Implosion: Destroying your Relationship to Prevent Heartache
Can pain be avoided by running away before it arrives?
im·plo·sion: (noun) an instance of something collapsing violently inward; a sudden failure or collapse of an organization or system; or a process in which objects are destroyed by collapsing on themselves. Definition from OxfordLanguages
My mind is racing almost as fast as my heart trying to make sense of all of the thoughts, the feelings, the weight of impending doom that has overtaken me. My body shakes and I fight the tears I refuse to let fall. Standing center stage in the arena of my mind as Fear and her ruthless companions, Doubt and Worry, begin their assault calling out the deep insecurities from my soul.
Alone and isolated, my heart leans into the lies of my past and the darkness begins to take hold. I try to be logical and will away the dread of another season of brokenness. My trembling heart holds the truth in a feeble attempt to drown out into the raucous jeers of the rejections and abandonments that previously defined so much of me.
Where did this feeling start? What has brought me to stand in this space today? What gives power to these lies and half-truths? Why do I allow the damage others carry to become my own? A couple of snarky texts to my best friend about how I think I have lost my boyfriend earns a sharp reply, “We are not fucking doing this.”
Texting a continuous stream of the lies that are playing in my mind to her, she replies, “I am coming over. You are being ridiculous.” She knows my tendency to overthink and spiral downward in these moments. I begin to believe that I am not worthy of the love of this good man and think I have done something wrong that will make him leave me. Nothing good comes from standing alone in the arena of lies. Shame cannot live outside of the prison she builds with the bricks of my silence. I must speak my truth. My feelings serve purpose and to understand them they must be given a voice.
Seeking to understand their origin and what they are trying to tell me, I summon all the courage I can find scattered across my tattered heart. I type my truth — the core of my pain — to my dearest boyfriend. “I feel unlovable and needy. I don’t know how to be real here. I don’t know what is wrong but I am coming undone.” I am not afraid to voice my deepest fear to him because I trust him and no matter what Fear is shouting, he has demonstrated his love is trustworthy.
Fear taunts loudly and instantly that he will reject me, but I continue to choose courage, vulnerability, and hope. The shouts from the arena are silenced as light flows into the darkness. “Exhaustion” is his reply — we are both completely spent. “You are exhausted, love. Everything is fine. Be gentle with yourself. Breathe.” My body resonates with that truth. My deepening spin into the darkness begins to regulate with a long exhale as I release all the tension built by the day’s internal battle.
The spaghetti sauce in the crockpot captures my attention. I am hungry for the first time in a couple of days. The decompression starts during a much-needed dinner with my family. More of the darkness is lifting as my thinking returns to the present and escapes the noise of the arena of shame in my heart. As the lies again try to slip across my mind, I remind my heart it is exhaustion — not truth — that is feeding fear and her accusing companions.
My bestie shows up for our evening walk and her eyes tell me she is not in the mood for my foolishness. We walk and she wants the whole story of the downward spiral in my head and heart so she can help me understand how I got here. This is a good thing because I don’t understand how I landed here either.
I have been in a place of security and comfort with my boyfriend like I have never known before. Then out of the blue for no reason I can explain, this darkness and fear quickly descends and captures me. It frightens me a bit. As I began to speak out loud the narrative in my mind that had led me to such a dark and painful space, even the words sound ridiculous.
After walking and talking about two miles, she looks at me with a knowing smile that tells me she has figured something out. “Stress and exhaustion are not your friends.” (Points awarded to my dearest boyfriend for already making that call.)
Our conversation turns to a pivotal place…patterns laid down in me from my past relationships. A thousand lights go off in my head as the source of my current fear and trepidation walks into the arena to be seen in the light of the truth.
Exhaustion dampens my ability to reason with the lies of my past. We all go to our familiar place when we are overwhelmed because it is what is easiest. My familiar place has always been one filled with sudden abandonment, unexpected judgments, and cruelty. These experiences have placed a deep sense of shame and unworthiness in my soul to accompany my self-loathing, giving my fears plenty of ammunition.
She calls it the “Peter complex.” It is so named because he was the first man I trusted with my heart many years ago. Ours was a great love and then one day without warning he announced we were done. His sudden exit from my life blindsided me and shook me to the core. It deeply, maybe even permanently, scarred my sense of safety that usually I find in being ahead of the game in my relationships. I count on my intuition to know when things are rocky or if the connection is in danger and there were no signs that anything was amiss until the moment he declared it was over with little fanfare and even less explanation.
The descent into darkness raises doubts in my current relationship by convincing me that I have missed something that is telling me things are over or not what they seem. My brain launches a search and gathers evidence to prove those awful accusations and the timer for implosion is set. It is a painful but well-worn path of self-protection.
The stories we tell ourselves have so much power and by actually speaking them, the venom is extracted. Lies vanish when brought to the light this way. There is nothing wrong here at all, just a mirage built with the stories in my head by the demons of my past.
My hope is that one day I will be able to rest in his love and our shared truth without having to battle these irrational fears that show up unexpectedly. But the truth is those pathways have been so deeply entrenched in my heart that they may never be fully escapable. My recent learning has allowed me to hear the ticking bomb and disarm it before we are dealing with a catastrophic implosion. It would have been easy at that moment to push him away. My misplaced desire for protection was based on an unfounded fear that he was going to hurt me.
The most important thing I learned in this is that my first instinct is to run away deeper inside myself and listen to my own wisdom to be safe and protected. However, that seemingly self-preserving reaction is actually the exact wrong thing. In those moments, I need to trust the truth that I know about myself, my dearest, and the connection we are building together and run to him with my fear. That is the only real solution — trust, vulnerability, and honesty. It really is just that simple and just that hard.
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