Healing From The Past In The Present

Solar Power, the third album by Lorde, was released in July of 2021. At that time, I was a little over a year into my first healthy romantic relationship. I’d only had one romantic relationship prior, and it was toxic. While listening to Lorde’s new album for the first time and driving around my hometown alone, I heard the song “Secrets from a Girl (Who’s Seen it All).” This song retains a common theme that is apparent throughout the rest of Solar Power: growing up, maturing, and realizing what you might have wanted when you were 15 is not the same as what you want at 20. At the end of the song, there is a woman who speaks and warns listeners: “Your emotional baggage can be picked up at Carousel Number Two. Please be careful so that it doesn’t fall onto someone you love.” When I heard this for the first time, I wondered if I allowed any of my emotional baggage from my past relationship to fall onto my current partner, someone I love very much.

During the summer of 2021, I thought I had healed completely from my past relationship. I was in a new, healthy relationship, one that was helping me regain positive self-esteem after having been previously diminished. However, the truth is that I was—and still am—healing. I noticed that I had a hard time trusting my new partner for the first year or so of our relationship, but I had no reason not to trust them. I would become very defensive in matterless conversations and blow them up into big arguments that we would need to eventually communicate through and resolve. I began to realize the ways in which I was hurting my current partner from still being hurt by my previous toxic relationship. I was carrying emotional baggage that I was unaware of and letting it fall onto my new partner.

When the topic of my ex got brought up in the early stages of my current relationship, I had felt as though my tongue had been ripped out of my throat. I couldn’t speak. I knew that my partner would be understanding, but I didn’t want him to know about what I had experienced. I felt ashamed of myself for having stayed in that situation for so long—accepting someone who would compare my body to other bodies, would gaslight me into thinking something never happened and would control who I was friends with. At the time, I blamed myself for being a victim of a toxic relationship. I didn’t realize until years later that oftentimes it is so difficult for people (including myself) to break from one because self-confidence is ruined by toxic relationships, making one feel worthy of such poor and undeserving treatment. The same summer that Solar Power was released, my dad told me that he thought he saw my ex at the store earlier in the day. I was abruptly made aware that I had not yet healed from my past relationship, there were wounds still open. I began to choke up and immediately left my house and went to my car to get some air. I began sobbing uncontrollably, and I didn’t realize until after that I was having a panic attack due to my past relationship. I was so scared that I would see him somewhere, and I wouldn’t know what to do if I was ever faced with that situation.

Later that night, I was lying in my current partner’s bed and I thought about what my dad had said earlier. I began crying and had trouble breathing, I felt that I couldn’t open up to my partner but I so desperately wanted to. He just held me in his arms and didn’t ask much, which made me feel safe, loved, and accepted. My partner holding me was what I needed to calm down and feel reassured. I never told him that I was so distraught over the fear of seeing my ex, but he didn’t need to know what exactly I was going through to be able to comfort me—he gave me the space and care that I needed in that moment. This has continued throughout our relationship where I experience negative memories and feelings from my past relationship which spill into my new relationship; however, I have been able to learn to control how I deal with my emotional baggage and have been careful of letting it fall onto my current partner.

Healing from a past relationship while in a current relationship can be difficult to navigate. In the three years of dating my current partner, I have only opened up about one thing that my ex did to me. I don’t want to talk about my ex to my current partner because I want to leave him in the past, I don’t want him to plague the present. Although I know I can trust my partner, it is a topic that I do not want to talk about with him. I’ve found it easier to talk about my past relationship with my friends who have unfortunately encountered similar situations. It is an easy way for me to get memories of the past of my chest without dwelling on it. Talking to friends who have had similar experiences allows me to vent and heal without feeling the burden of my healing in my current relationship. My current partner has helped me to love myself again. By showing me a relationship that is built on love, I have been able to increase my self-esteem and accept myself for who I am. Being in a toxic relationship makes it hard to see the red fags, which relates to the saying that hindsight is 20/20. I am still healing and growing from my past. Luckily, my partner has given me a safe space to do so within our relationship.

Your MagazineApril 30, 2023