Hard Pills to Swallow

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW

“Even when I feel right, I could be wrong.”

Remember all the times in your life where you fought the truth? The cold hard truth that was hitting you right in the face? The truth that people told you right to your face too… but you didn’t want to hear them or believe them? Did you even find yourself truth rejecting or straight up lying and pretending everything ‘was fine’ even when it wasn’t? Just so people would leave you the heck alone to your own self destruction & demise? I was trained to suffer in silence. My mother was negligent and my father was a Marine, enough said. I learned that when you are in pain, you deal with it alone. I believe this is why I suffered in silence for so many years. I still to this day, have the habit of pushing everyone away when I’m depressed, and going into my shell. Denial and deflection were my best friends, because when life got hard, I just didn’t want to deal with it. I wanted to work instead and go about my life as if ‘everything was fine’. I wanted to dive head first into busy projects and forget my problems existed. That’s why, when people pointed out my issue’s, I had a bad habit of shutting them down. When people were blunt and honest, and giving me this ‘hard pills to swallow’, I wasn’t swallowing them. I was rejecting those pills. I threw out my much needed prescription! In this blog, I want to discuss the ‘hard pills’ that people gave me over the years that I once rejected. Lesson’s that I needed to hear at the time but I wasn’t ready to hear them. Sometimes, people are spot on about you, but you aren’t ready to hear it.

You shouldn’t be following some guy to NYC, go back home to CA and live with your family after you get out of the military. By the time I was getting out of the military, I had been dating the same guy for six years. So, this wasn’t just some guy, this was THE guy… or so I thought. The reality is I just didn’t know how to break it off and neither did he. We got too comfortable and even bored. But, the idea of going to NYC to be with him wasn’t just about him. It was appealing because it sounded exciting. I am from very small towns and I wanted the adrenaline/ adventures. But looking back, people were not wrong to warn me. I had no true ties to NYC, I had never lived there growing up. My only connection was a guy I dated with no prospects for marriage. I landed in NYC and immediately realized I had no love for him anymore. But, I was there and set to go to NYU, so no turning back! I spent 7 long years (We broke up only 3 years into me living there) in a city that I now hate before I moved back to CA. In that seven years there was a tremendous amount of relationship and social drama; I burnt bridges just as quick as I made connections sometimes. Think twice before moving to a place where you have no family or roots. Be smart and be careful.

Q- Have you ever stopped to think about why everyone in your life is toxic? Why do you hang around so many people with so many problems? What is it about them that makes you want to stick around? I was asked this by a social worker colleague when I was deployed to Afghanistan. She noticed a pattern of me venting about toxic people in my life that I could not ‘rid myself of’ at the time. She was trying to bring it to my attention that ‘I had something to do with the toxic people in my life’. As in, I had no boundaries and maybe, perhaps, I liked helping & ‘fixing’ people. This invites toxic people to stay. I am ashamed at how long it took me to learn this lesson. It’s like I was in a never ending revolving door of over extending myself to people that wouldn’t even meet me ‘A quarter of the way’. And at the time, I couldn’t even see how unfair it truly was. I didn’t even question because I didn’t know any better, I grew up seeing many lopsided/ toxic relationships. The social worker at the time could hear the resentment in my voice all those years ago, she planted a seed in my mind that I am forever grateful for.

Don’t live with a guy and your in laws. It rarely works out. This is regarding that guy I moved to NYC for, the first apartment was in his God family’s basement. It seemed like an amazing idea at the time because they did not expect us to pay rent. However, I learned that ‘you cannot put a price on freedom’. I couldn’t adjust to living with a family after I had spent 6 years in the military living primarily by self in a dorm and/ or apartments. (Yes I had a BF the whole time but he moved away when I had four years left on my contract therefore we were primarily a distance relationship) I could not go back to people telling me how to ‘live my life’ and bickering about every single thing. Micro management etc. They were verbally abusive as well and for me this is extremely triggering because I grew up hearing a lot of arguing. I was in NYC a whole 2 months before I found my own place to rent with a room mate. I’m proud that I made this choice, it was scary the idea of dissapointing his family, but I chose myself & my own peace of mind.

