How To Know When You Know, Part 2

The truth we're runnin' from finds us

This is part two of a two part series for my paid subscribers called “How To Know When You Know”, a piece I put together after being asked this question about divorce more than any other question: how do you know when it’s over? You can read the first piece here (the full piece is for paid subscribers, but the first few paragraphs visible to all). If you don’t want to be a paid subscriber, I dig that! I’m still so glad you are here as a free subscriber. Hang on until the next publication in two weeks, which will be fully free and visible to all.

Part 2, How To Know When You Know

The closest description I can find for that moment in my living room, when the words made their way out of my belly and into the air between us, was some sort of possession. For years of my life I had prominent, chronic issues being able to verbalize what I wanted, needed, or knew in intimate or familial relationships. In conflict, I would generally show all the signs of someone overrun with intense anxiety and codependency. I would quickly become tearful, the pitch of my voice rising as my throat tightened, brows furrowed, my shoulders curling over my chest. Sometimes after long enough in that position of agony, the energy would shift to anger, where I would just as tearfully become volatile, raising my voice. I see this behavior now as the product of a woman who didn’t understand how to stand on her own two feet; I was always reacting, never acting.