Ugh, anger!

Ugh, anger. Why are you still here?
I have been in a state of avoidance all week.  I haven't journaled, I haven't blogged, I haven't bothered to think about relationships at all.  Being a new doggy mommy keeps me very pre-occupied, as does school, work, and all the other responsibilities that come with the beginning of a new year/semester.

But at night, I find myself crying. And often, I feel fury from within.  This anger has been turning inward these days, and I have found myself berating me.

It's not his fault that I stayed and stayed and stayed. I stayed.  Nobody put a gun to my head.
It's not his fault that I sacrificed, suffered, and tolerated all the infidelities and put myself into denial.
That wasn't him, that was all me.

So, this anger isn't really going anywhere productive because I have shamed myself into a rut, and all I want to do is find another hole, crawl into and hide out for as long as possible.

I want to hide... away from men, away from relationships with men, and most of all, I want to hide from myself.  I feel humiliated thinking about all those times when the relationship was bad, but I still stuck around and gave him/us the benefit of the doubt.  What made me feel strong before (ahem, optimism and belief in others' ability to change) now makes me cringe and feel utterly weak.

I am in a self-hate mode, and this is exactly why I need to write.  I need this out of my system and to figure out why I am unable to have self-compassion right now.