Sylvanna Devlin

I put this as its own topic because feeling betrayed is its own unique form of grief. It’s not just the loss of a loved one that stabbed in the back feeling doesn’t have the same answer. Grief sure. I buy the idea it’s love with nowhere to go. But I felt what happened to me as grief and it was more than that. It was betrayal.

The emotionas of Betrayal are grief and anger swirling together in a pit of sorrow. There’s no resolution to be had that will ever satisfy you. No apology great enough to reestablish trust. If you’re going to sleep with someone else you had better open the marriage first.

You can try. Therapy together might rebuild. You might reconnect. But a broken promise is not easily recovered from. It can be. It certainly can. But not easily. And for some the answer to when? Is never.

Most betrayal is straight forward, cheating. There are millions of books on coping with cheating sexually or romantically (Or both). I don’t have enough experience there and Iris just shakes her head and says “As least he’s probably not Zeus”. Yes turning into swans and raping women does seem like we don’t all have Hera’s level of problems.

What I do understand is the broken promise of safety. I wasn’t supposed to ever be homeless. I was supposed to be the fae at the bottom of the garden not the ogre under the house. But perception of me changed and I was kicked out. I wasn’t different. My father’s view of me was.

Since then my mother has made an effort to bridge the gap and my father hasn’t been unwelcoming. But it took a suicide attempt before I felt like they were back in my life. And it didn’t change how hurt I was. It was no longer about trust, my safety net had to be the government not my parents. But as a result the daughter of a wealthy Stanford professor was homeless for close to a year. April 2024 to January 2025, hotels cars, a hospital and a shelter later I’m in the poorhouse with other women who have had to tough it out for some reason and thus have developed calluses over their hearts. Not all. Just most.

Where does all the pain go even when you’ve reconciled? How does this flavor of sorrow get reframed into something good? Is the answer really it doesn’t? Yes? Then what the hell. All the understanding of why in the universe is never going to fix last year. I just need time to put a wedge between how that feels and how I want to feel now.

Are feelings a choice? Some pop psychologists will say yes. You have a thought and that dovetails into a feeling. Change your thoughts and you change your feelings. Okay sure but feelings dictate thoughts and a happy place that you don’t actually go to isn’t the best concept either.

Breaking the cycle with what you think about helps you avoid killing yourself but it does nothing to address the feeling. And what is there to talk about? You know what happened. It would be good for a good cry but that’s not always possible either.

Okay we have gods and magic again, rites and rituals, joining others, going out. Church or clubs. Dress up and go dancing. Move on. Time etc. all the regular coping skills we’re told over again that we need. Wishlist shop. If you have the money shoe shop on amazon. Spend time picking out charities to donate to. Sort the too sort box if you have the concentration and actually do have a place for everything.

Okay well and good but in between the spaces there is pain so don’t add meditation to that list okay. And help me fucking reframe the grief, pain, and anger that comes out of being betrayed. I know why I feel this way. This one’s obvious. But knowing that it’s a social instinct dating back centuries, with biology built in, doesn’t make my trust any less dented.

I’m sorry I can’t. Trust is that valuable. And these days we waste it. All I can do is give you the regular paragraph on coping and hope with time it hurts less. You will have trust issues. And that’s reasonable. So at least feel comforted it’s logical to squint your eyes at new people but unfair to reveal you are doing so. Don’t prod and poke with testing trust. Just let time unfurl and life events make it clear you can. Everyone needs time these days.

The first and last sentence of that paragraph being related.

It’s okay to have trust issues now is the short way. No shadow work involved.

You feel dark and miserable but the ways to cope with the components will help.

Just no casting on exes okay?