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Hello, welcome back to Trenticare.
Or if you're new here, hello, welcome to Trenticare.
So happy to have you.
My name is Ashley, nice to meet you.
Happy to have you. Today we're just gonna jump into the episode.
And this episode actually came to me a couple weeks ago when I was struggling with a situation where someone who I was really close to a couple months ago went online, posted a bunch of really nasty videos about me.
I don't want to talk about the situation at all anymore, but if you know, you know.
But the reason this topic came to me during that time is because during that week I had a lot of people texting me being like, did you see her videos?
And I had people coming from her videos commenting really nasty things on my videos.
And it was just very overwhelming, very stressful, not a not a good week in my life.
I was just struggling a lot.
I mean, it never feels good to have people over analyzing you picking you apart, especially people you don't know.
And then also it sucks to have someone you were so close to speak so poorly about you publicly.
Over those few days it really brought me back to past emotions and insecurities of mine and just reminded me a lot of a place that I worked really hard to get out of.
And I definitely could have made a response video.
I could have texted this person and tried to resolve the matter or really dig into her and tell her how I feel about her.
But at the end of the day, it doesn't matter like it wouldn't have benefited me at all.
Like I don't want that type of person or type of energy in my life.
I don't want to be involved with people who make me feel bad about myself.
I don't want to scream and fight and use all this energy towards negativity and I don't want to walk on eggshells and have to be on defense all the time.
And maybe it's just with age this has happened.
Like maybe I've matured, but I've noticed that I find myself engaging less with people and situations that don't serve me.
I've always been a very confrontational person, like in the sense of when something goes wrong, I want to resolve it.
And if there's a problem or someone's upset with me or someone doesn't like me, I want to address it.
And more importantly, I want to fix it.
I think because I do have such a strong personality, I'm very open with how I feel.
Like if I'm upset, I'm not gonna hide it.
I'm gonna tell you straight up.
That sometimes comes across as too much or hard to be around or like I'm rough around the edges.
And I used to people please so hard to avoid those kinds of judgments.
I tried to be very go with the flow and I just be very easily persuaded to do certain things and be around certain people because I was afraid that saying no would push those people away.
For example, I would hang out with people that I didn't fully align with and I would do things that I didn't want to do just because I knew that others wanted to or that they wanted me to.
Now I'm at a place in my life where I secure with who I am and I know what I want.
I know what I believe in and I like those things about me.
I don't want to change those things about me and I don't have the energy to fake being something that I'm not.
I can't fake how I feel.
I can't fake having a good time.
I can't bite my tongue and pretend like things don't bother me.
I just don't have it in me to allow things to slide the way that I used to.
Now when someone does something that I very much don't like or it's very harmful to me or my mental health, there's a pretty quick disconnect for me.
There is a pretty quick pull away for me because I actually like myself now and I actually like my life.
Things are peaceful and I don't want to jeopardize that for anyone else to be honest.
The thing is it took me a long time to get to where I am.
My life wasn't always like this.
It was actually pretty chaotic and messy and I had to go through a lot of shit to get to where I am now and I don't want to be brought back to feeling the way that I once did because of other people.
I thought that talking about this would be good because I think a lot of people struggle with this.
When someone hurts them or they go through something really traumatic, they heal or at least they try to heal but then they go and allow those people that hurt them or those things that hurt them back into their lives and it reverses a lot of the healing and they have to start over.
So I kind of just wanted to talk about that, talk about where I'm at, why I don't want to be around what I had to heal from, and why I'm very okay without those things.
I hope that resonates with you and reminds you not to put up with anyone's bullshit.
So with that being said, let's get into it.
I am very guarded with a lot of personal details that involve my life.
I know I give you guys a lot of information relating to friendships and relationships and things like that but when it comes to my childhood, my family, just a lot of personal details.
I don't share them publicly because they are very personal and once they're out on the internet, they're there forever so I'm just very sensitive with what I share.
Like I am a yapper.
Let's be very clear, I love to overshare but there's just some things that I haven't spoken about and those things are what I've had to heal from the most and I'm currently still healing from.
I think when you've been through something so painful or something so traumatizing, you have two choices and that's to either allow that pain to consume you and take over your life or work through it and heal yourself so you can move forward.
