Venting to Let Go
26/10/24
DISCLAIMER: The contents of this post should NOT be taken as any form of advice or guidance; it is merely an account of a personal exploration. Any actions taken by others in relation to the contents of this post are entirely their own responsibility. Consideration should always be given to personal circumstances, including physical and mental health status, and the law in one’s own country.
The Integration: A Clump of Sadness
I took another large dose of psilocybin truffles yesterday; it was slightly less than the previous one as I’m still trying to work out sweet spot levels.
Turns out my sweet spot was at the previous dose, or possibly slightly higher.
(By the way, I’m deliberately not stating my doses as I wouldn’t want it to be seen as any form of guidance. There are lots of calculators, such as this one, available online – if you’re curious, that’s the sort of place you should be looking for technical info.)
Despite being less trippy (reduced visual intensity, less depth of introspection) than the previous experience, it was still a pleasant and useful journey.
There were no intense emotions or obvious revelations, more feelings of quiet release. However, I was aware there was a clump of sadness that I wanted to shift but that was being resistant.
Today, Altan once again played therapist for me while I went through some of the integration process.
Cutting a very long discussion short, the upshot was that I think my struggle in letting go of Other Jess, that clump of unmoving sadness, is due to the fact that there are things she suffered that have never been properly heard and acknowledged by external persons (apart from Altan).
There’s a sense of injustice about just shrugging off things that were abhorrent and undeserved. Everyone else has done that – either making excuses for the bad behaviour towards me, or blaming me for it.
Walking away from Other Jess while those things are unresolved feels like more of the same. She deserves more from someone.
If I’m going to get to my intended destination of self acceptance, I very much need to learn to look inwards, not to external sources, for validation.
Venting to Let Go: What He Should Have Heard
On that basis, I’ve decided I need to write it all out for her, in one big, sad, rage filled, awful list. I recently wrote about all the things I’m glad about, now I’m going to vent all the things I’m still mad about.
These are the things that I believe are preventing me from truly leaving Other Jess behind – the things that were never salved or soothed through being heard and validated; the things where I didn’t say anything at the time, and now it’s too late (and too pointless) to say any of it to the person who should have heard it.
Some of them may seem trivial but they hit an emotional mark with Other Jess, where they keep being replayed rather than released.
Please excuse the switching of narrative throughout this post – for this to have the therapeutic effect I’m seeking, Other Jess needs to express certain things to EH rather than abstractly about him.
This is what EH should have heard:
1. The Cowardly, Using Discard
You knew you were planning to leave and yet you let me spend over a thousand pounds on Christmas presents for you, and talk about things we might do together in the coming year. You snuck around putting plans into place, lying to me every step of the way.
You nasty, using creep – you knew you’d be leaving me in a situation where that money would be needed for bills and things. But no, you greedy bastard wanted that Swiss watch and the fancy clothes and toiletries.
You even took me shopping on Boxing Day, pretending you wanted to treat me to something lovely, when in reality we spent the entire time looking for stuff you wanted/needed for your planned getaway.
Not only that, even having seen the enormous stack of gifts I’d been excitedly piling under the tree for you throughout December, you bought me four presents.
Two of these were things that I’d selected myself; I’ll be selling those, unused, with proceeds going towards my travel fund – it will be a joy to have you unwittingly contribute towards making my actual dreams come true.
The other two items were a shitty mug and some crappy, clearly on offer at Boots, bath bombs. No thought.
You never put any thought into gifts for me – it was always just a case of “That’ll do“.
Selfish, selfish, selfish.
I don’t even use bath bombs; they were only ever in the house for the grandkids. The fact you didn’t know that after 20 years in the same house as me, speaks absolute volumes about the attention you gave to me.
It’s not about how much or little you spent, you prick, it’s about the care and thought and effort put into the purchase.
I’m worth so much fucking more than, ‘That’ll do‘.
You were worth so much less than all the effort I put into you.
2. Sexual Manipulation and False Equivalency.
Initiating sex with me on that last night was yet another example of your vile, using, abusive ways. When I later asked you why you’d done that, you referred back to a previous time when you’d been threatening to leave, and I’d initiated sex with you. You said you were just doing the same thing.
What the actual fuck?! The two are not the same at all.
I was a fucked up mess trying to stop my abuser from leaving me.
In this instance, you were the abuser, who was leaving, taking advantage of my body, abusing me for one last time.
Fuck off with your false equivalencies.
3. The Cruel, Future-Faking Text.
It was beyond cruel to send a text telling me that you just needed space and did still love me.
