Betta Go With the Flow- Or Else

There is a cycle I’ve lived in for far too long—one I’m only now learning to name, as I watch my boys sail away from me deep into the sea of indoctrination. The one who says ouch or asks for what is not readily available and offered, shall be branded and banished. Get on board or beware.

A system in which -directly expressing a difficult feeling, a misstep, or a moment of hurt is treated as a (high-level) violation. In this economy, the cause of discomfort is never the offense—saying it out loud is.

The moment you state, “That hurt me or made me uncomfortable,” everything shifts.

Defensiveness. Arguments. Blame. Silence. Withdrawal.

The original upset/need/limit/harm is of zero interest. He who illuminates it IS the problem. Once you choose to openly speak of difficult feelings, you will be collectively labelled and treated as delusional OR invisible.

Experts have a lot of names for this: the Invalidation Cycle, the Accountability Avoidance Loop, the Eggshell Pattern, the Double Bind of Repair.

In this cycle, difficult moments aren’t treated as part of being human.

But as evidence that the person naming them is dramatic, unstable, or “starting something.”

Imperfection isn’t allowed —it must be denied, hidden, or deflected.  The requirement is that you “Let it go(without mention)”  “Go with the flow(even if the flow discounts you, especially if it does. Know your place.)” “Keep the peace(status quo) (even and especially when the status quo diminishes or disregards you)”

And what is lost is the most basic truth:  there is not sustainable healthy connection without repair.

And repair is impossible in a system where acknowledgment is forbidden.

When the moment itself cannot be named, every relationship becomes stuck in a loop of avoidance.

Everyone tiptoes.

Everyone manages optics.

No one heals.

And eventually, the person who needs to address the issue is cast as the one who “can’t let it go,” 

I’m learning that this isn’t just a communication style—it is a devastating cycle which shapes families, relationships, and identities.

It teaches fear and judgment of openness.

It punishes vulnerability.

It breeds silence and distance.

The cycle maintains disconnection in the very effort to avoid discomfort and messiness.  “Belonging(not being cast out)” is more highly valued than actual connection.  

Jesuit Priest, Tom Weston says it best in his Rules For Being a GrownUp:

  1. You must not have anything wrong with you, or anything different about you.
  2. If you have something wrong or different about you, you really need to correct it. You need to be able to pass under all circumstances.
  3. If you can’t correct it, or change it in any way, you should just pretend that you have. It’s not a problem anymore. Good news!
  4. If you can’t even pretend not to have corrected the situation, you should just not show up, because it’s very painful for the rest of us to see you in your current condition.
  5. If you’re going to insist on showing up, you should at least have the decency to be ashamed.

And that’s what every single one of us is against.

A mirror photograph featuring the quote “Being listened to is so close to being loved that most people don’t know the difference” by David Augsburger, reflected softly in natural light. The image evokes themes of self-reflection, emotional intimacy, and the longing to be understood.

YOU JUST DONT GET IT!!

“You Don’t Get It,” especially when used repeatedly in arguments or emotionally charged situations, is rarely a genuine offer to explain; it is often a powerful form of gaslighting, emotional invalidation, scapegoating- a conversational weapon designed to shift blame and derail resolution.

🛑 What “You Don’t Get It” Really Means

When used as a weapon in a conflict, the phrase “You Don’t Get It” acts as a form of condemnation by executing several powerful, bullying maneuvers at once:

Claim to Superiority

The phrase establishes an instant hierarchy. The speaker claims to possess a higher, deeper, or more righteous understanding of reality, the world, and even my own experience.

• Implicit Message: “I have access to a truth that I am too broken, too emotional, or too flawed to comprehend.”

Total Dismissal of my Experience (Invalidation)

It completely dismisses what I have said or felt. It doesn’t engage with my points; it simply invalidates my entire perspective and lived experience. It shuts down the argument by shifting the focus from the topic – to my competence as a listener/participant. It forces me to defend my ability to understand, rather than the original point of contention.

Lack of Accountability

By insisting my not getting IT(life) is THE Issue- the speaker avoids taking responsibility for their own communication failure or their hurtful behavior. The failed conversation, it is charged entirely to my failure to understand their perfect logic, and avoid considering they possibly fell short in communication or acted wrongly.

• Used as a Shield: “The problem isn’t my action or my words; the problem is your limited/wrong perception.”

