Resilience
A broken husband and father doth not maketh a broken man.
NOTE: The reading time of this essay is greater than 20 minutes. Get into a comfy place both mentally and physically, this is a glimpse into the past 10 years of my rather rocky life.
For accessibility purposes: please see the images as bookmarks to find your way back, for if you ran out of energy or got distracted in some way.
Substack doesn’t provide proper navigation tools like HTML anchors yet, so this is the best I can offer right now.I also added a table of contents for easier navigation! (here’s how)
Table of Contents
A New Life
Fifteen years ago I became suicidally depressed and dropped out of college. Afterwards I went through a mental health crisis that lasted 4 years, in which I was not able to be productive. Then, as I finally built myself up: I started a relationship with a woman who I'll call Mary. I had known her since primary school and had fallen in love with her, a few years before I got depressed. Finally being in a relationship with her seemed as though life was looking up for me.
Mary had an extremely narcissistic and abusive mother, and a father who - though he was divorced from this woman - still did her laundry. Mary also had a four year old daughter; April - and she wanted a better life for April. So one day she fled the house of her mother to live with friends and a few months later, I moved in with her in a new apartment. I chose to support her as she went through a mental breakdown from escaping abuse. Meanwhile, her mother started a lawsuit to force custody of April, while saying that Mary wasn't a capable mother.
In the next 18 months, I married her and adopted April as my daughter. April hadn’t been officially recognized by her biological father and I wanted to clarify to the government and court, that I was in this for the long haul. Meanwhile Mary was still effectively paralyzed by fear, so I also took most of the lawsuit on me, and next to that I had started up a business for the first time in my life as well.
Both the lawsuit and the business failed.
The Dutch court ruled that the abusive grandparents were to continue having access to their grandchild. They claimed that it was healthier for a child to have grandparents, because the child had grown up in that environment for a few years. Mary accepted this out of exhaustion and from a place of always being defeated by her mother’s tenacity. But I wasn't going to stand by and see the past occur again in front of my eyes. I was a child when Mary told me about the stuff that happened to her at home and I didn’t know what to do back then. But now I could save her child - our child, from going through the same circumstances.
Since this lawsuit took so long, we by now also had a 6 month old son to take care of. But despite that, I decided to take the whole family to Ireland to start a new life there. Away from the evil stepmother and the callous empire who tried to rule over our lives - as though we didn’t have free will.
In 5 weeks time, I closed the business with debt, transferred that debt from the bank to Mary’s sister, got an entry job as an analyst for a social media company, moved our belongings to a temporary storage unit, and then left the country without issues.
It was a strange move to make, but somehow we got our entire family - including my cat Shay - to safely exit the country.
The Great Escape
The first 3 months in Ireland were hell.
In the first month, I drove 3.5 hours just to get to my job in Dublin - housing in the city was impossible to afford. My days were drive, work, drive - be free for 1 hour to eat dinner and connect with the family; and then sleep to do it all again.
After a month, in which the car had been impounded once because I was so rushed that I didn’t get car insurance on time, we finally got some relief. Which was good, because driving as much as I did, wasn’t only expensive, it had also become dangerous. There were a bit too many emergency brakes I made when I drove back home due to exhaustion...
So when we got a rental house that was only a 1.5 hour commute away from my job - half an hour by car and 1 hour in a bus - it felt like an miracle. The change helped significantly, because I could get some sleep in the bus to recover. Two months later, I applied for a job in the city close to us and got a much better paying job. On top of that, I only needed to deal with a half hour commute by car.
From that point, I worked 10 hour days, 5 days in the week. Just to get enough overtime in, to pay off Mary's sister. In my off time, I had to deal with two governments and all the administration that came with an emigration. The house we lived in also cost a fortune to heat, requiring me to move around a lot of firewood. And because we had moved only 10 boxes with us to Ireland through freight shipping, I also needed to manage getting furniture and other household necessities for cheap. Which meant that a lot of driving was involved to get second hand items from far flung places.
I did everything I could to get us furniture, food and clothes. And slowly but surely, I also paid off the debt with Mary’s sister, got the Dutch taxman to stop hounding me, and the Irish government to help us out financially with child benefit payments. The Dutch government had no good reason to be harassing me, but I guess it's protocol to bully slaves when they escape from the confines of their assigned prison.
The whole process took everything and more from me. I got so stressed that I gritted my teeth so hard, that it broke my lower front teeth as I went through this onslaught of stress. And in my worst moments, I even physically lashed out in anger at our pets - an inexcusable act.
