Wholesome Badass

A Work in Progress — Healing from All the Things

In Charge of Rejection

November 9, 2026

The love I knew was conditional, unpredictable, and readily withheld. I had no template for love that was safe, steady, and kind. I continued to reenact that relational trauma in nearly every relationship. While I am the common variable, so are my template for connection and the personality type it consistently draws me to. For much of my life, I engaged in relationships that diminished me. I tried, with limited understanding and skill, to redeem them. Which seemed impossible, particularly once I stopped agreeing to matter less. I’d try emphatically to understand what was happening between us so we could really connect, navigate our differences, and engage on mutual terms and in good faith. Instead, I was met with defensiveness, denial, and accusations of manufacturing chaos. Eventually, stonewalling. I was seeking connection with people whose behavior, I now see, as prioritizing deference. I didn’t recognize that we weren’t seeking the same thing, or that my attempts to communicate and establish mutuality might be received as defiance. Apparently, I was challenging the terms of a power dynamic I hadn’t even recognized. And when I finally stopped trying, that was unacceptable, too. With profound grief, I have had to acknowledge that the bond is too harmful to continue. The choice to stop chasing connection and approval has been ill-received. And cited only as further evidence of my troublesome, ungrateful, poor character and as the sole cause of our issues. “See? This is what you always do.” “Well, I guess that’s how much it meant to you.” “I thought you said you wanted to work things out.” “And you wonder why things are the way they are.” But isn’t it kind of like a doctor calling the time of death or delivering a diagnosis? The doctor doesn’t speak the death or disease into existence. He simply records it and moves forward accordingly. I’m not claiming to be a doctor. Obviously. I’m just saying, I’m finally able to trust my own experience and recognize the larger pattern without allowing someone else’s explanations, justifications, or occasional good moments to override it. And I can make my decisions based on that pattern rather than its exceptions.

Four-panel cartoon showing the difference between how someone behaves behind closed doors and how they present themselves publicly. A child learns that anger and harsh language are acceptable, but later faces judgment for expressing what she learned.

I Didn’t Know to Hide It

November 3, 2026

I make no claims to benevolence. For my first 40 years, my default behavior was often diminishing and hurtful. Openly aggressive, harsh, and raging. I hated how reactive and hurtful I could be. But decades of mistreatment taught me only to mistreat, not how to respond appropriately to mistreatment or treat others with consistently high regard. What I couldn’t have known was that the behavior being modeled at home was also being carefully contained. Without any meaningful contrast of kindness, mercy, or respect, I didn’t recognize the behavior as irregular. I’ll always be sensitive, with my tightly wound nervous system basically on the outside of my body—easily overstimulated and dysregulated. But NOW I understand how to soothe and regulate myself. Struggling to regulate one’s emotions, however visibly expressed, should not be confused with exhibiting contempt or disrespect for another person. I get to distance myself from people who consider diminishing words or behaviors acceptable. And it’s been decades since I said or did a mean thing. It seems a ridiculous brag, but it’s quite the overcoming and miracle. One of many things that differentiated me from my family—and the similar relational patterns I later sought out—was that I didn’t know to conceal cruelty. My sister would scold, “You just don’t get it.” Straight facts. I super didn’t get it. What I did get: Apparently, it was okay to say and do cruel and damaging things to me. Because if you did, that was my fault, as my shittiness made you behave that way. This became my relational template, shaping my life’s trajectory. I can’t help but wonder why nobody was concerned enough to get me help. Only judge, punish, judge, repeat. Actually… 🤔 I think I understand why professional guidance was not provided. Getting me help might have meant examining what was happening at home, rather than continuing to treat me as THE problem. And why was I deemed the sinful one? But seriously—for those who know to hide it, what excuse even is there?

Two-panel illustration showing a woman suggesting someone may eventually be good enough, then claiming she wants reconciliation while insisting the other person is entirely responsible for the conflict.