Gaslighting

When this phrase is used consistently in response to being confronted, it seeks to sow seeds of doubt in a targeted individual or group, making them question their own memory, worthiness, perception, and sanity.

• The Goal: eroding self-trust and credibility with others.

It’s an emotional disqualifier.

• When someone genuinely wants to build understanding, they will gladly say, “Let me explain that differently,” or “I didn’t phrase that well.”

• When issued as a Verdict: “You Don’t Get It” is delivered as a final, non-negotiable conclusion about my intellectual or emotional capacity. It treats understanding/agreeement/reverence as a prerequisite for having valid feelings and boundaries or holding an admissable opinion.

This is fucked up- an unwholesome tactic leveraging vulnerability, WTF-nhow impossibly righteous for a person to vest himself with the mantle of the wise, misunderstood owner of THE truth.

Sponge bob to do list to include overthinking and missing someone he never had. Depression. Estrangement. Alienation. Black sheep. Scapegoat.

Neurodivergence & Trauma: The Demand for Radical Transparency

My formative experiences and models of love and connection, left me stained by a gravitational pull toward people who cannot see themselves as fallible in difficult situations, but will profusely over perform apologies for benign things like running out of wine or being delayed by traffic or forgetting a thing. And when something non-easy transpires, my inability to gloss over it— to pretend the messy parts aren’t there— escalates the conflict. But, I am not built for performance and pretense.

I tend to operate in transparency and directness— maybe due to neurodivergence. I prefer clarity to curated or polished. And my messiness has been branded as opposition and defiance. Like: “How dare you?”

But I am messy, imperfect, highly sensiitve and easily confused and overwhelmed. I make mistakes. I struggle. I choose things I sometimes wish I hadn’t. And strangely, these qualities, for the right folks track as deeply human, truthful, safe. I seek prompt conflict resolution— and for those who cannot handle feeling challenged, it tracks for them as disrespect (non-reverence) and exposure. I have found no path to resolution with those who cannot acknowledge that as humans they will, at times fall short and contribute to harm.

My experience is imperfect and messy—an honest attempt to sort through the confusion that comes from gaslit distortions. The other side offers a cleaner, more polished narrative, one that leaves no room for their own missteps. And it makes me curious: who is actually better positioned to offer a fuller truth? The person devoted to image, status, and control—or the one willing to examine the discomfort and messiness of being human, seeking clarity, and hungry for the collective, chaotic work of repair?

How I sleep knowing I do not cuase other people's behavior. Homer Simpson

When Peace Is the Goal, Peace Is the Method

I’ve been thinking about how I begged my family— and then the man I married— to please work with me to repair and heal together. I was the only one longing for something healthier and sustainable. My requests were dismissed as me “creating chaos,” and we met for a traumatic therapy session which mirrored the ones I’d suffered in my marriage.

There was no evidence of shared willingness to heal, reflect, or look inward. The focus was simply on being right, and on changing me. I was met with condemnation for my lack of likeness, reverence, submission, and compliance. The dynamic pushed everything into a binary— one right way, one wrong— as if assigning fault could substitute for repair. Their goal was simple: Get therapist to get me to sign off on getting different.

That same contempt for me showed up in how they interacted with my young sons: the steady and insidious messaging of disdain, disregard, and suggestion to disount me. Herd mentality illuminating the possibility of exclusion/inclusion. That dynamic didn’t merely “add to” a pre-exisiting division with my children— it launched it through steady and strong signaling — that to distance themselves from their mother was the safe (rewardable) choice.

If peace had genuinely been the goal, then peace would have been the method.

Gosh. I wonder what it’s like to not exist in a state of confusion, stress, constant recovery and survival. Deep sigh. Chronic pain… and its treatment. Treatment resistant depression. Being erased. The holidays. Ugh. 

September, I was hospitalized twice for heart failure, with no identified physical causes— a non-ST-elevation myocardial infarction, also referred to as Broken Heart Syndrome, or Takotsubo cardiomyopathy. My heart now functions at 40% squeeze capacity, calling for more medications, more interventions, more “strengthening” to restore healthy function. Honestly? I am disinterested in any of this. Like, why?? It wouldnt be untrue to state that I might not object to one final hit of devastation. It would be a poetic ending. Like maybe it can be denied or tilted in some righteous way- all that has been enacted, which divides my sons from me. But the impact of this violent sorrow on my body and mind is indisputable.

