Once We Repaired Things — Part 8 - “Honey, Honey, Honey” — And What Was Really Going On

 

People might assume it was just a relationship*.

It wasn’t.

It was hope.

Hope that after everything I had survived, I would not have to spend the rest of my life alone.

That is what died here.

 

 

*Although how easily disposable people and relationships have become - that’s why this story is called “Once we repaired things”.

⸻

By July 2017, things had started to unravel, but not for the reasons Paul believed.

The truth was far more complicated than that, and far more painful.

For years I’ve carried the memory of being patronised with the words, “Honey, honey, honey, that’s why it didn’t work out between us.” Every time I think about those words, I’m transported back to one of the most frightening, vulnerable and traumatic periods of my life.

What stays with me isn’t simply what was said. It’s the complete misunderstanding of what was actually happening to me at the time.

Paul thought he understood why I was upset. He thought he understood my anger. He thought he understood my attempts to communicate with him.

But he didn’t understand any of it.

Back in May, when communication suddenly changed, I genuinely thought something might have happened to him. Yet I could feel a coldness that hadn’t been there before, and I couldn’t understand where it had come from.

What Paul couldn’t see was that I was already struggling long before I discovered the reason for that coldness.

I was burnt out in a way that’s difficult to explain to anyone who has never experienced it. It wasn’t the kind of burnout that follows a busy week or a stressful project, but the kind that settles into every part of your life and slowly drains your ability to cope. I was exhausted before the day even began. I was emotionally worn down. I was trying to hold myself together while feeling as though the ground beneath me was becoming increasingly unstable.

At work, things were already becoming deeply distressing. These were the early signs of problems that would later grow into something much larger and far more destructive. At the time, however, all I knew was that I was struggling. I was carrying unrealistic pressures, trying to maintain my professionalism and dignity, and feeling increasingly overwhelmed by circumstances I couldn’t fully understand.

Alongside that, I was carrying something even more personal.

I was still living with the trauma of losing my father to suicide.

That wasn’t an abstract issue to me. It wasn’t a topic for intellectual debate. It wasn’t a social issue that existed at a “comfortable” distance.

It was my life.

It was my family’s life.

It was my grief.

At that same time, I found myself confronting ignorance and hostility within the Greek Orthodox community when trying to speak about issues that were deeply personal to me. I couldn’t understand how people could be so lacking in compassion toward those who were suffering. I couldn’t understand how people could choose judgement over empathy, particularly when lives were at stake.

I was angry, but not for the reasons people assumed.

I was angry because I was tired of watching suffering being dismissed.

I was angry because I was tired of watching stigma destroy lives.

I was angry because I was carrying grief, exhaustion and fear while being expected to remain endlessly patient with people who showed little understanding of what others might be going through.

——

By July 2017, all of those pressures were colliding at once.

Then I discovered the reason for the coldness.

There was someone else. In the middle of all this, Paul chose to tell me he had a girlfriend, he was in a relationship, and then, in my most vulnerable moment where all this insensitivity and inhumanity collided, he said, “Honey, honey, honey, that’s why it didn’t work out between us.” 

How could a man I trusted to be authentic, as he believed himself to be, come across in a way that appeared so fake? 

What followed was humiliation.

While I was desperately trying to understand what had happened between us, trying to explain myself and trying to correct what were serious misunderstandings, I felt as though I had already been discarded.

I felt as though I had become irrelevant.

I felt as though I had been reduced to a gap filler, a backup plan, something that had been convenient until it no longer served a purpose.

What made it so devastating was the complete disregard for the human being standing in front of him.

I was already struggling.

I was already frightened.

I was already carrying more than most people realised.

And yet the overwhelming impression I was left with was that none of that mattered.

The only explanation that seemed to exist for my distress was him.

The only explanation that seemed to exist for my attempts to communicate was him.

The only explanation that seemed to exist for my anger was him.

My grief didn’t  matter.

My trauma didn’t  matter.