Maybe One Day You’ll Be Worthy

November 1, 2026

There’s a deviant cruelty in having it said that you “got what you deserved.” Who even thinks like that? (Clears throat.) When I question the unequal terms of a relationship or ask for mutual consideration, the focus shifts from my concerns to how I’m showing an emotional reaction. My “intensity” is condemned, and my requests for change and repair are dismissed as manufacturing chaos. My credibility is systematically dismantled, while the unequal terms themselves go unexamined. Disqualified. And I am repeatedly (seriously, repeatedly) told, “You are welcome to join, provided you change,” while simultaneously being assured that such change is unlikely. Something astonishing happened when I healed enough to stop providing the convenient distraction of my large emotional reactions: rather than easing the conflict, the pressure intensified. Without my dysregulation to focus on, the very dynamics I had been questioning became difficult to ignore. Requesting mutually healthy terms and finally having enough self-esteem to refuse being disregarded or diminished is characterized as having “opted out.” As though I unilaterally chose to abandon a perfectly good relationship rather than asking whether we could find a way forward that works for us both. The estrangement that follows is framed as the natural consequence of “my choice.” Even hostility is justified as something my supposed deficiencies made necessary. If only I were different, they wouldn’t have to treat me this way. It’s fkn bananas. 🍌

A crowned man sits on a throne, rewarding a favored woman with flowers while directing another woman toward a dangerous trap labeled “Consequences.” The image illustrates favoritism, othering, and emotional violence.

When Discomfort Is Handled as Provocation

October 22, 2026

I’m recognizing a pattern in the personality type I’ve come to call The Archetype: disproportionate retaliation in response to discomfort. There is a swift intolerance for anything or anyone that appears to interfere with their ideas, preferences, plans, comfort, or agenda. Frustration, inconvenience, disagreement, or a perceived lack of deference is handled as a provocation to be consequenced. They justify their retaliation as a natural consequence of being provoked, while simultaneously denying they had been affected or reacted at all. In this dynamic, labeling someone as troublesome and treating them accordingly takes precedence over acknowledging feeling threatened and dealing with difficult feelings. Something is causing discomfort? Annihilate it.

Toxic and Nurturing Relationship Data

October 19, 2026

For most of my life, I didn’t even recognize healthy and unhealthy connection as distinct possibilities. Like a fish unaware of the water it’s swimming in, I understood relationships through the only environment I’d ever known. I had learned distorted definitions of love, safety, trust, and connection. What if the most important measure of love isn’t how much someone loves a person, but what happens in the experience of being loved by them? Family ties, intensity, chemistry, and intermittently good experiences aren’t evidence of a healthy relationship. I’m recognizing how toxicity can exist in the way a relationship functions—the architecture of the bond—not simply in either person. Someone may have an entirely different experience with a person than I did, particularly when admiration, usefulness, or reliance shapes how that person relates to them. When someone says, “I’ve never experienced them that way,” I recognize that may be true. What’s hurtful and inappropriate, is when their experience is intended to invalidate mine. Their experience doesn’t disprove mine, any more than mine disproves theirs. I’m describing the relationship I experienced, not issuing a verdict on every relationship that person has. I’m going to place my trust in the prevailing patterns over the peak moments and occasional exceptions. ♡ Feelings I Associate with Nourishing Love ♡ ☠ Feelings I Associate with Harmful Relationship Dynamics ☠ Healing ♡ Alienation-Division Soothing ♡ Diminished-Disregarded Safety ♡ Confused Growth ♡ Silenced Exploration ♡ Frightened Self-expression ♡ Power-imbalance Expansion ♡ Contracted Yes, I am the common denominator in all my relationships—as are we all. So is the relational template I carried into them. It influenced not only the relationships I entered, but what I helped create and sustain within them. That template shaped: I recognize my contribution to my relational patterns without taking ANY esponsibility for another person’s behavior.

Black-and-white illustration of a girl saying, “What you said was hurtful,” facing a large shield covered by a receipt titled “Good Things I've Done.”

After All I’ve Done for You.

