The biggest mistake I ever made was ignoring the many red flags and blindly choosing someone who brought the fiercest storms I’d ever experienced into my life, because they negatively impacted every single aspect of my life.
I had countless people try to warn me but I wouldn’t listen because I never thought that someone could ever end up being the person that they turned out to be.
A person without honesty, without accountability, without integrity, without empathy, and without remorse.
They disguised themselves very well indeed…
I experienced things in my life that had never happened to me before, and that will probably never happen again, but that’s a story for another time…
But the worst thing was; because they were so clever, deceptive, and cunning about the way they went about things, it took someone else later on to point out the reality of the full extent of their manipulation and abuse.
Because when you’re in a situation like this, it changes you and you become blind to what suddenly feels normal but at the same time you know it isn’t normal…
It changes how you think, how you act and react, the decisions you make, how you interact with others, and how you feel about yourself.
It changes you…
All because I wanted to ignore the red flags.
All because I wanted to believe in them and see the best in them when everyone else was warning me of them.
A situation I would never allow today knowing what I know now.
We don’t always want to acknowledge the red flags when they present themselves to us because we don’t want to believe them, nor do we want to admit to ourselves that we were wrong…
But if you ignore the red flags that you see early on, they will be the very reason that everything ends later on…
Pay attention, trust your instincts, and if something doesn’t feel right don’t dismiss it!
~ Mark Smith