soggy donkey herder on Nostr: It’s still far too painful to poke about in my memories of The Bad Ex, but it’s ...

It’s still far too painful to poke about in my memories of The Bad Ex, but it’s definitely time to examine my past again. How did I end up so vulnerable to him? How can I forgive myself a little bit more?
When I was a kid, my parents really pressured me about some aspects of my personality. I was often berated for “being a princess”, which was just their way of framing my texture sensitivities. (Somehow my mom also simultaneously disapproved of my tomboyishness. Sorry you birthed a butch, lol.)
There’s a lot of societal pressure for women to stop being perfectionists. Just learn to relax and let some mistakes happen! My dudes, what you see as perfectionism is just my autism eternally seeking The Optimum Solution. My brain likes for things to fit together neatly. It likes seamless transitions and efficiency. It’s not a bad thing to be wiped out!
But the biggest thing they disapproved of was my stubbornness. Those were the big three inherent and natural ways that my mind works that my parents constantly hammered away at. I’m not entirely sure what their end result would’ve looked like: a trash panda who eats and wears whatever is set before her and doesn’t argue about it, I guess. And somehow stills gets all As?
When I look back now, all I see is damaged people trying to saw off the inconvenient parts of their perfectly functional child, just to make her function in a different way. I was a little weirdo loner but I got As, I read all the time instead of loud and expensive kid hobbies, and I just wanted to wear clothes that didn’t have itchy lace, preferably jeans. I wasn’t bad or hard to live with! I was just a withdrawn, inattentive AuDHD kid!
I think that when I was a late teen, all those disapproving parental voices in my head did a fuckload of delayed harm. “Maybe you should quit being so stubborn and do what he wants. Quit being such a princess about it.”
I’m not quite no-contact with my parents, but I’ll only talk to them online, and rarely at that. I keep wondering very clinically if I’m going to be swamped with regrets when they die. But they’ve never changed, and ten minutes in to any phone call they’re just as toxic as ever. Maybe I won’t regret it. I’d definitely rather live with regrets than let them hurt me again.
That’s plenty of self reflection, whew.