October 19, 2026

May I Remind You? Different people. Different circumstances. Continued familiar patterns. A few months ago, I said to my neighbor, “Hey, when you said X, it hurt my feelings.” Her response? “May I remind you…” followed by a list of ways she’d been helpful to me. I still don’t know why her response stunned me. It was entirely consistent with a familiar archetype: the person who expects things to automatically go their way and has no tolerance for frustration, disappointment, or anything that challenges their preferred version of themselves. And 100% of the time, with this archetype, my direct expression of hurt is received not as information about my experience or how our connection has been affected, but as an accusation to defend against or a claim to debate. I never responded. Interesting, though. We’d each been generous and helpful to one another. But I’d never considered my generosity protection against accountability. I’ve read about rejection sensitivity and narcissistic traits, particularly the need to be right, entitlement to having things their way, and the insistence on a narrative in which they can only be the hero or the victim. I’m increasingly interested in recognizing and understanding the patterns rather than proving anything about specific people. Since when does being helpful mean you can’t also have been hurtful? Both can be true. And similarly—Have you ever known someone who would only say “No” to a request along side listing all of the things they’d done for others or everything they “had” to do? Or who offered a reluctant yes or vague maybe when they already knew the answer was no?But with no thoguthful pause to genuinely ask, “Can we figure out a time that works for both of us?”Also, I do not discount that going to the gym and getting your hair done are legitimate needs. I find the long narrative that presents them as both the heroically generous and the overburdened victim to be unwholesome.

Two people sit apart on a couch. She imagines them steering a boat together. He imagines himself steering a boat labeled “MY PREFERENCE” along “THE FLOW,” dismissing her suggestion with, “Why can’t you just go with the flow?”

Expecting to Matter

October 17, 2026

In my family and marriage, my emotional and sensory sensitivities were treated as unreasonable burdens and acts of defiance. Rather than information worth considering, my preferences and limitations were interpreted as resistance. I struggled to navigate these relationships, which I experienced as structured around coercion and submission, where consideration wasn’t a shared value. Expressing individual needs was treated as not being a team player—a punishable offense. And when those needs were accommodated, they were logged as personal favors and evidence of fairness, further reinforcing the power imbalance. When a person can only tolerate having their way, even the possibility of not getting what they want can create considerable tension. Despite my best efforts, I found no way to remain under those rules of engagement. The only healthy option was to surrender the relationships rather than submit to unfavorable terms or keep fighting for better ones while being treated as though their proximity was a privilege, easily revoked. Fuck that. No, thank you.

A reflection on how appearances shape credibility, character judgments, and the recognition of harm.

The Art of Concealed Cruelty

October 17, 2026

The ability to engineer someone else’s downfall while appearing to have had nothing to do with it. I’m intimately familiar with calculated hostility. What I still cannot fathom is the level of executive function required to provoke someone, anticipate their reaction, and use it against them while presenting as entirely uninvolved. For someone as highly sensitive and reactive as I am, with my nervous system pretty much on the outside of my body, that kind of calculation is incomprehensible. My long game and executive function were scorched by ongoing unresolved trauma. As a child, I was frequently crying, throwing up, having meltdowns, and reacting intensely to things that seemed not to even register for others. In my family, my reactivity was met only with shame and punishment. I was judged ungrateful, negative, too sensitive, thin-skinned. I suppose the hope was that enough callousness might eventually toughen me. My skin never thickened, but I learned to be mean. Vicious even. Sometimes it offered a momentary release. The relief was fleeting. The guilt and shame were not. Contempt was standard fare, but some people (audibly clearing my throat) seemed instinctively savvy about rules and skills that eluded me. They could deliver a devastating strike with complete self-possession and have it pass for teasing, a misunderstanding, or a reasonable response to someone who had displeased them. My reactions were unmasked, unbridled. Obvious, undeniable, and punishable. And I was bewildered. Wasn’t I doing as my family does? My sister, seven years older, seemed to have mastered the poise I lacked. Provoking and baiting could pass as harmless while leaving me visibly distraught. Whatever provoked my distress— became secondary to my reaction. My emotional reaction could be counted on to steal the show and seal the case. Poise posed as evidence of good character; my reactivity, evidence of bad. I was innocent only of understanding the rules. Now, nearly 60, with language and recovery, I think the unspoken rule I couldn’t metabolize wasn’t that ridicule and belittling were wrong. Apparently, they were perfectly acceptable, even applauded, when directed at someone considered deserving, provided they were delivered with composure. Only recently have I begun to identify concealed hostility. Diminishing remarks disguised as observations. “Brutal honesty” that is more brutal than honest. Provocations. The ability to degrade or discredit someone while appearing calm, unaffected, reasonable. Have you ever been provoked into a reaction that was then used as evidence against you?