But I had to keep going, I had people depending on me and Mary needed to take care of the kids, so I was the only one that could cover the financial issues we were going through. She couldn't help out. So I kept going, thinking I had no other option: I just needed to discipline myself more.
By now, it’s 3 years later and the pandemic is in full force. Meaning I got to work from home - no more commute at all! We even had a little money saved up, so things were looking good. My demeanor was also getting better. But Mary had been saying for a while already that due to her hyper mobility, we couldn't stay in a cold country like Ireland. So we decided to move to Portugal for her health.
Again it was an unconventional move. We took the kids and two cats: Luna and Shay, with us in the car and then took the ferry to Spain. From there we drove to Portugal. Meanwhile, I had packed our belongings on 3 pallets that were picked up 2 days before we left. And arrived 3 days after we did.
It was a rather stressful time again, since 2 weeks after we arrived in our new house in Portugal: Ireland went in quarantine lockdown.
On top of that, I had resigned from a well paying job where I had worked my way up to a more easy and comfortable position. Just so we could live in a new country where I couldn't speak the language, but where Mary's body was no longer in pain. We were living off of the reserves I had worked overtime for. And now I was looking for a remote job, with no guarantees, but with the dream of building up a life in Portugal.
Ireland had been too expensive to settle down anyway… I told myself. But as the weeks went on, things started to look dire. Eventually I figured I would have to take another entry job in a remote position at a callcenter…
A Bright New Life
But my faith and perserverance payed off! After 3 months of sending at least 3 applications every day - while the world was in turmoil - I got what seemed to be a dream job. A fully remote security position at a cryptocurrency exchange. No commute required and I got to assist in fighting the corrupt system. Plus: Portugal was like living in paradise. The work I did at the new job went well too, I got promoted quick because a startup environment fit my personality much better. And because Portugal has low prices, we soon recovered the money we lost from being without income. We started to explore the idea of buying property, something I never even considered a possibility five years prior.
But after a year, the house we lived in was getting sold and we needed to choose between finding another rental house or buying property. We had been looking around for a place to start a permaculture farm on. We wanted to address the destruction to the climate and grow healthy food for people. Again, somehow everything came together within only 3 months time. Mary's uncle came out of nowhere with an offer to support us by fronting half of the investment needed for a 1.5 hectare piece of land we desired. It was perfect. I had set clear intentions about not wanting to get a mortgage and now that wasn't necessary.
Suddenly we were living in tents on our new land in the middle of a forest valley with two running streams. We had a small power station that got charged with a flexible solar panel and a 4G internet connection. That way I could continue doing my job in the middle of nowhere. It really felt like an idyllic life where I was in a Disney movie, random sightings of wild animals became a daily occurrence, and it felt like nothing could go wrong.
But then the rains started.
Which was a problem, because we again barely had money, since nearly everything was invested into the purchase of land. And part of the land was being paid for in monthly payments, meaning that we weren’t accumulating a lot of money as well. And since Mary was homeschooling the kids, I remained the sole breadwinner. So with the little that we had, I bought hand tools and the minimal materials needed to renovate the ruin of a goat shed.
It worked! We slept warm and dry as the rains turned our field into a mud pool. The sun wasn't around anymore, so I also needed to get a generator to be able to keep on working. And again that was possible, because I provided exemplary work at my job - causing me to get a bonus that paid for that equipment.
Unsurprisingly though, my energy was pretty much gone again, but... I had to take care of the family! So again, I ignored my borders. After all, living in two separate bedrooms isn't how you want to have your kids grow up; even though we mostly lived outside. No… some sacrifices needed to be made for giving them a dream life and to give Mary the farm she was dreaming of.
Yet... this time, I had more responsibilities in my job as well. My life had become a mix between working in a high tempo tech team on the one hand, and learning how to build up a homestead on the other. So again… an animal suffered by my hand. This time it was a rescue puppy that Mary had insisted for us to get.
The Fall
Things went from bad to worse. Cars broke down, our outside kitchen was a nightmare, the access road became unusable, the neighboring village got disgruntled about our efforts to get the road fixed, and the final deeds of the land didn't get transferred to our name despite them being paid for.
Meanwhile, without a proper kitchen and Mary being hyper mobile, the food that we were eating was becoming increasingly less healthy. Which also meant that I was losing energy, but I was the one who needed to do all the physical effort at home. And Mary insisted on me improving our situation. But when I brought up that we could make our situation easier by moving temporarily to a rental, she wouldn't accept that idea. Her argument was that other families were successful, we just had to keep going and things would work out again.