I am reading up on Perpetrator Post-Abuse Retaliation(reactive abuse) as I attempt to make sense of and heal from this nightmare which appears to know no end: The insidious imposition of distress when distress is equated with faultiness/instability in our family system.

Text graphic reading “You were not chosen — you were targeted,” highlighting trauma bonding, love bombing, and emotional manipulation awareness.

Targeted, Not Chosen

So it (actually my entire life) is a season of loss and unraveling. And I feel self-conscious about that, because in a world low on emotional intelligence, it’s easy for people to see a woman breaking under multiple pressures and say, “There she goes again—claiming pain, can’t handle life.” I can hear the judgments before they’re even spoken. I wish I could say no one judges me harder than I do, but I’m pretty sure my family—including my sons—absolutely does.

And then there’s him—my love bomber, the one I parted with in March. He wasn’t a “shitty person.” He was toxic, yes, but he also brought me more joy, peace, pleasure, and adventure than anyone. It has been a challenge to reconcile: letting go of the only adult person who ever made me feel even remotely glad to be alive.

Maybe that’s the theme of this season: letting go of people I thought I could not live without.

And here’s where I land: I don’t think he’s a bad man. I think he’s unwell, acting out of a savior complex- compelled to capitalize on the desperation of others. His impulse is not love, but a deep seated need to leverage the vulnerability of others as a means of personal validation. I think he mourns the collateral damage, but not enough to stop creating it. I don’t think he gets pleasure from hurting anyone. The pain he causes is incidental—fallout from whatever is starving inside him.

I was fiercely protective of him. When he was broken by fever for days and the church elders, his ex-wife, and those other two women were all coming for him, I defended him like he was an endangered species of goodness. I sheltered him. I believed in him. I thought he was misunderstood, persecuted, too precious for the world.

Then came the devalue/discard phase. The mixed messages. The devotion in words—you’re my best friend, I can’t imagine life without you, you’re my anchor—while his presence went thin, remote, unavailable. His messages to me could’ve gone to anyone, and I’m sure they did. Our dates and conversations shrank to weekdays only, weekends reserved for “Asheville.” It took me a minute to realize he was farming Asheville the same way he farmed me (and the others): attach to the vulnerable, show up strong, perform stability, offer spiritual oxygen, future-fake, mirror, enthrall, repeat. Good intentions don’t cancel destructive patterns. They just make them harder to see.

And still, I can’t fully condemn him. I wish I could. Some part of me still wants him to get well. But I also want his wings trimmed—just enough that he can’t keep circling the vulnerable, sweeping in with intensity that looks like devotion, persistence that feels like passion, attention that mimics care. I want him unable to keep exploiting people who mistake his performance for love of anything but his idea of himself as the good guy, the ernest savior.

This week I missed him—annoyingly—so I googled him. And what hit me first was this: he’s not someone I would have chosen. Not on sight. Not based on the facts of who he is. He looks like someone I’d avoid on instinct—performing some rugged, salt-of-the-earth healer aesthetic I don’t even like.

Then I googled the other two women he entangled during the same year—both arrested this year—and humiliation rose in my chest. Not because I think I’m “above” anyone, but because I suddenly saw the demographic he reaches for. The vulnerabilities he circles. And the story he fed me—You’re different though; I picked you; they picked me—fell apart instantly.

I deeply and genuinely loved the hologram of him.

He cultivates his image—the simple man in a van who needs almost nothing, who’s always pleasant, ready for a chat, ready with the perfect tool or solution. So when the hurricane hit and he said he’d be in Asheville “helping,” it read as noble. His charm thrives in collapsed places—towns, women, systems. He – the strong and calm one, armed with his Mercedes Sprinter home, pastoral credentials, emotional fluency, and endless bandwidth. A savior with compassionate eyes. His potency is illuminated in already broken spaces. I once told him he was like penicillin. To which he replied: “I don’t wanna be penicillin. I wanna be cocaine.” I thought that hysterical…at the time.

I fell under his spell.

A well-crafted, highly practiced, deeply intoxicating spell.

I miss him like a miracle wonder drug of healing and hope — which has known catastrophic side effects. 

