There's a famous stage-model for grief. Kubler-Ross (yeah, I googled it) theorized that after going through a traumatic event there are fives stages of emotion that people feel: denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance. After the break-up and subsequent chain of events, I went through those emotions time and again. Except for bargaining--I never felt that I needed to bargain because I knew what was done was done and I wasn't going to be able to change it no matter how much I wished it weren't so. It was like I cycled through the emotions, bouncing from one to another time and again as I processed things and events like the trial came up.
I feel like I'm going through those stages slowly, too. Like, even though I'm cycling through them, I'm also doing a slow rotation through them, though in a different order. I felt very depressed for a couple of weeks (arguably months) after everything happened. I've accepted that this has happened to me and that it will be a part of me and my history, though I in't ask for it and I hate that fact.
Speaking of hate--I am now at the anger stage. Not just in a "grr"/I'm-over-it-in-ten-minutes kind of way. No. The anger and hatred I'm feeling towards my ex at the moment is more of the "I fucking hate his guts and want to tear his dick off for all the shit he put me through for the past two years" variety.
I'm haunted by him and his actions. I hear something or act in a certain way and I hear his condescending voice making a snide remark. I do something and see him making a mean face in my mind. And I fucking hate him for that. I don't want his memory to live on in my mind. I'm ready to move forward.
More than that, though, I want him to understand and truly feel remorseful for the shit he pulled with me. I fucking hate him because I gave up a good year--half!!! of my Masters program--trying to convince him that this was exactly where I wanted and needed to be at the time. He hated the fact that I was going back to school. Hated it. Whined about it. Didn't support it. I felt like I was living a split life, where I was happy when in the classroom and spending time with my new-found MSU friends. Yet, when it came to the love of my life I spent a lot of time and energy trying to draw him into my world, make him a part of this new thing that I loved, only to be met with resistance and spite. It took up so much of my time, my energy. I spent an entire year trying to get him to understand why this was so important to me, only to be met with condescending remarks on a daily basis and a stubborn attitude that he refused to change. That was time I could have devoted to class, projects, cultivating new friendships, discovering new worlds/hobbies/interests, and my job and staff. But I chose instead to focus so much on him because I loved him. Because I believed in love.
Only to find out that his love was not only conditional, it wasn't real.
I hate him because he tricked me. He made me feel so deeply for him. He made me believe that love was something to work hard for. And so I did. I worked my ASS off for the relationship and gave it my all. I have never worked harder at something my entire life. I believed in it when others didn't think it would last. I even gave up relationships because some friends didn't agree with it. All in the name of love. I compromised. I sacrificed. But he didn't.
I hate him because I was the one who did the work in the relationship.
And I hate him because I don't know what a good relationship looks like.
And I really fucking hate him because I question if love really does exist. If romantic love is just a made-up notion because I thought I had it and I thought I'd be able to keep it forever and I gave it my all because my convictions were so strong. And I want him to fucking hurt for the rest of his life because all I got after all of that were bruises and a broken heart and this fucking bump on my wrist that serves as a reminder to my failure, to my hurt, to my anger.
This pain, this anger, these new realizations are a new thing. It's taken me seven months to get to this place where I don't feel as bad, or sad or depressed. What I feel now is a white-hot rage that flares up and makes me realize that I really got screwed in a lot of ways. I gave my all. I believed in him and in love. I put good into the world. And I got screwed. And I don't know why. But I don't question why anymore. Instead I just feel the burn.
Kubler-Ross states that all of these feelings are normal and that it takes time to grieve and go through the stages. So I will let my anger sit with me for a while. I'll feel the tears sting my eyes and hear my shallow breaths while my mind tosses around all of the things that piss me off. I'll tense up and I'll probably scream once in a while. And that's ok. Because once this stage is done I'm going to move on. Because I'm better than him. And I refuse to get stuck by one negative emotion. Unlike him.