How did I get here? The question that changed my life

How did I get here?

That’s what I thought.

I had a happy childhood; I didn’t come from an abusive home.

I went to the best school and led a pretty privileged life.

I was starting to build my career as an actor, even getting small parts in Aussie soap operas (but that’s another story)!

How did I end up in a violent marriage in which I almost lost my life?

And now, here I was, having fled him and now reclaiming my life as a single mother with a one-year-old baby alone.

Wondering how my life had come to this.

So many of you say the same. One woman I spoke to yesterday said that it’s worse.

She’s been repeating the pattern of attracting toxic partners over and over again.

And even though the warning bells scream loudly in her head, she still ignores them.

Every single time she says the same thing to herself:

“Here I go again! Why am I doing this?”

But she admits that this is just her armor as she has issues with trust.

“This is not me” she said. The real her is more introverted and shy.

It’s like she has two personas: the tough girl exterior that keeps attracting the bad boys. And the real her, who is shy and introverted but unsure of how to connect in a healthy way with available, nice men.

“I keep doing what I know will hurt me”, she cried.

“I don’t want to feel that scared, vulnerable girl anymore”.

It’s an exhausting battle going on inside.

Does this ring true for you?

I remember that struggle well.

I was the tough girl who had to show the world she was strong and capable.

Fun, outgoing, a bit of a rebel as well - I almost dared my headmistress to kick me out of school and lied to her face when she caught us smoking. Although I was a secret swat and somehow still manage to get top grades.

I’m sure if I had met my husband (the lovely man I’m with now) back then I would definitely have scared him off.

Been way too much to handle.

And when I did meet him years later he was so nice, available and respectful, I wasn’t used to that. I tried so hard to push him away.

I was used to drama. A healthy relationship was alien to me.

What if he got to know me and discovered the scared little girl inside?

I was convinced that he’d run a mile.

But I was tired like so many of you of being codependent in dysfunctional relationships.

I could see that it was never going to bring me the love I craved. So, I started asking myself the question:

“How on earth did I get here?”

It’s not just that you keep attracting toxic people into your life.

And that’s not to victim blame. They are masters at detecting those vulnerable enough to be their perfect prey.

But those of us who do this also struggle when it comes to healthy love and emotionally available relationships.

It goes deeper than that.

As that woman said to me, she can see the red flags a mile away, but she still ignores them.

And when it comes to the nice men she really wants to date instead, she struggles and clams up. One of them even told her she was cold and hard to connect with.

We protect ourselves either way.

“How the hell did I get here?” was exactly the question I needed to ask.

And with support and work, I finally found the answers I needed as to why I was so vulnerable to bad boys and an abusive, violent man and yet so terrified of the ones I secretly dreamed of loving me instead.

Only then could I break this self-sabotaging pattern.

Until you do that you will end up like this woman with whom I spoke - repeating this pattern over and over again and wondering why?

But each time chipping away at your self-respect a little more.

And trapped in a vicious cycle that will lead her down a path to become her mother and look back one day with regret.

Life’s too short to do that.

Видео How did I get here? The question that changed my life канала Vivian McGrath