Incomparable

by Brie Bella

  When we got married, Bryan reminded me that his depression is his biggest flaw. I might argue that it’s a strength, as I believe that it has stretched him as a man and made him even more compassionate and wonderful than he might otherwise have been. I reminded him that I am a pistol and that that’s probably my biggest flaw. I am very easy to trigger, as my parents never modeled fighting with your partner in a way that didn’t go dark and malicious. I have had to do a lot of “re-parenting” to find new ways to funnel my anger in a more productive way. Fighting with your spouse is normal, but Bryan would argue that I don’t know how to fight well, or in a way where it’s easy to walk it back from the brink.

  One time I called Bryan a “total fucking idiot” in public—in Sea-Tac Airport to be exact—and he didn’t speak to me for two days. And to be honest, I’ve called him something like a fucking idiot more than once. Now that’s mean, kind of unconscionably mean, and obviously not true. But I didn’t have the self-regulation to express my displeasure in a less intense and angry way. I would just flare up, express, and then be forced to repent in a pretty significant way.

  Here’s how it started. We were eating breakfast at Anthony’s in the Seattle airport. We were heading to San Diego so Bryan could meet my grandma. He went to the bathroom—and left all his stuff at the table with me, including his phone, wallet, etc.—and then he didn’t come back. I figured he was having some issues and so waited for a bit before I realized that our flight was boarding. I packed up all his stuff, grabbed my bags, his bags, and dragged it all to the bathroom. I asked a random guy to go in there and look for the bearded mountain man, and he told me he wasn’t in there. Then they called final boarding and I had to sprint—with all of our stuff—to the gate, where I found Bryan just standing there.

  He claims that he went back to Anthony’s and I wasn’t there. I had somehow vanished myself or decided to pull a prank and asked a busboy to hide me and our luggage. I obviously hadn’t moved. I was pissed, particularly because he kept maintaining that I wasn’t there. (The restaurant had two entrances, so he had clearly gone into the wrong one.) We started arguing as we boarded and then I threw his shit—in front of everyone—and called him a fucking idiot.

  He pretty much treated me like I was the worst person in the world throughout the weekend. He couldn’t have been nicer to my grandmother (otherwise we wouldn’t be married), but he didn’t speak to me for days. Finally, we addressed it and got down deep with it. He told me that in his family, they didn’t talk to each other like that. He was literally rendered speechless by what I could send out of my mouth. I explained that in my family, we did. (Nicole and I are notorious for ripping each other’s throat out, cussing each other out, and then going to grab coffee together a few minutes later like nothing happened.) From that day on, whenever I said anything mean, he wrote it down in a journal. It was actually a good way for him to give me visible proof of some pretty bad behavior that came in the heat of the moment, when I was almost unconscious with rage. He’s also come to realize that meeting my pain with coldness isn’t a way to move us forward either. It has been a slow but worthwhile process, one filled with labor and love.

  CHAPTER 9 RACK ATTACK

  2012-2019

  Land O’ Lakes, Florida

  San Diego, California

  Nicole

  My first date with my ex was at Gibsons Steakhouse in Chicago, and the rest is Total Divas and Total Bellas rerun history. For the purpose of his privacy, I don’t want to retread old events here—particularly the ones that got plenty of screen time and rehashing in the media. There is not much more to milk from that well-documented chain of events. But I do think there is value in explaining what I learned about myself during a time of extreme highs and lows, in the hopes that it helps some of you.

  I have many regrets about that relationship. The primary one is that I wish I’d known myself better before I got into it. I wish I’d understood how the patterns in my life, and my relationship with my own father, informed how I react to love, boundaries, and feelings of abandonment. I think I could have averted some of what happened. Because my dad left when I was fifteen, I learned how to fill in the holes. I expect to be left behind and to find a way to not confront or acknowledge those feelings of loneliness and abandonment. It’s almost scarier to me when someone seems like they’re sticking around. I’ve learned that it puts me in a position of expecting the worst, waiting for the other shoe to drop. I believe that it actually causes me to panic.

  Because I am a chin-up type of girl, I feed myself a diet of deprivation. I assume that I don’t need anyone to help me survive and thrive—and I think this mind-set meant I never processed my feelings. I’ve just always been focused on moving forward, step by step; on getting up every time I’m knocked to the ground. While my ex and I tried our hardest not to go too long without seeing each other, looking back, I don’t think it was enough. It is easy to recognize that our long stints on the road and working all of our various side hustle jobs left me feeling almost pathologically lonely. I just didn’t know how to identify the emotion. And I certainly didn’t know how to ask for what I needed. I was intent on fitting into the contours of my ex’s very busy and big life. That was paramount to me, pleasing and keeping him content, not voicing my own needs. He had no idea I wasn’t getting what I needed because I never said anything.

