I Used to be a Sweet Southern Girl

Elisa A. Escalante/ LCSW/ 12-11-2023

“You’re the nicest person I’ve ever met!” This is one of the more common lines I have heard through childhood, adolescence, and all the way up to my early to mid twenties. I was raised in AZ, TX, & SoCal primarily. So yes, I am a ‘Southern Belle’. (Not in the literal sense) To me, it means living by the concept of ‘if you don’t have anything nice to say, you don’t say it’. It means, taking the high road when people are mean to you, and still not saying anything. Kill them with kindness. It means, when you have a problem with someone, you choose silence over arguing. Healthy right?? (sarcasm) These values were instilled in me by a Grandmother that I lived with in Houston, TX who had PTSD and agoraphobia. She had witnessed and heard of so much trauma in her life, that her way of survival became all about hiding, being kind no matter what, and not getting involved in anything messy. She succeeded… she is 94 years old now.

I eventually moved to SoCAl by the age of 11, and with strict parents I learned my own survival strategy: Don’t speak. Speaking could get me in trouble. Silence cannot be punished as much as talking. I didn’t trust the words that came out of my mouth anyways. Even with tact, people can get offended by anything. (The harder thing is really that, anything can be triggering… including silence.)

Now, at the age of 34, I am not sweet or approachable. I’m still kind, most of the time, but I’m very guarded. I am also no longer afraid to create solid boundaries, even if it hurts people’s feelings. But, this new version of me did not happen overnight. It was years and years and years of toxic relationships, countless betrayals, and even abuse. One question I can’t help but ask now is “What does this person want with me?” I got to a point where I could not believe a person could just want to be with me because they cared. And a person did not want to hang with me just because I was ‘cool’. There had to be some type of ulterior motive, and I was determined to find it. (This is known as relationship sabotage btw) But, before this can be fixed, let’s look at some of the root causes of this. The horrible things that can happen to us that can ‘warp’ our mindsets indefinitely.

Manipulation/ Lying There’s so many ways in which people can manipulate other’s. The part I played in falling for it? I just gave people the benefit of the doubt. My innocent sweet mind just believed what anyone told me. And why? Well ‘why would they lie?’ I didn’t understand when I was younger just how much people stand to gain from becoming liars. The main reason this didn’t occur to me was because I was never a liar. White lies occassionally? Sure. But lying to a point that it hurts those around me and ruins lives? Absolutely not. After a while of this, hopefully we learn. What does it do to the psyche? A person that has been manipulated and lied to over and over? Well, they are absolutely going to develop trust issues. They are going to think twice before giving people the benefit of the doubt. When something seems ‘shady’, they will call people out on it. This mental trauma could lead people to behave in a manner that makes them ‘look like the crazy one’. And sometimes, of course, I have made false accusations. I am only human. A human that was lied to about any and everything. Including what ‘profession’ my BF supposedly had, his history ‘in the military’ that was actually non existent. The amount of money he made as well as his ‘work skills’ that were minimal at best. I mean, when you call yourself a ‘Repair man’ but the shelves you build in our apartment keep falling after just a week of using them…. are you really? And everything from a person’s where abouts to their intentions. You name it, I was lied to about it. I was also made to believe I ‘was the crazy one’ one too many times when I was actually correct. I ‘was crazy’ for believing they were cheating on me with women that they were cheating on me with. So now? I am a lot more likely to trust my intuition vs another person’s words.

The Military Life We are bound by contract, trapped in it, really. We swore an oath to obey all orders and live by two sets of laws. The military is the most well paid, most highly organized, most powerful and most effective cult you can imagine. We live by our rules, laws, and ethics and we have too much to lose if we don’t. While serving, I was subjected to a very toxic work environment. And, I couldn’t leave it. Stuck for 5.5 years with “SOME” pretty manipulative and verbally abusive people. In my six year enlistment, I had to undergo four different investigations for crimes that other people did, that I just witnessed or heard about. (That’s all I’m allowed to say on that topic) Unlike in the civilian world, you cannot quit. And, you can also be ordered to work overtime and you will get NO over time pay. So before any civilian compares, always remember, those are the key differences. I’m pretty sure for the first year I served, I cried at least 3-6 times a week on average. But, only after work! Alone in my dorm. Or while venting to my BF. Because you Must not dare show an ounce of “human” emotion when you serve in the military. Of course, my experience isn’t everyone’s. Some people are fortunate and get stationed in great places with great people. But the risk is that, you aren’t necessarily going to get that lucky. And again, once you’re in your contract, you can’t quit. You serve until it ends.

