It’s tak­en me a gen­er­ous dis­tance, as well as a healthy break from the pain, to real­ize I don’t under­stand what my mom thought of me. In my ear­li­est years, I believed she loved me, cause none of her demands were unrea­son­able. After all, chil­dren are often help­less and don’t even know what’s best for them­selves. Then I grew up, and devel­oped an iden­ti­ty of my own. That meant I had dis­tinc­tive needs sep­a­rate from hers, and she would deny every one of them unless they were in line with what she want­ed. It was impos­si­ble for me to believe there was any love at all when she was the cause of so much of my pain. I’ve since come to real­ize that rela­tion­ships are full of nuances, and that it’s pos­si­ble to love some­one whole­heart­ed­ly and be ter­ri­ble for them at the same time.

Regardless of what my mom thought or felt, the fact that mat­ters most is that noth­ing she did in our rela­tion­ship was for my sake; every deci­sion or action she made was to fur­ther her image as a “good par­ent”. As a result, the rela­tion­ship was almost pure­ly tox­ic. The last inci­dent was a per­fect exam­ple of how lit­tle my feel­ings mat­tered to her, and how she was more con­cerned about the way I made her appear to oth­ers than for my well­be­ing. Perhaps in her mind, she tru­ly believed she loved me, but any inten­tion was con­sis­tent­ly taint­ed by the trau­ma she’d end up caus­ing. The fact that she refused to apol­o­gize — even after she knew she did some­thing wrong, even if it was for the sake of rec­on­cil­ing with her only child — shows how lit­tle I meant to her as a son (and how ill-suit­ed she was to be a par­ent).

Afterward, she’d send me gifts or call to talk, pre­tend­ing as if she did­n’t near­ly kill me, as if I’d nev­er suf­fered as a direct result of her actions. The only way I could get through to her was by hang­ing up. Disconnecting. Since she could­n’t learn, change, or under­stand what she put me through, I had to take the step of sev­er­ing the rela­tion­ship for the sake of my men­tal health.

It was­n’t until a falling out with an ex that I ful­ly under­stood the impor­tance of tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for oth­er peo­ple’s feel­ings, regard­less of inten­tion. When I con­front­ed her about bail­ing on me one day with­out any expla­na­tion, she said she did­n’t feel bad and would nev­er apol­o­gize to some­one unless she meant to hurt them.¹ That’s when I learned how much it mat­ters to apol­o­gize for some­thing as sim­ple as being late, a les­son I’m grate­ful to have received at an ear­ly age (and before I messed up any impor­tant rela­tion­ships). Regardless of how small her mis­take was, and even though we were sim­ply friends at that point, I did­n’t want to spend any time with some­one who felt no remorse when she’d hurt me, espe­cial­ly after I’d put myself out there and apol­o­gized for my role in the way we fell apart.

This point was espe­cial­ly dri­ven home to me by a per­son I once con­sid­ered my best friend. Before I start­ed ther­a­py, I could­n’t help but repeat the unhealthy pat­terns of my youth, and this friend­ship was a per­fect exam­ple of how I’d con­stant­ly try to get close to peo­ple who would­n’t return the effort I put in. He hurt me sev­er­al times in the course of our rela­tion­ship, but I kept much of those feel­ings to myself, and they ate at me inside. It’s all I knew. I believed that’s how rela­tion­ships func­tioned, and sub­mis­sion is how one showed love, cause that’s what I learned from my par­ents.

Eventually, the pain was sig­nif­i­cant enough that I had to ques­tion whether the rela­tion­ship made any sense. Through tears and grit­ted teeth, I apol­o­gized for not being open soon­er about my feel­ings, for not giv­ing him a chance to under­stand my side, even though I was the one cry­ing. It was a way of tak­ing respon­si­bil­i­ty for my part in that pain (and cer­tain­ly not an easy thing to do in the moment). He tried to con­vince me that things would be dif­fer­ent and he’d be a good lis­ten­er from that point on, but when I brought up how his actions had hurt me in the past, he refused to take any­thing I said to heart. I could have giv­en him more time to learn and grow, but he made it clear he was­n’t inter­est­ed in chang­ing his behav­iours or even try­ing to under­stand my side. He was who he was, and expect­ed that to be good enough for me. It was com­plete­ly heart­break­ing; I knew the friend­ship would­n’t work after I’d already tried every­thing on my end to com­pro­mise (includ­ing ther­a­py), while he thought things were per­fect­ly fine. I’d been so much hap­pi­er and health­i­er after sep­a­rat­ing from my mom, and when he tried to reach out to me after­wards in the exact same way — as if my feel­ings meant noth­ing — part­ing ways sim­ply made sense.