Ralph Owen #expedtionofhope Expedition of Hope Asheville NC

Dignity for All

On Saturdays,
I meet with a small group of politically engaged people,
holding signs aimed at sparking awareness.

My sign reads:
“Dignity for All.”
On the other side:
“Condemn Violence.”

I think—
who wouldn’t want that?

And yet, week after week,
people slow their cars way down
to lock eyes with me,
with raised middle fingers.

It’s startling—
rage, hatred, ill will—
aimed at something pure.

I am noticing how this climate
mirrors my experience with my family of origin.

There’s a crusader energy to it—
a kind of moral conquest
that regards disagreement as betrayal, assault


Difference read as defiance- calling for colonization.
merciless persecution, destruction and punishment.

In my family system,
my sensitivity and limits were read the same way—
not as difference,
but as defiance.

That dogmatic logic breeds persecution.
Cruelty and harshness justified
when a person’s innate differences
are judged as willful disobedience.

When rage is sanctified,
violating others is deemed righteous.
Making cruelty not only permissible,
but earned.

I can’t accept
that disappointing or disagreeing with another
should unleash war.

When I see the faces of people twist in hate over “digitnity for all”,
I feel the echo of that pattern from home.

Banishing me became
the right thing to do.
My absence became
a victory.

I struggle to conceive
how that is in service to wholesome love.

Families have complex loyalties;
I might almost accept
the division from my mother.

But to actively extend that division
to my children, who easily could have been spared—
to model for them that banishment is virtue—
feels unconscionable.

Devastating.

Gathering and communicating in ways which insidiously and consistently diminish me to my boys.

People can deny
what they’ve done or not done, said or not said, and even their motives,
but the impact on my mind and body
is undeniable. The impact on my teen boys- immeasurable.

I begged—
for repair,
for shared reckoning,
for the simple act of staying
in relationship
through difficulty.

When I finally stepped away
to protect myself,
the story became
that I had opted out.

That lie became their shield—
their justification,
their victory narrative.

Children should not be divided
from their parents.

I shouldn’t have been divided.
My children shouldn’t have been divided.

This is the family pattern—
the cycle refusing to be broken.

Some might point to me
as the common denominator, the CAUSE

I was groomed for environments
that would keep me afraid.
Conditioned to take
my rightful lesser place
among those who feel disrespected
by my limits.

I’m trying to stay curious

What happens inside people
when connection is hinged
to reverence?

What are we protecting
when we turn on one another
in the name of being right?

How does moral certainty
slide so easily into crusade—
into colonization,
persecution,
and violent conquest?

The price my sons pay
is high.

For this victory.
Preservation of power.

And a cautionary tale
to anyone else
who might dare
to deviate.

Two white puzzle pieces lie side by side on a wooden surface. They almost fit together, but one is turned the wrong way—suggesting that with a simple shift, they could connect. A metaphor for repair and resolution in relationships.

Strong Enough to Be Sorry

I heard it said today—and I’ve also read it—that secure attachment can only exist where people can be counted on to go back and do the work of repair when they’ve fallen short.

That landed with me. Because I know I’ve created a space for secure attachment by being willing to repair. But it can’t exist with people who are what they call “conflict avoidant” but really are “repair avoidant.” It doesn’t matter how much I want to own my part and make it right—secure attachment isn’t possible with someone who won’t engage in repair.

I think about this with my children. Their father has never repaired with them. Never acknowledged his own wrongness or falling short. Because in his world, strong people don’t make mistakes, don’t fall, don’t struggle, and they’re certainly never sorry.

Loving and Honoring our Baby Humans

At the salon where I go for help with managing my hairs, several of the stylists live on land in trailers with horses and farms — a life I haven’t lived, but I love watching how they show up for each other. A young woman from that community recently had a beautiful, healthy, baby boy and said, “I can’t.  I don’t have what it takes.” Instead of turning away, the community has been passing this baby from trailer to trailer, squeezing, rocking, and loving him ( literally fighting over who gets him next for how long) while they attempt to resolve — without calling the state.

I listened thoughtfully to some judgment about the mom’s choices — still running around, hanging with friends, getting tattoos, hair appointments, living like someone her age — and I don’t see this as a tragedy. Like why would be better for her to keep the baby while feeling miserable and unfit to care for him.  

