This Ain't The Walking Dead, Sir

Hey, listen. First, let's agree The Walking Dead has been trash for several years. The plot is a mess & the zombies' actions are inexplicable and inconsistent. (remember that, it's important!)

Now, let's talk about zombies. Relationship zombies. These are the people who come back from the dead after relationship ghosting (never calling or texting again after being serious for an extended period of time) or blowing up the relationship and themselves along with it and acting as if nothing happened.

Over the past 3 weeks or so, this has happened to me and my ladies SEVERAL times. All these planets in retrograde have y'all out here cutting up! And I will not abide it! Stop doing this. I implore you. In each instance, the woman involved expressed her feelings about the relationship in a way that was calm and direct and in each instance, the dude had in some way faded away without acknowledging the feelings, thrown a tantrum (yes, y'all a tantrum complete with a "you're not my friend anymore"-adjacent response), or acted out so badly there was no sense in trying to set things right.

via GIPHY

Sirs, if this is you, I urge you to seek therapy. As I stated in my tweet last week: You cannot keep throwing tantrums or ghosting or acting out and then coming back days, weeks or months later to "check on" her as if you've done no harm. This is not okay. This is not an apology. This is not an acknowledgment of your poor behavior. This is not a kind gesture. This is toxic behavior that only seeks to ease your own mind at someone else's expense.

We cannot continue treating people who mean us no harm poorly and excuse it away because "that's just how I am". A refusal to do the emotional work is a refusal to mature into a healthy, introspective person. An unwillingness to address, apologize for and ameliorate your wrongdoing is an unwillingness to acknowledge that you view the individual as a human being with feelings. This doesn't mean, blow things up now and apologize later. This means admit you have blown things up in the past and you are going to seek therapy to prevent the situation from happening again.

So to the relationship zombies that refuse to stay dead, if you must reach out to someone let that someone be a therapist. Otherwise, please cease & desist.

Keep Going! You're Doing Great!

I feel better. I saw my therapist, I talked to my people, I got my fresh air, I prayed to my God, I did my work... for me!

I kept going. I slowed down. But I kept going. I sought help. But I kept going. I set my intention. And I kept going.

I had to take time to check in with myself and be honest about what I needed. I needed to let something go, y'all! I was dragging it around in my heart and my body was telling me to release it. I was so afraid of how it would feel to let it go, but I realized holding on to it was not doing me any good.

I had to remind myself: You've survived everything thus far. Heartbreak, heartache, failure, faltering, surgery, death, grad school, crappy bosses, infidelity, insecurity, rumors and rejection. And look at you! Still glowing up & showing up! But in order to get to the other side of it, I had to go through it. It was hard, it hurt, I cried, I stalled, I scraped by but I  kept going!

We can't always let other people tell us what we need to do for ourselves. People who had no idea what I do regularly or what I was doing currently were telling me what I needed to do. That's not how SELF-care works. SELF-care is about you being aware and honest with yourself. Do you need to take a nap? Do you need to tell someone no? Do you need to unload some things? Do you need to pick some other things up? Sometimes you need to make a list and check it THREE times.

I made my mental list and at the top of it was see your therapist. After that, it all fell into place. That session had me in tears and disbelief, but it was what I needed.

Keep Going! You're doing great!
But also, get you a therapist!