A question, a need for validation, led me down a dark path. One that cost me my job, my mental health (at least for a while), relationships, and nearly my life.
Having developed a friendly relationship with someone who, in the office setting, was a subordinate, I made the mistake of asking a personal question outside of business hours. The question was related to a previous coworker and a difficult situation I had experienced that I was having difficulty unpacking and processing. This person, having shared that they had been through somewhat similar experiences, had previously offered support.
Spiraling, I took the extended hand. I shared a few personal details about the situation and sought their feedback. By this time, I had been heavily gaslighting myself, struggling with the rubble left by a destructive force in both my personal and professional lives. I had sought help from my employer and had, at one point, been told I had to deal with the consequences on my own since I chose to continue to work for and within the situation that created the toxic environment that had led me down a destructive path. I made my bed, and now I had to lie in it.
On my own, I struggled with the aftermath, long after the person directly involved was no longer with the company. I attempted therapy, which was helpful temporarily, as were apologies from company leadership. However, nothing really helped.
The offer of support felt like a lifeline. I needed support. I needed validation. I needed someone to hear me, who understood.
I received that, temporarily. However, it was all from the wrong source.
My lack of self-esteem and self-worth, coupled with the previous situation, left me wounded, seeping, vulnerable to any source that would feed my need to feel supported, valued, important, loved.
This person saw the lack of confidence and my struggle and sent beautiful messages of support and love that filled the void and the need.
And then the mask came off.
Messages of their own struggles came coded with messages about how I don’t understand how hard their circumstances were with the implication that I did not care. Messages about how if I didn’t respond to them with messages that were long enough that I must be upset and then I would have to explain at length that I am not and apologize. If something they said was upsetting to me, the situation would turn around to me apologizing for getting upset somehow. Conversations would have to be so careful so as not to end up with them becoming suicidal and me taking the blame.
I knew somewhere in my soul that this was not going to end well. I always knew. I had felt God trying to reach me. But it was muddy, like dark, viscous clouds, unclear, unable to reach it.
Then apologies would come. Behaviors would be explained by previous trauma, and I would once again receive words of validations about how amazing I am to understand and not run away.
Around this time, I became sister to this person in their phone. They would later say I initiated the sister title, in an attempt of their own to gaslight me. However, this is because one time I mentioned that I saw them as a kid sister sometimes, as in they irritate me sometimes but I still love them. They took that statement and decided they were my sister. Then decided my kids were their nephews. We were family. Spent increased time at my house. Worked from my house. Stayed at my house periodically when there were issues at their house.
There were consistent issues of money and need. We offered support in various ways.
The pattern became more exaggerated as time went on. Superfluous statements of love, grandiose statements of sisterhood and family, followed by hateful, vengeful statements at times, or otherwise passive aggressive comments hinting that I was always just shy of being enough, doing enough to truly support or love them.
It was when the comments started to center around my children that I finally woke up. God finally started screaming at me.
There were statements of “we” when it came to parenting. Statements of “well, I wouldn’t have done it that way, but that doesn’t mean you’re a bad parent.” One of my biggest triggers is the idea of being a bad mom. When this started to become more frequent, the suicidal thoughts grew louder and more pressing.
By November of 2024, they were staying at our house after having to emergently leave their rental. We helped them get back on their feet. But it was during this time I realized just how deep I was in and I had to decide whether I wanted to get back out or to die. Those were the only two options I saw – to stay in that relationship was going to mean emotional death regardless. So either get out and stay alive or die.
They never stopped reminding me that, as the person in authority in the work relationship, I overstepped the work boundary, so this was a coercive threat that consistently hung over my head for a year. Every time I continued to offer support, every time I stayed in the relationship, I was reminded again that I am the work boss and therefore stepped over the line. Oh, they don’t regret that, they would say, because they love me. But it was said, and was always there.
My self-esteem was so bad that I left myself vulnerable to someone who could use that against me. I became someone I don’t recognize, talking negatively in hateful words about people at work, closing myself off from loved ones, pulling away from everyone and everything I loved. My life, my livelihood, my family was vulnerable to this person who claimed to love me and my family, who I let into my home and into our lives.
And God was screaming. Tossing the tables I know Him to toss in His righteous anger.
By the time they were back on their feet and in their own apartment, I had made my decision. Instead of the path to continue down the dark road and the path of suicide, which is where I was going, I went toward the screaming Father who was trying to get me back. I chose life. I chose light. I chose to walk away, and slowly started to disentangle myself from them.
He has always saved my life. He saved it before I was born, when my mom was planning to have a hysterectomy before she had me. He saved it through cancer. He saved it when Mason was born. He saves it every single day when I am not even thinking about it or paying attention to Him, unfortunately. And He was doing it loudly and fervently and urgently again.
He wasn’t just calling, He was screaming. He said to stop, just stop looking at everyone else for validation, for meaning, for value. Only what I say matters, what I think matters. Please listen to me.
And I stopped. And listened.
And from that moment to here, a lot was indeed lost. Relationships, my job ultimately, money, sense of worldly security. But what was saved was much more important. I lost the world, and He saved my soul.
Good Sky 
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