Observing these people rocking and squeezing and holding the baby passing him around just an abundance of nurturing and soothing love.  It makes me ache – like- if only my female progenitor had made that kind of radically honest decision for me – Just saying – I don’t have what it takes. I can’t deal with her. She’s too much. But I guess the way she spun it was not that she didn’t have what it takes, but that I should be reduced to a more manageable size. And she openly invited any and all others to reduce and diminish me.

Watching these folks rallying around this child feels like witnessing something generous and right.

I find myself feeling more hopeful for that child than for those of us who grew up in seemingly intact families—where abusers were quietly protected, and vulnerable children had nowhere safe to go. There’s a quiet sorrow in a life where the appearance of wholeness masks real harm.

And somehow, that structure—so polished on the outside—is still seen as more honorable. It reminds me of how society often treats marriage: as if it’s more respectable to have several failed marriages than none at all, or better to be unhappily married than contentedly divorced or never married. I’m not sure when appearance began to outweigh well-being, but I can’t help wondering why.

Triangulation and Psychological Splitting

What happens when alignment with one parent supports the rejection of the other?
What I’m experiencing with my son doesn’t feel like a sudden break. It feels like the outcome of a slow, sanctioned erosion of my role. His father—and other family members—modeled and rewarded a kind of contempt toward me that taught him early:

  • my emotions and sensitivity are proof of defect and unworthiness (“You know how she is”),
  • my authority is optional,
  • my love is disposable.

That’s not passive alienation. That’s generational gaslighting. Parents, under the guise of protecting their children, shape entire worldviews around control, compliance, and the rejection of any voice that doesn’t mirror their own. 

So no, my son didn’t come to this view of me on his own. It was programming. “Disregard your mother”  was consistently modelled communicated in a variety of both overt and insidious ways, for years. 

And to see me differently now—to meet me with kindness or curiosity—he’d have to question not just his father, but the framework which keeps him feeling strong, certain, safe. That’s a terrifying thing to do when you’ve been taught that closeness only comes through control, and that love is something you protect by picking the winning side.

Text image titled “GASLIGHTING” listing common signs of gaslighting: confusion and word salad, invalidation of feelings, denial of words and events, belittling, opposing statements, withholding love and affection, diverting focus, calling you ‘crazy,’ blaming for actions, silent treatment, not letting you speak, false accusations, making you question memory, rescripting stories, compulsive lying.

The Moment I Go Off Script

When pain makes it impossible to stay in my role,
It’s as if I’ve tripped an invisible wire—
and it unleashes a silent detonation beneath the surface, warning:
Forget your place—and pay.
“Who do you think you are? You, get back here.”
And:
“Fuck you. No one wants you anyway—for all of the obvious reasons.”

When hatchet like detachment fails to reel me back in,
they go for blame.
And when accusations fail to provoke defense—
as a last resort, there will be an inquiry.

Not the kind that says:
Will you please share with me what’s going on with you?
Will you please help me understand how we got here and what is needed?
No.
Not that kind.

This version of inquiry —
Aims to appear calm and interested.
At its core, it’s a tactic, on the heels of messaging which was anything but curious, interested, and desiring connection.

Aggression, masked as confusion.
And beneath it all:
You may join or seperate when and how I say.

Bait Posing as Dialogue

After having chosen to pile on top of the exisitng wound- silence, dismissal and blame, this last ditch frustrated effort at inquiry for “understanding” doesn’t land as care or genuine interest, even.
It lands like bait. As a first resort, yes. but now…

The Q&A does not move us together as equals, toward repair.
The questions appear aimed at proving or disproving.

It is not about working toward a shared understanding of what happened,
but whether I can recall it flawlessly. Literally no interest or effort given to the fact that I am hurt, in pain. Only righteous interrogation.

When my memory falters under the weight of emotional pain, the focus doesn’t move gently in the direction of understanding, repair, or reconnection.
It turns—deliberately—toward building a case against me, rather than making things right between us.

“If I can’t control how you relate to me, I’ll control how others see you.”
Dismiss. Diminish. Reframe.
Whatever it takes to keep the system intact—
to protect the illusion of goodness, the performance of perfection,
Not just to avoid accountability—
but to preserve control, and the story where they are infallible.

Key Takeaway: Where there is an investment in rightness, blame, discrediting, or defending, there’s no path to healing.