The Cruel Diary of Truth: What Have I Learned? – Marlin Nelson

Introduction
The Incarcerated Slave
Of Course, Childhood Trauma
Manifest Parentification as an Adult
The Incarcerated Slave Revisited
Empathic Depletion & Compassion Fatigue
Conclusion & Lessons Learned

Introduction

I was in, no. I stayed in a fifteen-year “relationship”; one that should have ended within months. But what can I say, die Eule der Minerva fliegt. The relationship officially came to an end after six torturous years when I let her know, in no uncertain terms, to give me back the ring because she breached the contract. Alas, she never left, clinging to me like a drowning woman. She never left the house, the bed, or the hodological space that I occupied; her feet trampling ceaselessly across that hodological map. She never contributed anything: not cooking, advice, help, or support. There was neither desire nor interest in doing anything. Every aspect of her life was regulated by an external locus of control made manifest through excuses, complaints, blame, and a dogged victimhood. Within two years, three, if I’m charitable, even intercourse fell victim to her sexual hebetude and miasma of apathy. There was, undoubtedly, a poverty of answerability.

You have to love yourself enough to know when to let go, when to walk away.

I lived and existed in a prison.

The Incarcerated Slave

I was a “Slave” (more on that later) within what was supposed to be a garden of presence and meaning. But everything that happens to me is mine, including this. There were, after all, innumerable red flags; the tocsin blared. Yet, I chose to ignore it all. Like a fool, I pounded nails into the coffin of reality, thinking that it was all just another complex problem to solve. But impassivity and stupor are not machinery that can be fixed; they must first be accepted, then released, then left to die. And that was never going to happen, especially not when left to her own devices.

Of Course, Childhood Trauma

As a child, I had the great misfortune of being subjected to emotional parentification; a type of trauma that occurs when a child is conscripted into an adult role and has to manage their parent’s emotional needs, carry the family’s secrets, and serve as an emotional regulator for the household. This, of course, robbed me of a childhood in which I could freely exercise my right to be dependent, messy, and cared for; all thanks to a drunk and an abusive, inattentive individual with personality and psychological issues.

Now, as an adult who was once a parentified child, I find myself often being the helper in every relationship. It’s not a matter of choice. It arises from my own struggle to accept the care or help I may need and from feeling responsible for everyone else’s emotional state. As an adult, this leaves me exhausted because I’ve been working a job I was never supposed to have. A job that has pursued me like a predator, having to deal with all her problems, some of which weren’t even problems until they became problems.

Manifest Parentification as an Adult

It’s been fifteen years of cooking, running errands, and adult responsibilities. Fifteen years of addressing the children’s educational needs and providing support. Fifteen years of being solely responsible for finances and transportation. Fifteen years of providing mindful, aware parental presence while working full-time and doing everything else in daily adult life. Not to mention my own life and its challenges with goals, projects, bosses, careers, day-to-day life, and my physical, psychological, and emotional health. All of this, under the careful gaze of a lone sentry. I became exhausted having to deal with all of life, trying to build something meaningful, working, projects, etc., while having to carry the emotional and psychological burdens of an adult who rejected accountability and responsibility at every turn. Whew. You feel the breath of infinite spaces just reading about it.

Her problem is directly correlated to an early failure, by whomever, to problematize her behaviors—personality traits—that contributed to her problematic emotional and psychological morphology as an adult. In fact, her behaviors are a throughline of her entire existence, one that became fully manifest as high neuroticism, leading to hypengyophobia and an inability to see anything with clarity.

The Incarcerated Slave Revisited

I mentioned earlier being a “Slave.” In Hegelian terms, it’s a reference to the Master-Slave dialectic, but pointed inward: I became a “Slave” to the relationship’s emotional economy, arising from a habitual recognition of the Other (her) as the “Master” of the emotional space. Her being “Master,” it should be noted, is not because of force. It’s just what happens: Every emotional portmanteau the Other carries, refusing to relinquish, gets released into your custody and care. But I’m not responsible for her emotional regulation. Am I?

Here’s the most intriguing thing about the Master-Slave dialectic: As the dialectic of Master and Slave emerges, we realize that by becoming a Master, the Master does not liberate himself. In fact, quite the opposite, he becomes dependent upon the Slave. By becoming enslaved, the Slave does not become shackled to the Master; he becomes free because he’s the one connected to nature and he’s the one who produces all the things that he needs and all the things that the Master needs. The Master cannot unchain himself; he needs the Slave to do everything for him—everything he cannot do, doesn’t know how to do, or refuses to do for himself becomes the Slave’s cross to bear. In other words, the Slave does not need the Master; the Master needs the Slave; the one who is truly enslaved is the Master. Think about it: When was the last time you saw a Master running away from their Slaves? It’s a stunning and remarkably ironic twist. It was no different in my experience; I did everything for her and to preserve the relationship.

This realization was a critical refinement of the inquiry into myself and who I had become, as it related to the space and the relationship. Were I to describe it, I would say it’s a specific mechanism of empathic depletion: The “Habit” coercion path (doing everything out of habit, obligation) led to my internalizing her emotional needs to the point where my own “hodological map”; i.e., my capacity to move toward my own specific goals, independent of the partnership, became blocked by the sheer weight of maintaining her emotional equilibrium. Whew. This, of course, led to compassion fatigue.

Empathic Depletion & Compassion Fatigue

Compassion fatigue is the emotional and physical depletion that comes from sustained empathic engagement. The people most prone to compassion fatigue are the ones who never ask for help. Why? They’re the ones always giving help. That’s an accurate summation of my life: fatigued, depleted, and wanting to disengage. I tried and failed, repeatedly, to get through to her, to get her professional help (yes, she refused even that), and eventually whatever we had dissolved into nothing. We remained in the same space—an excuse always at the ready—she still refused to leave; we barely spoke a word to each other. I started sleeping downstairs on the couch or in the recliner.

Conclusion & Lessons Learned

As stupid, infantile, inexplicable, bizarre, and catastrophic as it was, it reveals one thing with crystal clarity: You may be the protagonist of your own life’s narrative, but you likely are the antagonist in at least one other person’s life story. It also reveals this simple truism: You have to love yourself enough to know when to let go, when to walk away. Emotions come and go; the illusion of their permanence is something mostly fabricated by the mind. Despite the chaos, puzzlement, and frustrations, given sufficient time, we can overcome just about anything. That’s the lesson.