TikTok has been a huge part of the 2nd half of my journey. It helped me find and articulate that which I couldn’t articulate. This information pushed me into a completely different direction.
After the awakening, I had the courage to explore new concepts, challenge my reality in all the dark corners of my life.
I realized I wasn’t happy in my marriage. But I couldn’t articulate exactly why. After decades of him undermining my reality so I would question myself instead of him, I was completely unsure of my perception of reality, of my experience. My ex was void of empathy, but he was controlling and enjoyed arguing/debating. So, he never understood me, or cared to understand me, or understand where I was coming from. He would argue out the clock and tell me I was being irrational, difficult and attacking his character by asking for anything (which never made sense to me). So, I would shut up. I would blame myself. I couldn’t believe that my husband, the man that supposedly loves me, would shut me down like this. It MUST be me. I was conditioned to not voice my needs or my unhappiness. And because I accepted mistreatment as love from an early age, his emotional abuse felt normal. He was manipulative, I was trusting and naive. Questioning the dynamic felt like disloyalty to me. It took SO much courage to dive in and dissect it.
I read blogs and spent time in forums discussing Autism. I thought my ex was on the spectrum, but he refused to be diagnosed, so I figured I would research how to adapt. I spent many nights reading and posting, in the hopes that I would bridge this gap of misunderstanding between us. Surely he cares to understand me, but I’m doing something wrong, I’m saying something wrong, I’m offending him and I don’t understand why because he has a different communication style. I was determined to get to the bottom of it.
I normally spent my time on Reddit talking to people about relationship dynamics, especially of neurotypical individuals married to ASD (Autism Spectrum Disorder) individuals. But statistically, Reddit is dominated by men and they were not kind to a woman complaining and trying to get advice about my situation. So when I got to TikTok and the algorithm matched me with 90% women all going through a similar path, it was beyond refreshing.
Again, I couldn’t articulate why I was unhappy. The years of gaslighting, my ex being controlling and dismissing my reality made it almost impossible for me to understand what was going on. I blamed our brains. I blamed me for not being able to say the right words and do the right things to get him to hear me. I knew I could find the key to fixing this.
I started posting my stories on TikTok and slowly, with the help of the algorithm and other women, I understood what was actually going on.
A few of my posts went viral. Particularly one about weaponized incompetence. This is when someone fakes not knowing how to do a task or they do it poorly, to get out of said task.
My video got 2.4 Million views. I couldn’t believe it! So, I posted more and more videos, most getting 300k+ views on each. I stayed anonymous on all of these videos, but connected with thousands of women over a couple of years.
So post by post, comment by comment, therapy appointments and deep diving finally unraveled the mystery of my marriage.
The answer? Whether or not he is on the spectrum was actually irrelevant. He was controlling, selfish, did not respect me or my time, saw me as his mother and he just flat out refused to participate in the marriage, in the partnership. Nothing I could have said or done would have changed this. But I gave it many, many years of trying. Because I had hope and I projected a benevolence onto him that actually wasn’t there… I created it to feel safe. And that right there is why I want to reach other people about my situation. Pure cognitive dissonance in every sense of the word and I had to be shaken at my soul level to snap out of it.
My ex and other men claim that TikTok was the “reason” that their marriages imploded. They explained that women are easily manipulated, easily influenced and when we all get together, we do stupid things.
Let’s let them believe that.
