Ex, trauma, bedbugs, animal cruelty in scientific experiments
Reading The Body Keeps the Score and I see my ex so much in this. I just made the connection this morning between the way he just... Stopped... when we had bedbugs, and I had to take care of everything. It was so utterly shitty, but now I wonder if it wasn't a learned helplessness response, like the dogs in this experiment who were shocked while they were in a cage and couldn't escape.
Ex, trauma, bedbugs, animal cruelty in scientific experiments
They didn't run from the shocks when the cage doors were opened. His life had been so shitty for so long and he hadn't been able to make it better in the past, so he just... Froze. Accepted it. I can see so many other places where he did this. In so much of our relationship this exact response was what made things unsustainable.
Ex, trauma, bedbugs, animal cruelty in scientific experiments
God, I feel sorry for him, but also, there was never anything I could do to help him. He refuses to go to therapy and work on this, so he's never going to fix this. He's always going to be that dog in a cage, not realizing that the door is open and he can get out.
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