And the reason a lot of people choose the first option instead of the second option is because it takes a long time to heal.
It's not like an overnight thing where you talk about it once, you cry about it once and then poof it's gone.
It takes years. It takes years of therapy.
It takes a long time processing and moving through different emotions and unlearning things and forgiving others and forgiving yourself and it's painful and messy and it's just a lot of work.
When something or someone hurts you, it might seem easier to just ignore it.
You know, move on to the next thing like let's say you and your boyfriend break up.
Instead of grieving the relationship, you might be like, you know what?
I'm gonna hit the town and start hooking up with people like the streets are calling.
It's hot girl summer and you hook up with a bunch of new people and you get into a new relationship but you don't allow yourself to process what happened and how you felt.
And then because you don't process it, you don't realize how that relationship messed you up until years down the line because you're pushing all of that to the back of your mind so you can focus on this new relationship.
You're like why do I have all these trust issues and insecurities?
Like why am I so angry?
And it's like babe it's because you didn't address what happened.
You didn't sit down and think when my ex lied to me, it made me feel crazy.
When he left me, I felt abandoned.
When he cheated on me, I felt not good enough.
Those thoughts and those feelings can't be resolved without getting to the root of why you feel that way.
Healing means deconstructing what happened, how it made you feel.
You need to work through that pain and force yourself back through it until you get out of it.
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Now let's get back to the episode.
This is a dumb metaphor.
Metaphor? Is that the word I'm thinking of?
Metaphor? This is a dumb example but it's gonna work okay.
It's like entering a haunted house where there's only one exit.
It's obviously going to be very scary to walk through the haunted house and it's not going to be fun if you don't like scary things.
But there's only one way out and it's through those scary things.
But once you're through that exit, you don't have to go back and see those scary things.
You might remember them.
You might think back like oh shit that's that was scary.
That was not fun. But you don't have to face them head on again.
So like yeah I've gone through a lot of difficult things in my life and I'm reminded of them sometimes.
But because I've allowed myself to acknowledge them and heal from them, when I think about them I don't have that same emotion or reaction to them that I once did.
And I don't let those things control me or define me.
I used to allow a lot of disrespect from people that I really loved and really cared about because I wanted those friendships and relationships to work.
And I do believe people deserve grace.
I don't think that if someone messes up that means you should just like immediately leave them.
I'm referring to someone repeatedly disrespecting you and pushing your boundaries and just treating you poorly.
So I would I would allow that.
But after a while I realized I was excusing poor behavior and in a result I was treating myself poorly.
I knew that these people were hurting me or even just putting me in difficult positions that were very triggering to me.
But I didn't want to end those connections because I thought not having them in my life would be so painful and I didn't want to be alone.
But the truth is staying in those friendships and relationships that were hurting me was more painful than it would have been for me to walk away.
Because when you walk away from a connection that's hurting you, it's going to be painful and uncomfortable at first.
You have to grieve the loss of that connection.
You have to come to terms with why didn't it work out what they did to you and it just sucks to lose that person but it can only hurt for so long.
Eventually you heal and move on but when you stay with someone who hurts you and you allow them to hurt you that hurt carries and it builds and builds and builds until it becomes excruciating and you can't take it anymore.
I think when you've been through a lot of tumultuous relationships and friendships you start settling for that.
Like I've had my fair share of friendship breakups and it wasn't until my mid to late 20s that I started experiencing healthy friendships.
My closest friends are friends that I had when I was younger even when I was in high school but we had years apart from each other to grow as people so that way we could come back together healed.
We healed separately so that way our friendship could be healthy now.
Before dating Josh the guys I dated treated me horribly and it was all I knew so before him I just allowed those guys to treat me the way they did because I thought hey that's just how it's supposed to be.
I'm supposed to feel like I'm gonna throw up every day.
I'm supposed to be questioning what my boyfriend's doing.
I'm supposed to be jealous that he's talking to other girls.
This is just how it's supposed to be.
When you haven't experienced healthy love you don't expect it so you're less likely to push back when someone disrespects you or hurts you because you haven't seen or felt what it's like for someone to actually show you respect and real love.
But once you've been shown what it's like to be respected, once you feel genuine love it's so clear to see the difference between toxic and healthy.
Like before it might not be so clear because you haven't had it before but once you have it you're like oh shit oh fuck.