  The “pleasing” bug is another side effect from my turbulent childhood. I am attached to a very disturbing core belief that I am only lovable when I put other people first. That I only deserve their affection because I am useful and handy. I learned from my ex that this is a profound fallacy. He could see the real me and love me just the same. It felt too good to be true; I felt undeserving.

  We also struggled to align on what we both wanted, because from the outset we wanted different things. Rather than turn and face that, I pushed it under the carpet and figured I could pretend like it wasn’t there. Because I was terrified of losing my love, I stuffed my desire for marriage and kids as deep as I could. He had made it clear that they weren’t on the menu for him. That’s tough, though, because if you’re inclined that way, then the more you grow to love someone, the more you want it all. I stopped giving voice to those needs, though. I was worried my ex would call it off and let me go. And while I wanted those thing very badly—I just wanted him more.

  If I had known how to read the cards, I believe things would have been different. When I had a major operation for my broken neck, my ex didn’t leave my side. He slept on the hospital couch. He looked like the Incredible Hulk, curled up into the fetal position. He wouldn’t let anyone send him home. He helped me go to the bathroom, even though it made me want to die with embarrassment. I couldn’t stand to feel so needy, even though it seemed to make him so happy to take care of me. I wish I had seen that experience for what it was: an opportunity for me to identify, and then talk about, how undeserving and unworthy I felt, how terrified it made me feel to be dependent. How uncomfortable it makes me feel when I’m not working for affection but instead just basking in love.

  Not only did I operate from a place of fear of losing something I wanted (my ex), but I also wanted to be perfect for him because I wanted him to have a perfect life. I so desperately did not want to rock the boat that I threw a lot of things I wanted right out of it. I was continually dishonest about what I wanted—with myself, with my ex—because I was operating out of a place of fear. By continually putting him first, and choking my own voice back, I didn’t give him the respect of actually hearing about how I was doing. I didn’t given him, or our relationship, the benefit of the doubt that maybe it could handle more. Because I assumed he wasn’t willing to make sacrifices, I did not persistently ask. Because I was so fixated on what I believed he wanted, I made many decisions on his behalf, even though I was losing myself in the process.

  I don’t think it was until I did Dancing with the Stars that I really woke up. The producers got me an apartment in Los Angeles for the show, wher
e I stayed for about eleven weeks. It wasn’t a palace, but I loved it. I loved doing whatever I wanted, and I loved getting back into my body through dance. I loved hanging out with friends and going out to see live music, brewing a pot of coffee, making an English muffin and some watermelon, choking down my vitamins, turning on the Today show. I liked how it felt to be that independent girl. I had been sitting in a jail cell without realizing that the door wasn’t locked and that I had built it myself. After Dancing with the Stars, I felt like I’d found myself. I didn’t want to lose her again.

  One of the things that Dancing with the Stars also unlocked for me was the idea that I can stand on my own. I think it’s partly growing up as a twin, and then becoming a star based on that twindom, but being involved with a mega-star also undermined some of my faith in myself. Brie and I hear it all the time: that we’ve only gotten the opportunities that have been granted to us because of the guys we’re with. Without our men, we wouldn’t have our platforms, our prominence within the world of wrestling, our brands—we’d never have been able to become Women’s Champions. It’s unfair, and it’s part of our deeper epidemic as a culture to pull other women down or put their achievements in the context of the men who got them there. I know the Bella Army wants to fight that battle of shifting the perception of women in our sport.

  When we made it to the main roster, I was not with my ex. When we landed Total Divas, the production crew knew nothing of our relationship. We didn’t reveal that he was my boyfriend until the first day of filming. I had built my career for twelve years, and it was painful when people conflated my success with his. My ex never had to stick up for me at WWE. He never had to step in to defend my work or push for me to get more opportunities. That was always done by Vince McMahon, WWE’s Chairman and CEO. He recognized that I was popular with the audience, was a good wrestler, and represented the company well.

  As our wedding approached, I started to panic. This precedent I had set for myself throughout my life started to rear its head: pleasing others, and stifling what I actually wanted if it didn’t match what they wanted. This might sound insane, but I am such a pleaser that when I am not in the position of giving someone exactly what they want, I think that the whole construct breaks. On some deep level, I believe that the only reason I am loved is because of this pleasing. The pleasing is my entire worth. I simply haven’t known any other way to be. As our wedding approached, I broke. I simply couldn’t stand up to the pressure of making everyone else happy above myself. I panicked. I freaked out. To me, pressure feels like the end of the world. I’m like a wild horse or a feral cat—I’m so used to at least a little bit of dysfunction that anything normal feels like flashing signs of “Danger!”