But things stopped making sense for me by now.
This was supposed to be the dream life, yet I couldn't understand why my wife was constantly complaining about me not doing enough. Or why I wasn't able to get a homestead built even though I was physically capable. Or why I found it so hard to connect with people in real life… I was even losing interest in what I thought was an amazing job before. And on top of that, I was plagued by the pain of how I had treated several animals by now. The memories haunted me, but I equally had tremendous difficulty in remaining disciplined when I set clear boundaries with them - which they refused to keep to. It really seemed I didn’t have control over anything in my life suddenly.
Yet I knew that I lived a highly privileged life, but... somehow it felt like a prison again. Even though I had done so much work to get us out of a prison environment.
So I arranged a call with a holistic wellness coach, to see what needed to be fixed in me. It was something I wasn’t looking forward to after my experience with the mental health institutions, but this was a different approach and I felt horrible in a variety of ways. I saw the pattern that if I wouldn’t address this now, I would break. And then my family would have problems. So it was responsible for me to address this: for them.
Next to that, I knew I was missing something, but I couldn't figure out what... And when I spoke with this coach, she suddenly made it all make sense. It was 1 hour that changed the direction of my entire life, because she reminded me about joy.
I was shocked! Somehow, I couldn't remember the feeling of joy any longer... I couldn't even remember a moment in which I truly enjoyed life. Everything was responsibility and chores, fighting and working, surviving and persevering. But it was creating conflict in me as well - that attitude was something to be proud of right?
Only then did I realize the common factor across my behavior: Mary.
I had given everything for her and our kids, but... she had been the one who had insisted on getting another kid when we were dealing with a lawsuit and a new business.
She had also been the reason that I kept doing overtime, even though that broke my teeth. She could have told me to take more time to pay off the debt back then; that we didn’t need to rush anything. But instead she kept complaining and pushing me, to the point that I got overstimulated and couldn't contain my frustration anymore... causing me to physically lash out at living beings.
It was never to her or the kids. But I was raised to see animals as inferior, even though I never saw animals that way myself. So now I realized that I was turning into my father.
But there was more to it. Mary also never got a job to help out with our income. Somehow there was always an excuse, when I asked her to help out with the finances.
So I stopped accepting the excuses. And I told her that I was quitting my job because I needed to regain energy so I could build us our house. I wasn’t ready to accept the reality yet - I figured that I might just be thinking poorly about her because I was so stressed. But in the 6 months afterwards, the reality dawned on her that I wasn't going to get a job again any time soon. That this time, she couldn’t convince me to go over my borders. She became frantic: for once she actually had to take responsibility for what the outside world required of us. Because I wasn’t carrying that burden any longer - I had chosen rest. Finally.
The Resolution
Then, in January 2025 - she came to me with a solution: we emigrate back to the Netherlands. All that I needed to do was help her with the physical effort. She would do the rest... it was the same story as every other time. False promises to get me excited, to later push me to do the work for her because she was a victim of circumstances.
So this time I said no.
She didn't even try to think of a different solution. She had only asked me to see if I would do the work for her, but when I said I couldn’t manage that this time, I became dead weight. After all, if I couldn't serve her as a slave, why would she take care of me?
Then I brought her and the kids to the airport. And she left me to deal with everything else. She thought I would sell the property, pack the stuff, and dismantle everything that I effectively built singlehandedly...
Sure, she helped out with doing things on the property when it was fun. But I definitely did at least 90% of everything that got us settled on the land. Yet somehow, I had always been the uninvolved father and the husband that didn't want to cook (because I wanted to eat meals she didn't prefer).
There just wasn’t a way to satisfy her wishes - goalposts were always moving.
But it still broke me that she left. I was terrified of being completely alone in a country where I still can’t speak the language. And by that point, I had one friend left who lived in South Africa and he had his own shit to deal with.
My childhood wounds came up: once again I was abandoned. But... I've never known any different than being neglected by those who claim to love me. Serving others was my entire life, either physically, intellectually, or emotionally. Especially the latter has always been a reason why people think they have the right to use me. Since it's uncommon for a man to still have his feminine emotions intact.
But the only reason they are, is because I was abandoned by my mother in a foreign country at the age of 8. I learnt how to regulate myself by ignoring people. It was the only way to survive back then - rigid discipline through self reliance. And it was the same pattern I would have followed again.