You knew full well that you never intended to try to work things out. In fact, I’m almost certain (now) that you had your next victim already lined up and ready to go.
Not only was it cruel, it was more of your twisted, manipulative bullying.
More demonstrations of what a piece of crud you are.
More needing to control.
Fuck you.
I see you now.
4. Blaming the Victim for Sex Drought.
You absolute motherfucker!
How did you have the gall to send the text that said, “Tbh, it was the sex drought that killed it for me“?!
I’ll tell you what killed it for me – you watching your brother beat me up, then you leaving with him and two tarts.
You calling me a slag, repeatedly, after I’d participated in sexual acts that you asked for. And, when I raised that in response to your despicable message, you had the fucking nerve to essentially shrug, and say, “It was just once.” Just fucking once is one time too many. And your deliberate amnesia is pure fucking cowardice.
You not caring if you hurt me during sex.
You never holding me in a loving but non-sexual way.
Those are the things that killed it for me.
Those are the things that caused poor little fucking pathetic you to have to bear a lack of sex for a while.
Grow the fuck up arsehole.
5. Actively Choosing to Be Mean and Withholding Admiration.
A while back, when you came to drop off some groceries, you walked through the door and on seeing the newly decorated living room, half exclaimed “Oh, wow!“, in an admiring tone.
I say ‘half’ exclaimed because you got as far as “Oh, W..” then stopped yourself, changed your voice to a flat monotone and adjusted your words to, “That’s nice.“
Yeah, I noticed.
You shitty being – you couldn’t even give me that. You just can’t be nice to me can you?
I said for years that you were choosing to be angry and mean to me; that was another example of proof.
I should have pulled you up on it; I should have laughed in your face at your pathetic emotional ineptitude.
And d’you know what? I don’t care what you think of my home. I fucking love it.
Every trace of you that’s been painted out, sanded off, scraped away, thrown in the bin, has made me happier and freer.
I don’t want you to be nice to me (it’s just a sign that you’ve got a manipulation on the go); I don’t want you to be anything at all towards me.
After the divorce, I want you to vanish completely.
It’s quite amazing what I can achieve without your miserable presence holding me back.
6. ‘Friends’ as a Tool for Continued Control.
You’re the arsehole who said you wanted to be friends – which, incidentally, I definitely don’t – no friend would treat me the way you do.
You never wanted to be friends, you just wanted to feel you could still pull my strings.
Do you know what proves that?
The fact you got arsey when I pushed for the divorce, and that you’ve not had any contact at all with me since, despite regularly texting me photos and memes and other bullshit prior to that.
I so want to push all your rage buttons by sending you a sarcastic text on that particular day in October.
I’m laying money that you won’t be wishing me happy birthday, particularly as it was also our wedding anniversary (you fucking cheapskate, outright stating it would mean you’d only have to get one present each year).
I want to invite you to celebrate the anniversary with me; it will be the last year that there will be any bond between us and that date. I think that’s worth a toast or two, don’t you?
I want you spend the day fucking raging.
I won’t be. I’ll be celebrating the birth of me.
However I choose to do that, it’s going to be more joyous than anything I ever experienced with you.
7. The Pre-Formed Negative Narrative (Always Believing the Worst).
Going way back in time, to the very early days, there was a family gathering/party at your parents’ house. I was unaware that your ex-girlfriend would be there too.
Quite frankly, I wasn’t bothered when I realised she was there; I was feeling falsely secure in the love-bombing I’d unknowingly been experiencing from you.
The only thing that bothered me slightly was the fact you hadn’t told me she was there; I felt a bit ambushed.
Your niece, Sophie, caught me coming out of the toilet, and clearly thinking I might be upset about your ex, made some comment about the family loving me, and being glad I was with you.
Feeling quite chuffed at the positive feedback, I started to tell you; I sort of thought you’d be pleased to have your family be so accepting of me.
You didn’t let me finish, jumping in with, “I knew you’d do this!“, stomping off, leaving me dumbfounded.
I’m not exactly sure what you perceived as ‘this’, but that, you bastard, was when you first showed me that you would always think the worst of me in any situation.
You had your own narrative about who I was and any evidence to the contrary was irrelevant to you.
You did it with your sister Karen too; you just never believed in me, or had my fucking back.
Another example is when I foolishly shared with you about the time I fed Kieran’s biological father a pie made using canned dog food.
Rather than seeing this for what it was – a tiny effort, made by a battered woman to stand up for herself – you saw it as proof of my sneaky, conniving, not to be trusted ways.