Squatting I let my second serious BF refer a friend to me as a new ‘room mate’. I barely knew this girl. Shortly after she moved in, my BF was staying the night with us so much, he ended up moving in. Months later, the girl Room mate started bringing a man into our apartment so much, he moved in. After a while, the rent started coming late. After more time, the rent stopped coming, period. Then more strange things happened. She picked and chose when to help with utilities, she started eating our food and stopped buying her own. The boyfriend of hers, who she swore didn’t live there, started using our amenities and eating our food, and did not contribute one dollar. But again, she ‘swore he didn’t live with us’, despite him bringing more and more of his crap over and staying 5 nights out of the week. This is how squatting can start. Innocent and small, and before you know it, you are living with people that are taking full advantage of you. To make matters worse, their fights were so bad, sometimes it would wake us up. She chased him with a knife in the apt one time, and he came bolting into our room for protection. This situation caused a different ‘type of personality’ to come out of me. I cursed at her, I yelled at them, we locked her out and called the cops. I visited the police station to file a report. Nothing worked, we had to move to get away from it. And the landlord had to take her to housing court to remove her. Recently, I offended some new friends of mine, because they spent multiple nights at my house and I needed them to leave. Why? Obviously my squatting trauma. I need to know that no one is trying to move in on my territory. Just like that, I am a territorial now.

Verbal/ physical abuse The things that can come out of people’s mouths can be so damn hurtful, and when it even get’s to a point of physical attacks, even riskier. Like many people before me, I used to say that ‘I would never be with someone that abuses me”. And even if I got into a relationship with someone like that, I ‘would surely leave’ right away. This is the mindset of people that do not understand the full nature of how abuse works. I will go more into details about that below; “love bombing & bread crumbing.” For now, I’ll talk about how being verbal/ physically abused can cause a victim to engage in what we call ‘Reactive Abuse’. This is when you get beat down so bad, verbally and physically, you start abusing them back. He blamed me for everything, I blamed him back. He called me names, I called him names back. This is out of rage/ revenge, but also in some cases to protect oneself. I’ve had 3 serious relationships in my life, (The third one is going on in the present as we speak) as well as multiple flings and ‘situationships’. I ONLY ever physically attacked one man: my 2nd serious BF. And why? He attacked me first. He shoved me to the ground two times before I slapped him. He had shoved me down, thrown something at me, and engaged in countless verbal attacks toward me and then ghosted me and vanished and then dumped me before I threw an elbow at him shortly after our break up. I was not proud of who I became. But I do know, that it was in response to being with a Narcopath for 3 years. The damage he did, halfway into me moving to NYC, changed everything about me. Whatever sweet southern girl was left, he killed the rest of her.

Infidelity There is a very important conversation I had with my 1st serious BF that he swears he does not recall. The conversation of the ‘ground rules’ for when ‘we opened our relationship’. This took place at the 7.5 year mark of dating. I told him he ‘can do what he wants’ with another woman, but the ground rules are ‘no friends, no family, and I don’t want the details’. This was the ground rules for the ‘Don’t ask, Don’t tell” portion of the relationship. Which would eventually end 1.5 years later, we lasted 9 in total. I found out after the break up, he didn’t even live up to those rules, he fooled around with my BFF/ BJJ trng partner/ landlord. So this was a double betrayal by my BF, and BFF at the time. Ouch! I very quickly ‘tried’ to move on, AKA jumping into a new relationship with someone else way too fast. (As did my Ex) This is what led to me even dating the Narcopath, I was vulnerable. I believed that relationship to be ‘monogomous’. Turns out, only I was faithful. And he dumped me and immediately moved on to a different BJJ trng partner of mine, a student that we were training together during the pandemic. Another double betrayal. So now? When a girl even get’s near my current BF, I get this internal feeling of dread. A knot in my stomach, racing panic thoughts. It’s awful. I was never the jealous type, but countless infidelity will do that to you. My current Boyfriend does not deserve my ‘Trust issue’s’. After all, he is the sweetest man I have met. But he has had to deal with a lot of them. We have to work through it. I have to heal, grow, evolve past this. Because the fact of the matter is, they either will or they won’t. I don’t have control over that. But, what I can do is drive him away with jealousy, possessiveness, and/ or false accusations, and I do not want to do that.