Had it not been for meeting a woman who made my inner child break free; my soul mate.
But that's a story for another day. What I will say is that through her reflection, I finally was brave enough to face my childhood fears and love myself again. Despite everything I went through, everything I’ve done; I found a way to forgive myself for the past, released obsessing over the future, and returned to existing in the present moment.
The Lessons
You might expect me to now start with giving relationship advice. But I've always taken responsibility for my own decisions: that's how I survived in life. Learning from my own mistakes by being brutally honest with myself.
Someone projecting their shit on me was the very thing that caused me to want to kill myself when I was 8. It's called bullying and I'm still not going to reduce my honor, because someone else didn’t have the strength to take responsibility for their pain. I get it, it’s hard.
For me the reality is simple: I chose to marry her and stay with her for 10 years. I've had fun times with her as well, and I got motivated to do incredible things because of love. I think that's a pretty amazing reflection on my character.
Even if I made big mistakes that were terrible and still haunt me... I never truly lost my compassion, I never gave up, and I'm not going to give up on my compassion now to publicly shame her. We all have demons. I've dealt with mine and she'll need to deal with hers. It's not something I get any satisfaction from. She holds kindness within her like every single human being. It’s why I married her - I saw something that I valued in myself; in her.
Rejecting her as a human being, would reflect first on me.
People aren’t born wanting to hurt each other. Mary was a friend of mine for two thirds of my life, we bonded over having terrible childhoods. And I hope she heals - I tried to help. But it's not my responsibility anymore, I know now as well that it never was, and... I'm very relieved. Somehow I survived all of that.
So the lessons I want to share are about how I escaped the rat race. That's my true accomplishment in this story. I figured out how to find peace, calm, and joy again. Meaning I can play and take care of animals again in the way that I loved to do as a child.
How to Escape the Rat Race
This is just one method, so take it with a grain of salt. Let it inspire you as a guideline, rather than as instructions. With that said, the process is simple but not easy. Everyone's situation is different, but I believe these general steps will apply to most, if not all in our current society.
1. Stop spending money - start using it.
Capitalism enslaves you through desire and pleasure - otherwise known as greed. It places you in the role of a consumer. So once you stop consuming, you win against the system. There are a variety of ways to use rather than spend money. But if you're in the rat race, you need to use it to get yourself out. Understand that your actual needs are exceptionally simple: water, food, shelter, community - everything else is a luxury you can go without. The reason you think you need anything else is because you're overstimulated. Therefore you first need to address the source of that overstimulation, bringing me to the next point.
2. Exit the city by any means possible.
A city is a propaganda hub for whomever holds centralized power, it's the easiest way to control a population as well. In a city, you'll always be fighting external influences that are selling their narratives, while having your own voice being drowned out. Either directly through billboards, shops, and concrete blocks; or indirectly through people who repeat those narratives through their actions.
Furthermore, a city has unhealthy air, water, and social structures. In a city you will feel ignored, in a village you will feel recognized. Next to that a city also has background noises and smells that are overloading your system. This doesn't make the concept of a city bad, but we have to acknowledge that they're currently designed in ways that benefit the empire over the people.
You could be in an environment that inspires you and provides you at least 2 of your 4 needs for free: nature. And it comes without any of the downsides a city has.
When you move, don't seek the comfort you were told you need, you don't need a mansion - you need shelter. Focus on land rather than housing. Our ancestors used to live in tents, you can do that temporarily as well. Van life is another option. Don’t worry, you can still have electricity and internet - that investment is very small and probably close to what you pay for 1-2 month’s of rent. I used an Ecoflow power station and a 4G router. Later I got Starlink, but it asks a lot of power. Do your research.
Oh and if you do buy land yourself (not necessary, you can buy it together with friends) then make sure you have a good access road if you intend to construct a house. That was my biggest downfall here.
3. Purge and heal everything you've been taught about social systems and interacting with humans / the environment.
You were programmed to be a slave that begs for scraps. After the purge you find your humanity again. It's where your creativity and genius lie. Don't worry about forgetting important things, nature remains the best teacher that exists. It will set you straight when needed. Reflect on your actions in those moments.
What helped me to stay in touch with society is the internet. You don't need social media, but if you do want to use it, make sure that you train your algorithms to only give you beneficial content for your journey. And use VPN and ad blockers to safeguard your privacy and minimize the propaganda you take in. A VPN in particular will help you with scrambling tracking technology that's designed to profile you.