I’m so upset that I spent so long trying to ‘be better’ so you’d be persuaded I’m ‘nice’.
I should have walked straight out the door that day at your parents’ house.
I should have never let you back into my home or life.
8. Willful Inability to Empathize (The Chicken Burger Incident).
There are bazillions of examples of this, but one in particular stands out.
It was that time you were working away and some kind of financial fuck up meant I found myself with literally no money at all and no food in the house. I called you.
You basically told me there was nothing you could do and I’d just have to manage.
Never mind that your parents lived just around the corner and had frequently borrowed (and stolen) money from me in the past, you didn’t suggest asking them for a (very short term) loan. I didn’t feel I could without your permission.
My friend Jennifer, who was in a not much better situation, came with me to forage – basically we were apple scrumping. We found some blackberries too.
We made an enormous crumble (at her house, to save our gas and electricity, which was on prepay meter and running low).
That was eked out between us over two days. It was quite nice on the first bowl, but not an ideal staple diet. Certainly not sufficient to keep hunger sated.
When you came home, empty handed, despite promising to keep back some of the generous ‘stay over’ money you got from work, it took superhuman effort for me to not burst into tears.
I was so hungry and so looking forward to getting just some bread and eggs.
I was still labouring under the illusion that the person I was married to actually gave a damn about me, so I started to tell you what Jennifer and I had done, and how tough it had been managing with so little.
Also, I wasn’t sure what we could eat that night, maybe some soup made with odds and sods in the cupboard…
At this point you burst out, “For fucks sake, I was eating chicken burgers yesterday. I don’t want this shit!” and stomped out of the house to your parents.
Where you got fed.
I sat at home, still hungry, and now kinda scared.
What twisted justification could you have possibly found for that?
I should have told you to stay at at your parents, but no, instead I fucking sat at home, in knots, waiting for you.
Then when you walked in, instead of telling you what a bastard you were (are), I fucking put my arms around your neck, apologising for ‘jumping on you’ with all my stress, and begged you to forgive me for being thoughtless.
You are nothing but a nasty, self-centred twat.
You should have been begging me for forgiveness, just as you should have for so many of your heinous behaviours.
But no, that wouldn’t suit your twisted belief that you’re fucking perfect and everyone else is the issue, would it?
9. The Absence of a Real Apology (Justification over Remorse).
You never once gave me an unreserved apology for anything; there was always some justification for your nasty behaviour.
In your self-orientated thinking, you had done nothing wrong so any hurt I was feeling was nothing to do with you. I must sort myself out and stop causing you problems.
On the other hand, if I did something (or even if I didn’t), and apologised, that apology was taken by you as proof of guilt, or being a bad person, not evidence of remorse and a wish to make amends.
You used every apology as a stick to beat me with.
You’re fucking twisted.
10. The Disgusting Racism and Judgmental Hypocrisy.
It’s funny, I put up with so much abuse from you and yet, had you revealed your racism when we first met, I’d have walked away without hesitation. I always had the strength to defend others, but not myself.
But no, some instinctive part of your manipulative self knew to keep that hidden until much later, when I’d been snared in your vile web of lies.
Even when I told you you were being appalling, pointing out to you that my nephews experience abuse based around that ‘P’ word you’d started to throw around, you didn’t care and just carried on.
Who the fuck do you think you are to make any judgements about other people? And to do that based on the colour of skin? You may as well judge someone for the colour of their eyes or the size of their earlobe.
Pathetic, wilful ignorance; says way more about you than you could ever comprehend.
In a similar vein, you disgust me with your judgemental attitude towards people who take drugs, or who have alcohol issues: you stopped drinking and now you look down on anyone who makes a different choice, or who doesn’t have the kind of support you so willingly took from me.
You excuse all your own bad behaviour while you were drinking and taking drugs, by blaming it on the drink and drugs (it wasn’t ‘you’).
Now you look at other people doing the same, often using these things far more responsibly than you ever did, and dismiss them as terrible, waste of space people.
Pick a fucking lane buddy.
You never even go so far as to look and think, “That was me“, and have gratitude; no, you sneer and make judgements based on your own insecurities.
You’re worthless.
11. to One Million – Belittling: Your Strategy for Feeling Like a ‘Big Man’.
Every derogatory comment you made to me, and about me. Every item of clothing you sneered at. Every musical choice you mocked. Every deed you took for granted. Every involvement you begrudged giving.
Once upon a time, I took all that on board and thought I was lacking.