My burnout didn’t matter.

The battles I was fighting at work didn’t matter.

The hostility I was experiencing elsewhere didn’t matter.

Everything seemed to be reduced to a simplistic explanation that revolved around him.

That’s why the words “Honey, honey, honey” have stayed with me for so many years.

Those words weren’t only dismissive.

They were degrading.

They reduced me to something I was not.

They erased everything that was actually happening in my life.

They turned a frightened, traumatised and overwhelmed woman into a stereotype.

Most of all, they denied me the opportunity to be heard.

——

What I needed at that time wasn’t judgement. I needed understanding.

What I needed wasn’t assumptions. I needed curiosity. (I’ve always said, arrogance and ignorance are a dangerous combination).

What I needed wasn’t somebody telling me who I was. I needed somebody willing to ask what I was carrying.

Instead, I felt as though I was being spoken down to by a man whose ego had become larger than his ability to see the person standing in front of him.

That’s a difficult thing to write. It’s even more difficult to admit how vulnerable I was at the time.

I genuinely needed compassion and kindness.

I genuinely needed somebody to stop and ask whether I was okay.

Instead, I felt discarded, dismissed and stripped of dignity at a time when I had very little left to hold onto.

What breaks my heart is how alone I was. I still am.

——

I was fighting battles on every front. I was carrying grief, trauma, burnout and fear. I was trying to make sense of a world that increasingly felt indifferent to suffering, and I was desperately searching for understanding from people I believed cared.

Years later, I would find myself fighting entirely different battles against institutional abuse, bullying, regulatory failure and the erosion of dignity in workplaces that spoke constantly about values while failing to live them.

But perhaps that’s why my personal story also matters. 

Before those battles began, I already knew what it felt like to be unheard.

I already knew what it felt like to be dismissed.

I already knew what it felt like to have people decide who I was without first taking the time to understand me.

And I’m still carrying that hurt today.

Alone.

And hurting.

To be continued…

——

Now we’re all learning the battle I’ve been fighting. On 60 Minutes, aired 14 June 2026:

Why universities have become one of the most dangerous places to work. People suffering in silence from the dangerous culture in universities. 

It took the life of a husband and father. I was going to fight this battle, no matter what happened. Because suicide prevention is my mission, and having safe workplaces is where suicide can and should be prevented. 

I was suffering, but I was never silent. I’ve been screaming for help. But who was listening all these years? 

I’ve been completely alone. 

All this links right back to the premise of my blog. 

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/p/the-premise-of-this-blog.html?m=1

That’s why I’m writing my story, and in this part of my story, three significant areas of my life collided. 

The link below is to that part of my story, describing what was actually going on, when Paul chose to diminish me with, “Honey, honey, honey, that’s why it didn’t work out between us”. 

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/09/part-2-suicide-and-greek-orthodox-church.html?m=1

To quote one paragraph from the above post, placing in context my justified anger:

“This is the truth why I was distressed at that time. And why I finally took several weeks off work and went to grief and trauma counseling, seven years later. The manager from the library dared to send me a text where she wrote, “I can see you’re in a really dark place right now”. I just yelled back at the phone, “Oh fuck off”! That narcissist and those like her, are never to patronise me again. They must stop interfering and gossiping about my pain that they don’t know anything about, nor my life.”

Other relevant posts relating to working in “one of the most dangerous places” right now : universities. 

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/07/part-3-bullying-discrimination-and.html?m=1

https://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2024/07/organisational-culture-ethics.html?m=1

——

In case you missed the previous parts to this story… how much more was I expected to tolerate? 

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/01/once-we-repaired-things-relationships.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/02/once-we-repaired-things-part-2.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/03/once-we-repaired-things-part-3.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/04/once-we-repaired-things-text-that.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/05/once-we-repaired-things-part-5.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/05/once-we-repaired-things-there-is-no.html

http://mystory-myvoice.blogspot.com/2026/06/once-we-repaired-things-part-7-non-e.html