Frankie Dale explores the topics of love, relationships, and the self as seen in her past column, "To Be Frank" featured in Salient Magazine.

After dating a certified dickhead, my ‘attachment’ problems were at an all-time high. It probably didn’t help that the same week we broke up, my hairdresser decided that I wasn’t allowed to be attractive anymore and gave me Rod Stewart’s haircut. As you can imagine, this was my rock bottom. 

This was a long time in the works. Apart from a few sweet early experiences in high school, it seemed as though I was solely attracted to people who wanted to hook up with my best friend behind my back, or only wanted to see me once every calendar year. After taking some emotional gut punches in past relationships, it’s hard not to carry the trauma, heartache, and anxiety of past romances into our new ones. 

In our early days of dating, my current partner (as well as the odd one before him) suffered the ramifications of my anxieties. If he didn’t respond to my text in less than 20 seconds, I was immediately convinced he had started things up again with his ex.

This toxic habit didn’t serve our relationship well and resulted in him becoming fairly anxious, too. Whenever he had a legitimate extracurricular that prevented him from staying over, he had two options: get a note from his parents authenticated by the local justice of the peace or allow me to shadow his movements in my Mazda Demio. Somehow, we have three years under our belt, and it’s true, he wasn’t lying about having a life outside of me. But it does make me think - how are we meant to purge these ghosts of past relationships and move on? 

About five years ago I dated this guy who made me question it all. What started off as a quirky meet-cute, quickly became a living nightmare where he was slowly convincing me I had made the whole relationship up. I was like, ‘oh right then why the f..k am I washing your dirty undies when you’re at work?’

This ex was always visiting his Nanna. He would text me things like “yeah she’s good - sad in some respects but it’s just good to be here”. Long story short: he wasn’t visiting her and “hanging out with my Nan” was an excuse for him to hang out with another lady.

I was suffering emotional whiplash. One day I would be someone’s girlfriend if he needed a 24-pack of Heineken or a healthy stroke to the ego; the next, I was out. I was slowly noticing how I was only useful to him if I had learnt a new sex move from the kama sutra or if I had recently ordered Uber Eats.

This relationship with my ex left me feeling like I had to barter goods or services to deserve quality time with someone. I’ve managed to unpack a lot of this trauma, but it’s taken years to unlearn that I don’t need to exchange curry or my vagina for some quality time. This type of behavior has translated into most of my relationships since; a slight feeling of rejection being the all-time trigger. 

This type of baggage at times makes me the villain; my deep-rooted fear of rejection manifesting into the unconscious desire to make my relationship tumultuous. Makes sense, right? 

I had a boyfriend who was every mother’s dream. His dad was a doctor, his family were all over 6 ft and looked like the Kennedys. He had won the familial lottery of secure attachment, and was thus allergic to game playing, refusing to engage in my desire to be his emotional punching bag. 

To an anxiously attached person, this was deeply frustrating. He wanted to take my sister to netball practice without the need for something in return, like loose tobacco in my purse or a Hell Pizza voucher – I was like, what f…ing gives loser? If he text me asking what I was doing, I would flip out and call him a stalker just to make him feel like a weirdo – not my proudest moment. Without either of us knowing it at the time, the ghost of my exes were possessing me, haunting us on the sidelines of an intermediate school netball game. 

With the help of a basement exorcism performed by my family and friends, and a healthy dose of therapy, accepting vulnerability became the first step to ridding these emotional demons. Acknowledging the f…ed-up stuff you may have experienced in the past is easier said than done. But it’s nice to know that we are all a part of Emotional Baggage Anonymous. I mean, we all have a dad and, in my experience, that’s enough to attend a few meetings. 

I still feel triggered by my boyfriend sometimes but it’s important to recognise that the reason I’m triggered has nothing to do with him at all. Unlearning the responses of our stupid exes is a lengthy process but being aware of why certain things are triggers is honestly enough. I’m in no way ‘healed’ but, I guess the end goal in mind is to stop projecting my triggers onto my current relationship.

Now, when I feel triggered by him, I remind myself that his actions aren’t synonymous with past experiences and my current partner is so honest with me it’s borderline becoming a problem. Did you really need to tell me this outfit “reminds you of a powerful woman – like Hillary Clinton”.

Exorcising the ghosts seems daunting, but if we acknowledge their haunting presence, in turn, they might appear a little less scary.