Now the truth is obvious; it’s you who’s small and not good enough.
It’s you who’s so insecure you have to take other people down so you can feel like a big man.
My big brother Mike was right when he said that your ‘flaw’, the thing that makes you such a fuck up, will continue to be with you as you move ahead with your quest to find some kind of perfect person.
Good.
It means you won’t be fucking happy.
Because you don’t deserve to be.
Not until you feel some shame and remorse for what you’ve done.
To Infinity and Beyond – The Cumulative Cruelty (Neglect, Meanness, and Lying).
The neglect; the meanness with money; the refusal to participate in any meaningful way with upkeep of house and gardens; the accusations of me always wanting things my way, when in fact I rarely had things the way I’d have liked; the lying; the stealing; the casual cruelty towards anything and anyone that displeases you.
The Vengeful God (Justice Served).
I’m so anti-violence but I would love to be able to see you get one almighty punch to the face for all of the bullying, all of the psychological warfare – for the way you destroyed me then complained I wasn’t the person you met.
I want your boat to sink. Or at the very least for some essential part to stop working in the dead of winter. I want you to suffer and suffer and suffer.
I want your new woman to wise up way quicker than I did; I want her to be strong enough to tell you you’re a cunt, and to get the fuck away from you.
I want to turn the tables and pull your strings – there are so many texts I’ve composed in my head but will never send, all of which would send you into a spiral of rage. I want to watch you have impotent rage while I laugh in your face.
I want to be the spiteful crazy bitch ex who keys your car and punctures your bike wheels.
I want your dream of ‘getting out of the rat race’ on a canal boat to be an abject failure, with reality being far harsher than your idealised fantasy. Just like when you thought you wanted to be a carer (despite literally everyone expressing doubts), and then after day two you were grossed out by the reality of special needs people. Pathetic bastard that you are.
I want you to end up with absolutely nothing.
There were many times when you’d have done or said something awful to me and then you’d bang your head, or stub your toe – I’d joke that my god was vengeful and swift. You had no fucking idea that I wasn’t entirely joking.
When I said that, I had a guy called Gareth in mind. Gareth was the first ‘romantic’ person to lay hands on me. He beat me black and blue for nearly two years before someone helped me escape. A couple of years later, on Christmas Eve, Gareth fell down the stairs while drunk (the same ones he’d thrown me down), and broke his neck. He died just after new year.
When I heard the news it felt like a book had been snapped shut.
I wasn’t happy, or gloating; there was a sort of, “Well yes. Of course. Shrug.” type feeling.
It was over.
The universe had served justice, and I hadn’t had any part of it.
That’s what I want for you now motherfucker. Not the broken neck – don’t be a dickhead all your fucking life with the assumptions – the justice served.
I might fantasise and compose never-to-be-said-to-you speeches, but I wouldn’t act on any of it.
I’m very happy for my vengeful god to dish out your deserved sentence though.
The Final Word: Justice and Release
Now, Other Jess, your story has been told.
Your childhood and teenage years have been fully acknowledged.
The truth of what EH was, and what he did to you, has been spoken aloud and I validate your right to feel the venom.
Note, to feel it; not to act on it!
There were no excuses for what he did. You didn’t deserve it and it wasn’t your fault.
I know, now that we’re using hindsight, you feel you shouldn’t have stayed, but the fact you did still doesn’t make it your fault. There is no blame for you to shoulder in this regard.
You were doing the best you could at the time, with the tools and resources available to you.
The blame lies entirely with him, and all those other people who groomed you ready for that goddamned marriage.
All shame is theirs too, not yours.
You have absolutely been heard and recognised.
I love you baby girl. I’m so sorry your life was the way it was.
But it’s time now for you to let go of the hem of my coat. I need to stride onwards, just me, True Jess, strong and alone.
Don’t be scared; this isn’t abandonment little one, it’s release and freedom.
Think of it this way: by ceasing to exist, you’ll never have to experience pain like that again.
Neither of us will.
I’ll never make a zombie of you, but you’ll never be wholly gone. You’ve helped me learn some invaluable lessons that I’ll carry forward, and I promise I’ll never forgot what I now know.
I’ll put your ‘life track’ up as first music of the day – the personal meaning behind the words belong to you, and your identity. It’s fitting it should play you off stage:
My music choice just suits the rage release of today:
I’ll honour you by making what comes next really count.
I swear to you Other Jess, I’ll become more. I’m going to be True Jess.
JP
Jessica's Journey 
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