Once you've been treated correctly you don't ever want to be mistreated again.
Once you see what it's like to be treated right you look back at all the people that did you wrong and you're like fuck.
Like I don't ever want to go back to be treated like that.
I don't ever want to feel unloved again.
I don't ever want to feel like I have to prove myself or be on defense all the time or question whether or not what I have with this person is real.
Like I don't ever want to go back to that.
Now that I've experienced both sides of being treated poorly and then being treated very well I am guarded.
I am guarded in making sure that I don't allow anyone to make me feel the way past friends, past boyfriends, just past people have made me feel.
I'm very aware that I can't control everything but I do have control over my actions.
I have control over who has access to me and I have control over my boundaries and I definitely use them all the time.
Like I am very clear with my boundaries.
I used to choose conflict and chaos if it meant protecting a relationship or a friendship or even protecting my image but now it's like I don't want to do that if it means giving up my peace.
Like if I have to sacrifice my well -being to be a part of your life or for you to like me I don't want to be a part of your life.
Like if I have to filter myself or if I have to be something that I'm not for you to accept me I don't want you to like me.
I don't even want you to be around me.
I don't want friends who make me question whether we're actually friends and I don't want friends who make me feel more lonely than I would feel if I was alone.
I've had multiple friends who have made me feel left out who have made me feel like we weren't friends or they didn't like me and like yeah of course in high school that's just how things are.
Sometimes people are stupid and they're young and they don't know any better or they're trying to fit in.
Like I've been there I get it I've been that person but even as an adult I've had other adults make me feel this way.
Like even in college I had friends who made me feel that way.
I really wanted to be part of a big friend group.
I always wanted to be because I never really was and I finally got into a big friend group and the first couple years it was really good but then suddenly all of a sudden I feel as if I'm not part of that big friend group anymore.
Like I'm in the group I'm in the group chat.
I still have the same expectations like you can't talk to this person you can't like this person's photo.
If you're friends with this person you're not friends with I had those expectations still but I didn't have the perks of actually being their friend.
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from therapy. Therapy literally helped them and me through the hardest of times and it can help you too.
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Now let's get back to the episode.
We were friends but there was another group chat without me.
We were friends but I wasn't invited to plans.
We were friends but my text would be ignored.
We were friends but how I felt didn't matter and it might not seem like a big deal to people but you really don't get it unless you've been in that position.
Like it hurts to check your find my friends app and see all of your friends in the same location in your home alone and it hurts to feel as if you finally have good friends and then to have someone be like oh they were talking about you last night when you weren't there and it sucks to feel some type
of way and feel like your friends don't like you and when you express this is how I feel they're like you're crazy that's not what happened you're so dramatic.
It might seem insignificant but it took me a long time to get over losing those friendships.
It wasn't like those friends did anything terrible to me it was just how they made me feel.
I felt alone and I felt like I didn't matter.
I felt like I was annoying and no one wanted to be around me and it really fucked with my head and for a while I thought I was never going to have strong friendships again.
I thought there was something wrong with me especially when you get pushed out of a big friend group because it feels like the the group as a collective decides that you're you're the bad apple.
Like all those people don't want to be friends with you so there must be something wrong with you and I realized that's not true and that's like a whole other conversation we've had before in this podcast but that's how it feels but the point is I healed from that.
I spent a lot of time alone.
I spent a lot of time becoming my best my own best friend and through that I now know that I am deserving of good friends and healthy friendships.
I'm also a lot older now and I just don't have the time or the energy to be around anyone who doesn't give me the same energy back and I'm not saying that my friends have to drop everything for me and if I'm giving 110 percent they do too but I do expect communication and honesty and respect and when it
becomes obvious that that's not what they're giving I'm going to take a step back.
I'm 27 now. I don't want to be brought back to a time where I was 22 or 23 crying feeling left out because of my friends and feeling like a loser.
I know that feeling so well and if I'm feeling that more than I'm feeling loved and appreciated and included in a friendship I'm taking a step back.
When people used to treat me poorly it would make me cling harder to them.
I would think like I need to work harder.
I need to be nicer.
I need to make these people like me and now it's like I don't want to make anyone like me.
I don't want to feel like I'm performing.