New York City Living The City of New york has PTSD. So it’s only natural that it will cause someone to become more hyperaroused and hypervigilant. I’ve been cursed out by drug addicts on the street and harrassed in restaurants. I have been followed by men, cat called. I have been harrassed on the train. I have lived on a block with a gang that had ‘staring problems’ to say the least. I have walked past people projectile peeing and shitting in the streets. One time it was even pointed toward my direction. I have been solicited countless times for money. Solicited to join ‘secret clubs’ which could have been anything… maybe sex trafficking or cults… who knows?? I have been hit by a car when I had the right of way. I had squatters move in which I wrote about above. I have been chased down by a vehicle when I was in my vehicle due to some silly road rage. I was in a situation that I can only describe as racial and/ or classist profiling by a cop with my ex. In which I was made to sit in the back of a squad car while my car was searched for ‘crack’ with the drug dogs, because the police were convinced we had it. (Of course we DID NOT) I’ve had various neighbors verbally attack me for something as simple as ‘taking their parking spot’, or accidentelly spilling a little laundry detergent in the shared laundry room. Did I become a bit of an asshole as well? ABSOLUTELY. I started cursing at people to defend myself, threatening to fight them. I was regularly training in martial arts through my entire 7 years as an NYC resident, so I may have been just a ‘little too brave’.

Love Bombing to Bread Crumbing The reason I need to dedicate a whole section to this topic is because not enough people understand why someone ‘would stay’ in an abusive relationship. And one of the top reason’s, is because there is no such thing as an abusive relationship, that is abusive 24/7. There will be Love Bombing, and this part of the toxic relationship is crucial for it’s survival. One cannot exist without the other. For example, if my Ex narcopath BF had told me the truth about who he really was, and treated me like shit from the beginning, obviously I never would have dated him. But no, it starts with the Love Bomb. A love that get’s you ‘so high’ and deep into their fantasy of lies that you lose all sense of logic. The reason a manipulative love bomb is so appealing, is because the narcisisst is simply learning you, and learning what you want to hear. But, there is no truth to the love that they are promising, it’s a facade that get’s people roped in. The abuse does not start until they have made sure that they have gained ‘your trust’. Eventually the bread crumbing will start. Meaning that they give you less and less, until all you get is a little crumb. And you will go at it like a starving hyena, becuase you are hopeful that it means you can capture what ‘you two had in the beginning of the relationship’. The high. The fantasy that they fed you. For example, the Narc learned early on that I loved ‘words of affirmation’ and ‘acts of service’. So in the first year of us together, he fed me that regularly. then midway to later on, barely at all. As time passed, he helped me less with chores until he stopped doing chores. He fed me less and less compliments and more and more insults. The simple way I summarize this relationship? The first half, he was trying to take advantage of me. And the second half, he was punishing me for ‘not letting him take advantage of me enough’.

How Can I even love or trust again?

Honestly, I don’t even know if I can trust again. But, I am trying. I swore off relationbships at one point, and I truly believed myself for a period of nine months. But, I think what ultimately helps me move past my trauma and learn to build trust with another human, is the fact that I do not want those evil past friendships and relationships to ‘be it’. I do believe I deserve better, and I want to find better. Why should the awful people of our past dictate any type of happiness we could have in our future? That would not be fair. Moving back to the desert in SoCal, finding a nicer paced less awful job, dropping the toxic people out of my life, it has all been to help me access that ‘sweet southern girl’ again. She has to be in there somewhere. But now, a bit wiser, a bit more calculated. More selective with who I let in. Trust is not automatic, it must be earned. Kindness breeds more kindness, while abuse breeds more abuse. So to be kind, I must only allow kind people in.