAUSE THOSE WERE THE PERFECT CURTAINS AND NOW YOU DON’T LIKE THEM EVERYTHING YOU THOUGHT YOU UNDERSTOOD IS CRUMBLING.
… I wish this were a hyperbolic example, but I’ve actually gotten that upset about interior decorating choices.
So, for everybody else out there who may be in this too - it is normal to change. It doesn’t mean you were wrong and they were right (even if you end up agreeing with something that someone previously tried to force on you - the force was and remains wrong, the thing itself was and remains incidental). You can get the thing you thought you wanted and not want it anymore, and there are directions to go from there besides back. It’s okay. Exhale. Get the new curtains.
(via ladyyatexel)