If you don't naturally respect me or like me or love me or care for me I don't want you to.
I don't want to feel like I have to go out of my way and be something that I'm not for you to want me around and I'm the same way with just who I spend my time around.
I am too old to be around people who care so much about what others are doing with their lives.
I feel like when you're growing up when you're in high school when you're in your early 20s it's natural to want to judge other people not saying that it's right but you do it because you're still coming into yourself you don't really know who you are you're insecure and you're projecting those insecurities
onto other people. But it comes a point where things in your life start maturing like let's say you're graduating college or you're getting a new job or you're starting new relationships new friendships you bought a house you're getting engaged you're living on your own for the first time you're getting
a pet all these amazing things are happening in your life.
Your life is maturing you're growing but then you as a person aren't maturing and growing.
You still have the same mindset that you did when you were in high school or in your early 20s.
You want everything in your life to grow and be great but then you don't want that for yourself.
You still have that gross mindset of judging other people and what they're doing because you think that you're above them.
I don't want to be around that because I was around that so much in my early 20s and I was that in my early 20s and even before that I was insecure and I was judging other people because I wasn't happy with myself and I was just mad that other people were doing things that made me happy and I was sitting
around not doing what I wanted because I was afraid of what others thought about me and I thought you know other people are already judging me so I'm going to judge them and it's going to make me feel better about myself.
I was around a lot of people who made fun of others for posting singing videos online and posting youtube videos and just doing things that they wanted to do and that were less conventional and then I dated guys who didn't want me to post on social media or do youtube because it wouldn't work out and those
same guys judged me for what I wore and how I acted.
I don't want to be around that now.
I had to overcome so many obstacles to get to where I am now to build up the courage to leave my last job and do social media and make this podcast.
I had to get over my own self -limiting beliefs but I also had to overcome the thoughts of like what are people going to say about me?
Are they going to judge me because being around so much judgment conditioned me to believe like people are always judging you and I cared so much about that and I'm not saying that those people were the only ones judging and they're these terrible people because like I said I was doing it too because I
was insecure but after spending time alone learning more about myself and then pushing myself to post on social media and make a podcast, I now see how much easier it is to just mind your own damn business and do what you want and not care what people think about you.
I've learned how free it is and how much fun life is when you don't care what people think about you and you're so much more confident and happy when you're not judging other people and you're just focusing on yourself.
Like I don't want to get back to a negative place of being rude to other people and putting other people down just to make myself feel better.
I've learned that I don't have to do that and I can feel good by just being good and just minding my own business and the same thing with negativity in general.
I was such a negative person because of the environment I was in but also because of the things I had dealt with.
I just felt like one bad thing after another was always happening in my life.
I got to a point where it's like where I was literally thinking can I catch a break?
Is it ever going to be my turn?
Why is everything so awful?
And I just developed this victim mentality of everything sucks and nothing ever works out.
But I had to work through that.
I had to learn that yes, things do suck if you focus on them and you don't try to better yourself and I was not bettering myself.
I was not around people that wanted me to be better and I wasn't doing anything to do better for me.
And I also had this moment where I was like damn I'm just a negative depressing person.
I wouldn't want to be around me.
I wouldn't want to be my friend.
I wouldn't want to date me because everything that comes out of my mouth is shit.
So I worked on being a more positive person and not positive in the sense of like I'm never upset or I'm never mad or I don't get frustrated because I definitely do.
But I don't let it consume me.
When I say that I want to be a more positive person I just mean that I want to be more positive than negative.
I want to look for the more positive things in life.
I want to speak more positively than negatively.
I always want to look for the lesson or the bigger picture and I just want to feel good.
So when I'm around people that are only negative and are always talking shit, always complaining, it's really hard for me to even want to connect with them because I don't want to engage in that conversation.
It's one thing if my best friends like venting about a situation, talking about something that's upsetting them.
I'm never going to invalidate someone's feelings and be like, you know, I know that's shitty, but like look at the positive.
No, like you they can still come to me.
I still complain when I'm going through something, but I'm talking about people that just like talk shit to talk shit like that's their entertainment.
I don't want to give into that because it makes both of us feel even shittier.
I want to talk about things that we're excited about things that we're looking forward to things that we're working towards things that we love.
I don't want to build connection over negativity and the same thing with anger.