Finally, understand that everything you've been taught about how to take care of your body was intended to make you productive; not healthy. Go back to basics when it comes to food. Remove substances like alcohol, caffeine, sugar, and nicotine out of your system - you only used those to keep up with an inhuman pace of living. But you're in charge of your own life now. Take care of the only instrument that you truly own in this life. Your body can't be replaced.
4. Purge the people out of your life that are repeating propaganda.
As you start healing, you'll recognize that people won't appreciate how you're changing. They will try to convince you of their worldview which is informed by the environment they live in. That's either literal or digital. Regardless, you can't help them by trying to convince them. Instead, lead by example. Show that you're thriving in a world they thought was impossible to survive in. Share the beauty of nature you exist in. If they love you, they'll adjust their opinion to include your reality. If they just want you to conform, ask yourself if you truly want to continue with those kind of relationships. How is it benefiting you? Your life is your own and they can make their own decisions. You don't owe anybody anything, but you can remain compassionate to their situation.
Rebuild your self
You had dreams as a kid. Things you cared about deeply. And once you're healed, you'll be inspired to take action.
Wait.
Most likely you're dreaming way too small. You need to learn first again that anything is possible, but not everything is plausible. And that's ok, you're not here to do everything. The fun thing about life is when you figure out what you're really good at - the stuff that comes so easy that you assumed everyone can do it. They can't.
There's a variety of ways to figure out what your ‘purpose’ is. The systems that helped me were the Myers Briggs test, enneagram, human design, gene keys, and astrology in that order. Remember that all of these systems were created by humans as well and use your discernment. Nobody knows better than you, what's good for you; follow your intuition.
Implement your new self into society
Now that you know who you are, it's time for a test drive. You'll likely experience anxiety as old memories come up. However, you're not that person anymore, recognize that. Experiment in small steps that you understand. Analyze how you and others respond, then adjust yourself accordingly.
Don't be discouraged if it takes longer than expected. There's quite a gap between living in alignment with nature and how humanity currently operates. You have become the bridge, don't fall back into old behaviors.
Now you have successfully exited the rat race, well done!
If you’re interested in me expanding and sharing photos of events that I went through in these past 15 years, let me know what caught your attention! I’m surprised that I was able to compress so many years in just a few pages of words, and I’d be happy to share more stories that are a bit more uplifting.
I’d like to know what resonates with you. So please:
And if you haven’t subscribed yet:
Also if you think I’m a danger to society, just ignore the above buttons. I’ve criticized myself much worse than you are capable of - you’ll be wasting your time.
However, if you think that other people could benefit from reading this story. Then you understand why I shared this post! We can only learn from the past, we can’t change it. So please help others learn from my past, so we can prevent more harm from occurring:
Finally, due to my laser focus on labor in my life, I have very limited social connections. I’m trying to build it back up. It would help me a lot if you’d be willing to:
With the Dragons Tails I’d like to make a constructive impact on the world and now that I’ve shared my darkest secrets… I’m looking to collaborate with others so that I don’t run past my borders again. None of us are supposed to be carrying the responsibility of life by ourselves. And I want to have fun while we shape the world into something more… joyful.
Aight, I’m out!
Nice! The navigation doesn't work for me in the app, but at least it's some ease for desktop users. Thank you 🙏
I've been healing since Mary left. Not sure if you can call it resting... It's more restful than before though :) you can decide yourself in my personal log category:
https://dragonstails.substack.com/t/log-mars
In regards to money, it's all about getting control over your expenses. One of the biggest ways that I got free of expenses, was by not renting anymore. If you only buy food, heating, and shelter - you build up funds. With that you can get out of the rent trap. And then you're really free. As a landowner you can choose when to repair something. As a renter you pay for continuity. Same in regards to electricity. I'm not spending anything on it currently.
And yeah, to get there I got the best paying job I could find. To escape as quick as I could. Every little bit of decor you buy is support of the current system, unless you buy from local people who made stuff themselves. But before you can help others, you need to help yourself. That's how this system works.
Meanwhile nature is already at your disposal. Your phone provides the necessary entertainment. And with some crafting, you can create your own decor. You might even be able to get paid for doing that.
So in the end, you don't need to spend on things you desire. You can use money to bring you to the environment where you no longer seek external gratification.
Happy to expand further if this sparked something :)
Thank you 🥰 which part spoke most to you? I find it hard to determine what's valuable and what's not.
Also, how do you connect to these experiences? Very curious how our journeys align, clearly we both connect on cycle breaking 😉