This nar­ra­tive has influ­enced every rela­tion­ship in my life.

I lived an eter­ni­ty under the regime of par­ents who refused to take any respon­si­bil­i­ty while they active­ly hurt me, and con­sis­tent­ly put the blame on me for being over­ly sen­si­tive. Then for more than two decades, I was best friends with a per­son who’d tell me any pain he caused was my own fault. At this point, the only peo­ple I choose to spend time with have done enough emo­tion­al labour to out­grow these atti­tudes.

After all, much of my ther­a­py involves work­ing on myself, and that includes fig­ur­ing out impor­tant duties in my rela­tion­ships, as well as how to func­tion bet­ter with the peo­ple I’m involved with. That also means putting myself at risk of get­ting hurt, by being open with my feel­ings and assertive with my needs. These are all things that take me a tremen­dous amount of effort, and I no longer have the ener­gy to teach some­one how to appre­ci­ate or return that effort.

That’s why I sur­round myself with peo­ple who already know how to take respon­si­bil­i­ty for their actions, with­out try­ing to jus­ti­fy them with excus­es. Who reflect on their behav­iours when con­flict aris­es, instead of reflec­tive­ly plac­ing blame on oth­ers. Who under­stand how hard it is for me to vocal­ize my pain, and thank me for express­ing it. Who val­ue my feel­ings, instead of ignor­ing them or hold­ing them against me.

Trolley is a great exam­ple: years after he moved out, he apol­o­gized for host­ing par­ties above my bed­room when he dis­cov­ered how thin the floors were. It was­n’t some­thing he had to do, it was­n’t some­thing I brought up, and I know it was­n’t easy for him, but he did it any­way. Not because our friend­ship was in jeop­ardy, not because he had some­thing to gain, but because some­where along the path of life he learned how to be a decent human being², real­ized he did some­thing that may have neg­a­tive­ly affect­ed some­one else, and cared enough about their feel­ings to put him­self through the dis­com­fort of an apol­o­gy. It was a huge sign that I actu­al­ly meant some­thing to him, and the rea­son I can feel secure in our friend­ship when we haven’t spo­ken in ages.

Those kinds of ges­tures may not mean much to oth­er peo­ple, but being starved of emo­tion­al val­i­da­tion means they go a long way for me. It’s the same rea­son I have such a pro­found appre­ci­a­tion for Heather. My capac­i­ty to love her is direct­ly relat­ed to the amount of trau­ma I’ve suf­fered. On top of that, I’ve always admired her for being far more knowl­edgable in areas where I’ve his­tor­i­cal­ly been weak; treat­ing oth­ers with respect is a sub­ject, after years of learn­ing and growth, in which I’m fair­ly well versed, and she’s still ahead of me.

I used to think I had to trust that some­one would­n’t hurt me in order to keep them in my life, but I was wrong. Over the nat­ur­al course of any sig­nif­i­cant rela­tion­ship, some­one is bound to get hurt, as I’ve learned with Heather. In our time togeth­er, some of her hon­est mis­takes, com­bined with my emo­tion­al dam­age, have left me won­der­ing if I could trust her — or any­one else — again. The thing that mat­ters is that we’ve always been able to work out those dis­con­nects, cause she has no dif­fi­cul­ty acknowl­edg­ing my feel­ings and apol­o­giz­ing³. The times she wounds me become oppor­tu­ni­ties for her to mend my bro­ken hands, and for us to grow clos­er.

Those are the kind of peo­ple I want in my life, the rela­tion­ships I’m will­ing to cul­ti­vate now, and I’m only start­ing to under­stand how much my past has put me on the path I’m cur­rent­ly on.

1. I’ve since won­dered what she’d say to some­one if she acci­den­tal­ly ran over their dog. “I did­n’t do it on pur­pose, so I’m not sor­ry”? [↩]
2. As a cis white dude, no less. [↩]
3. Fourteen year lat­er, and this fetish has start­ed to make sense. [↩]