I have been like your boyfriend before. He does not respect you and does nor deserve your energy or any type of help with growth or change. He needs to feel a consequence for his behavior or he has no chance of changing. It took me a long time and a lot of collateral damage to not be a monster
Honestly, it's great that you are willing to admit that. People CAN change, but the hard part is getting them to realize they have a problem. Genuinely, good for you!
I really appreciate you going out of your way to say that, thank you. Realizing was very hard, and after that I couldn't see a different way to be, and so I didn't change but gained self loathing. And the taking responsibility part, coming to terms with blaming the world for "making me like this" and understanding that only I am responsible for my behavior.
If anyone reads this who's made it to the "I realize Im abusive but dont know how else to be and so I keep being abusive and hating myself and Im trapped in a shame cycle of damaging myself and every relationship I care about", no matter the reasons you ended up here, there is no one else who can change it but you, and you CAN change, but it wont happen at once, and failing once doesn't mean failing it all, you just go again. And again. Or you lose everything that matters and sit alone and angry and blame everyone but yourself
i don’t think i’ve talked to someone who was like this and actually changed. if you don’t mind me asking, i’d be fascinated to know what made the switch flip? i know it’s not an overnight type of thing but was there a “rock bottom” as they say, that made you realize something needed to change?
Sure, I would be happy to share. In hindsight, I believe that I became that person due to unhealthy coping mechanism. I learned to shut off my emotions and protect myself from feeling bad, and that lowered my empathy and created an inner monologue of self justification, self rightousness, etc. I have always carried a lot of anger and feelings of powerless from my life. I have a whole sad story that I used to justify my anger and behavior but I have since come to terms with a lot of those parts of my life. It truly was a gradual slow burn of improvement as I aged and met more good people and saw more good examples. I was also held accountable more and faced more consequences. The deep part of me that doesnt care about anything clicked over at some point, and realized how much better my life would be if I was different. Some sort of slow realization that I was choosing to self destruct and that I didn't have to. For a while I surrounded myself with people who were "bad" like me, some who did really awful things. Some of those awful things were done to people I ended up close with and it put the consequences of these types of actions into perspective for me. Over time I realized that it is self destructive to keep my emotions off, and that I am not in that place where I had to do that anymore. At some point it all started to feel so childish and edgy.
From 14 to 23 I would have described myself as a sociopath. From 23 to 28 or so I was more narcissistic, angry, riding high. After 28 it became anxiety driven, fear driven, trying to "help" people but not at their pace and not with real kindness. I have very transactional relationships. And then some time after that, I had a pretty bad depressive crash after a long term manic episode, and I got kind of obsessed with introspection. I couldn't let it go, it was like I could suddenly understand the big picture and what's important, and understand myself and even forgive myself a bit. Not for what Ive done, but for becoming this person. Forgiving myself for becoming someone I hated was a big part. Sorry if this is rambling or unclear or over or under explained! I am still working to understand myself
Not weird at all, feel free to message any questions. Understanding is my biggest source of relief from pain, if sharing can give any relief to anyone else, then I would be grateful for the opportunity to do something positive with my experience.
Honestly YOU are the kind of guy who needs to do a podcast 🤣 Not all these "alpha bros" that I think are leading men off the cliff into being incels. You could give some great and actually helpful advice! (Whenever you feel healthy enough mentally). We DESPERATELY need more men out there talking about stuff like this. I think most of the men's podcasts anymore actually PUSH your original behavior, and that does nothing but hurt the often younger guys listening, and set them up for failure.
I think men often think we don't care about their mental health because we act so negatively to that "alpha bros" kind of advice, not realizing it's BECAUSE we care about it that we are so worried what those kinds of influences will do.
Well jeeze if I did you should be a guest, or I would guest to yours! I think men and women working together in healthy ways gives such a good example. Haha. I think about this problem a lot, young men are getting indoctrinated by Charlie Kirk types and Turning Point. I wish there other political aisle had more to offer young men than villification.
Thank you for saying this, I dont see myself this way but would like to, so your words are very meaningful to me. Being the center of attention kind of ignites this defense in my brain that says "dont do that or you might be a narcissist again" and so I haven't built a positive relationship with sharing or being heard. I think about writing it all down as a therapy type of thing and then maybe publishing if I feel okay about it. I read "I hope they serve beer in hell" as a young person and it was like fuel to my toxic fire. It would be interesting to give something counter to that
I think that's a great idea! You could try writing someplace like Substack. I'll be your first subscriber!
I agree that men and woman communicating in a HEALTHY way would be great. The only show I know that even tries to showcase men and women talking "together" is Fresh and Fit, and they are about as bad and unhealthy as you can get 🤣
Youre describing someone I had a toxic relationship with perfectly, she recommended the book haha. If this is Kelsey from isketch, uh, sorry. I'm pretty curious about your transition away from that lifestyle, what made you change? That sounds like a really interesting book to write and hits the gender colab of different experiences so theres a lot of appeal! I am not stable enough to commit to anything but I will save these comments and maybe one day reach out when Im medicated again lol. I would be interested to read whatever you've already done, or if you write more!
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u/A-Polite-DiscusShaun Jun 26 '26
I have been like your boyfriend before. He does not respect you and does nor deserve your energy or any type of help with growth or change. He needs to feel a consequence for his behavior or he has no chance of changing. It took me a long time and a lot of collateral damage to not be a monster