This VA internship program is very hard. Most people fall a part. We’re concerned that because of your background you might ‘over identify’ with the Veterans too much.” (What I was told when I was being interviewed by the VA for an internship position that I really wanted during Grad school) They rejected me and I could not intern for the VA as a social work intern for Grad school. I was angry and even ranted on FB about it to which my Dad warned me not to do. But, how in the world could the VA turn down a Veteran that’s deployed to a combat zone? Well, eventually I graduated and worked for the VA. I’ll put it this way, these ladies were right and wrong. They were wrong to deprive the VA of an experienced Veteran social work intern that could really understand/ help them with real life experience, compassion and empathy. But, after 3.5 years of working for the VA I was so burnt out. I did develop PTSD when I worked for the VA. I did over identify with my clientelle. It did hit too close to home. Now, I work primarily with Military spouse’s and kid’s for the DoD. This is a much better fit.

Don’t get with someone that has multiple kid’s from multiple women. Are you sure you want to be with him? Don’t rush it! This should really have been a given! Yet, I was stupid and I very quickly went from one relationship into another. This guy knew I was unhappy and vulnerable, he could smell it from a mile away. Here’s a lesson, if you had a very long/ boring/ stale relationship, & after it’s all said and done you find someone that’s exiting and adventurous, don’t think that means ‘you must spend your life with them’. Excitement and adventure does NOT = Marriage material. I went as far as to get engaged in my second serious relationship. This guy ended up being verbally abusive, and sometimes even physically abusive. Yet, I did not give up. I was too tough. He eventually ended things and dated a girl we coached from our gym within weeks. Which tells me he likely cheated and left me for her. That’s what I get for everything I put up with. My friends and family warned me about him. I warn people about bad people too. But honestly this is the hardest type of thing to warn someone about. Lust and/ or love creates biochemical changes in our brain that make us…. ‘stupid’ sometimes. Many smart people get in awful relationships. All I can say is, TAKE YOUR TIME. Don’t rush a move in, don’t rush marriage, don’t rush kid’s. If they are your ‘forever person’, they will stay regardless. So why rush?

Drop that Friend, she’s toxic. She’s an ‘anchor’ As hard as it was to deal with romantic break ups, breaking up with a long term friend is even harder some say. In my case it was. My longest relationship with someone outside of family was an 18 year friendship. A friendship that started out so close and connected but turned into a lopsided situation where I was constantly ‘putting out fires’ for her so to speak. Every guy I ever dated warned me that I should probably end things with her. Most of my other close friends did too. Even some aquaintances that barely knew us felt the same way. Everything was pointing in that direction and yet it was so hard. The more time I invest in someone the harder it generally is. Which is why I had to learn to make boundaries early on. I gave her an endless amount of warnings and boundary requests before I went no contact. She just wasn’t hearing it. She was too set in the mindset/ lifestyle of “she get’s in trouble, and I fix it”. Money, resources, time, emotional labor, her drug supply and many other favors. Just one week into my new Full time job in SoCal by January of 2022, I realized I could not do both: A Full time job and full time ‘saving someone that refuses to save themselves’.

Conclusion

As you can probably tell, most of my hardest life lessons’ came from toxic relationships/ friendships. It’s amazing how I have always kept my career in tact while simultaneously having a mess of a love life. So another lesson in general is the lesson of putting all of your focus in one area of life and neglecting another important area. I was so hyper focused on my career/ professional development that I was not paying attention to the hot mess that was my relationships/ friendships. Balance is so important, and yet, so undderated. The more content/ at peace people are the ones with balance. They don’t devote too much time to any one thing: career, love, hobby, chores, friends. They know how to disperse and prioritize in a way that keeps their mind healthy. That’s what I’ve been actively working toward, especially in the past couple of years. My life has been so peaceful that sometimes it’s quite boring. But, I’m sitting in that boredom and appreciating it so much. I check myself before I try to chase adrenaline. Is this good for me? Do I want this? Always ask yourself that before making big life decisions.