Like I grew up in a family where fighting was very common and I definitely have my dad's fiery side, but I've worked really hard to not allow that side to come out of me when it's not appropriate.
I don't want to be a mad person and just because I grew up in a home where fighting was like the go -to.
I don't want to become that and I've worked really hard to not become that, but I get very triggered now when I hear yelling or fighting like even when I'm in the shower and Josh like slams the door by accident or he's playing video games and he's like yelling with excitement.
It does trigger something inside of me because of the environment I grew up in and something that I worked really hard to grow out of.
I don't want to be around people who result to arguing and fighting in like everyday conversations or situations.
I don't want to be friends with someone who doesn't want to communicate and their first response is to be angry and yell at me or like post a series on fucking tiktok about me.
Let's be so for real.
I want to be around people who can communicate calmly and they don't jump to insulting someone or fighting with them.
Like I was saying before, I used to settle for these kinds of situations and people and I thought that was just what I deserved and that's just the way things are.
I thought friendships were meant to be hard and I thought that relationships were meant to be hard and I also just wanted to validate others and their feelings even if it meant in validating my own feelings but what healing has taught me is I deserve so much more.
We all deserve so much more than what we settle for.
Like I don't want to settle.
If I spent all this time working on myself to become better, why am I going to minimize that and do all this healing for people who aren't on the same level as me, who don't have the same mindset as me, or aren't self -aware, or aren't aware of how they make others feel?
I don't want to sacrifice the good in me for the bad in others and I don't want to wait around hoping that things get better because a friendship or a relationship means a lot to me.
I don't have to do that.
I can leave the situation.
I can find better. If someone's not treating me good, no matter how much I love them, I can leave.
I don't need to stay and allow that just because I want that relationship to work out.
I deserve friends. We all deserve friends who don't make us feel like shit.
We deserve to be around like -minded people who make us feel included and like we're equals and make us feel excited and safe and that we have fun around.
I don't have to stick around a situation to make people feel more comfortable.
I don't have to bite my tongue and stay silent and allow people to mistreat me out of fear of hurting their feelings because quite frankly, they don't care about my feelings.
They don't care that I'm uncomfortable.
They don't care that I'm sacrificing my needs and my desires and my feelings for them.
I don't have to overextend myself and try to make things run smooth for other people who aren't doing that for me, especially when I'm struggling and things in my mind aren't running smooth.
Like, I'm in shambles.
I don't need people or things to add to that.
I think so many of us are so afraid of letting others down and we're afraid of coming across as cold or like too guarded, but I think the right people will understand why you are the way you are and they won't put you in an uncomfortable position where you feel like you have to give up everything you've
worked on to be involved with them and also the right situations won't make you feel like you have to put that guard up or make you feel super uncomfortable.
There's also just so many people out there and so many beautiful opportunities that you don't have to settle for whatever is in front of you and if something doesn't feel right or it feels too familiar for the wrong reasons, it's okay to keep moving until you find what you're looking for.
Like, it doesn't have to be endgame just because this thing is presented to you.
You don't have to choose that person or choose that job or choose that thing.
You don't have to do it.
You don't have to give up your peace for anything or anyone.
With that being said, that's kind of all I really wanted to say today.
I feel like I'm in a good place where I know that it's okay to be selfish.
Like, selfish in protecting my peace and protecting my heart and my mental health and just focusing on things and people who I can grow with and I feel good about.
I don't have to surround myself with people who make me question my worth or our connection or my fucking sanity and I just feel really good where I am.
So I hope that this episode reminds you to be selfish too.
Be selfish in protecting your peace and surround yourself with good people and good things and don't go back to things just because they're familiar.
You deserve more and yeah I love you.
That's all I have to say to that.
That's it for today's episode.
I hope you enjoyed it.
If you did make sure to give Try Not to Care a five -star review.
Make sure to check out my socials, my Instagram, my TikTok, my YouTube, my everything.
Everything's in the show notes and the sponsors for today's episode are also in the show notes.
I would love if you check those out and yeah let me know what you think.
Let me know what you think on Spotify, on social media and thanks for hanging out with me.
I hope you liked today's episode.
I really liked recording it.
Okay um I'm gonna go now.
I love you besties.
I will talk to you next one day.
Goodbye!
