Over the past 3 days, I've been doing a cleanse. A cleanse over my personal life, that is.
I've deleted all of my YouTube videos. Since I had to delete them one at a time, it took longer than I expected. Thankfully, I didn't have that many. I think I had a total of 58 videos, all together. But since the videos haven't been monetized in years, I haven't been making money off them. And there's really no sense of keeping my videos up there, to be honest.
I also found out that Google keeps an "Archived" folder filled with photos. I was able to get the photos of me with Butch Patrick, Bobby & Diana Steele, and Tony Moran, on my very first trip to Spooky Empire, in December 2016. I somehow lost them off my laptop and phone. So I was happy that Google kept THOSE photos stored.
However... I found 1,600+ photos that I DID NOT want to see. The vast majority of the photos were of my ex, my ex and me together, and screenshots of my ex and me on video call. But there were also numerous other photos I posted. Photos I posted in an attempt to impress a guy that didn't want me.
Seeing all of these 1,600+ photos really brought back some bad memories...
The situations I've been in have been so incredibly toxic. And I've allowed myself to be in those toxic situations, because I didn't think I deserved better.
My ex was a nightmare. He would always feel the need to gaslight me, in order to feel some type of control over me. And it worked. He would always tell me that no one else would ever love me and no one else would ever want to be with me. And, at the same time, promise that he would never hurt me. But my ex's definition of "I promise to never hurt you." really turned out to be, "I'm going to do things behind your back, but you'll never find out." Unfortunately for him, I found out. And when I brought everything to his attention, he gaslighted me AGAIN. On top of that, he would threaten to kill himself if I left him. I felt obligated to stay with him. But it got to the point where I couldn't forgive him, or forget what he did to me. I wasn't happy. And I didn't want to stay with him. In all honesty, him and I should have never even gotten involved with each other. The red flags I ignored at the beginning of our relationship, were the same red flags that caused us issues throughout the entire relationship, causing me to end things. And if I could change ONE THING from my past, I would have never sent him those emails. I would have chosen to wipe my ex completely out of my life, all together. They always say that undoing the past could alter the future. But removing my ex from my life wouldn't have altered anything. His presence in my life didn't effect my later events, at all.
Even after I broke things off with my ex, things were still bizarre between us. He felt like it was okay to flirt with me and say perverted things towards me. And even after I told him numerous times to stop, he just kept being a Douche Canoe.
I hit a rough point in my life where I started self-harming again. I hadn't done that since I was an early teenager. My ex made the hurtful comment, "What if you meet a great guy and he sees your scars? He won't want to be with you, because he'll think you're mentally compromised." Thanks, you Twat Waffle.
When my ex found out that I was talking to Steven, who happens to be 7 years younger than me, he felt the need to give his opinion on our relationship. He told me it would never work out, because Steven is younger than I am. Really, dude? The 3 guys I dated before Steven were ALL older than me. And it didn't work out with any of them. So for my ex to tell me it wouldn't work, due to Steven being younger, was total nonsense. Because it DID work out. And we're married. So I'd say it worked out pretty damn well.
But after he decided to give his personal opinions about Steven, who had done NOTHING wrong, is when I finally banished him from my life. Even before Steven and I got together. And my life has been a lot more peaceful ever since then.
Oh, and my scars? Steven is a wonderful man. And Steven knew about my scars before we even got into a relationship. Not once did he EVER make me feel like I wasn't worthy of being loved, due to my self-harm scars. Never.
So seeing photos of this Joy Thief made me MISERABLE.
And the other photos? Well... I just don't think people should take advantage over other people like that. To be asked for those photos, just to use me for their own personal sick pleasure, was wrong. And I feel like I was violated.
It took over 7 hours to delete all of the photos that I no longer wanted to be associated with my Google account. And while other people couldn't see these photos, I didn't want ANY part of them. And, just like the YouTube videos, I had to delete these archived photos one-by-one. I had the option of deleting the entire archived album, but I had 100+ photos of my husband, and screenshots of our messages and videos calls. And I didn't want to lose those photos.
I had to wait until my husband went to work, before deleting them. I didn't want to look at these photos. And I sure as Hell didn't want my husband to see those photos.
Seeing all of those photos made me seriously sick to my stomach.
To be so brainwashed into believing that I couldn't do better, so forcing myself to stay in toxic situations, is so messed up.
And I am just so thankful and grateful that I've moved on and made better life choices. And finding Steven was a true blessing, because my husband is an absolute angel. My husband has seen me on my darkest days and still made me feel worthy of being loved.
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