  I had to walk away. I had to let it all go. The fallout was terrible, particularly the speculation within the news media and on social media that it was all for ratings. The thing about reality TV is that you don’t get to pick and choose what you show—and the pressure from filming inherently creates drama. It brings things to a head by applying a heavy load to the sensitive parts of your life. Having our relationship fall apart on national TV was excruciating. I had to relive it all again, while also having my heart broken from missing my ex.

  I hope our story together will have a happy ending—and in retrospect, I probably wouldn’t change anything about it, because I believe I’ll end up exactly where I’m supposed to be. But I know the path to get there would have been far less tortured if I hadn’t needed to learn a lot of important lessons about tapping into what I want and need and learning how to communicate that to the man I loved most in the world. I don’t know what I was scared of, I don’t know why I held back. But I can probably attribute some of it to my upbringing, and this disease of pleasing, of not knowing how to just hold love without rushing to give it back. I have also learned how to sit with pain, without covering it up or forcing it to be okay.

  If you want something, you have to be willing to call someone to the mat to get it. You have to be willing to take a stand. You state your position and then defend it, even if it means walking out of the arena without the thing you most wanted to win. But if you don’t try, if you don’t put yourself forward, if you don’t lay it all out on the line, then it’s nobody’s fault but your own if you don’t get it. We often operate in relationships like we’re with mind readers, like we should all be so tapped into the other person that we can automatically know how they feel. I’ve found that I sometimes don’t even know how I feel until I start to give it real voice, to hear how it sounds coming out of my mouth. I think it’s like any muscle. As I exercise my voice more and more, it will come easily and often. Love, like everything else, is a nothing ventured, nothing gained situation. Say who you are—say it often and with passion.

  CHAPTER 10 THE FINISHER

  2017-2018

  Los Angeles, California

  San Diego, California

  Nicole

  When I was cocktail waitressing in my twenties, one of my legs went dead while I was working a shift. I’d had a lot of pain in my abdomen, which was becoming increasingly unbearable even though I had a really high tolerance for discomfort. I didn’t want to go to the hospital or urgent care; I didn’t think I could afford it. I decided to wait and see if whatever was happening down there would clear up on its own.

  I went home that night and sat in a bath where my flaps were like two floating balls in the water: I was so swollen I looked deformed. It got to the point where I couldn’t pee, and I knew I needed medical help, desperately. I went to the hospital, where even the ER nurses were shocked—they all came into the room to take a look at my vagina, like it was a very rare piece of art.

  The doctor was a jerk, maybe because I was some twenty-year-old cocktail waitress, maybe because I had bad insurance. He gave me a quick examination and then said: “You have a Bartholin’s cyst. You need surgery, but if you expect me to wake up a doctor in the middle of the night for you, you’re wrong.” And then he left and told me he’d be back to get me set up with morphine. Thirty minutes passed, then forty-five minutes, at which point the pain was so bad I had to yell until someone heard me. A nurse popped her head in and was surprised that I was still there, as the doctor had left without giving them any orders.

  The nurses checked me into the hospital and set me up with a morphine drip so that I could manage my pain until I had surgery early the next morning. My phone had died, so I couldn’t even call my mom to tell her I was in the hospital. The hospital called her when I was in recovery, which was the first time she heard about this whole debacle. After the operation, which revealed my glands had two cysts, they put two catheters in to drain for two weeks and told me that I’d always be super-sensitive.

  I now know how common cysts are for women, but I had no idea to ask about them, and I’d never been checked. I don’t know if I would have problems today if I had gotten treatment earlier or had known I could go to a place for a free annual checkup. I still struggle with this issue, and bladder infections are a constant in my life. I also get easily irritated in that area, which is a problem considering that I spend a lot of my days in sweaty workout gear. When we were kids, my mom taught us the birds and the bees, but I didn’t learn much about sexual health or how the vagina works. And then I certainly never expected to experience so much sexual trauma, and I was not equipped to deal with that, either.

  I also used to slather Victoria Secret scented lotions everywhere—I thought nothing about putting it around, and even on or in, my vagina. Brie and I grew up when girls were terrified that they smelled “down there,” when douching and scented tampons seemed like good choices. We were also always waxing and shaving our vaginas, eliminating the protective barrier that can keep harmful bacteria away. It is no surprise that I’m still paying the price.

  Brie

  Never one to be one-upped by my sister, I also went to the emergency room for my vagina. When we were living in Los Angeles, after our Hooters days, I went out dancing with some
friends and was wearing lace underwear—I don’t think they even had a lining. I was about five drinks in, wearing tight-ass jeans, and had a front wedgie. I went to pick it, and a piece of lace was wrapped around my labia, and I tore it.

  I went home and slept on it, and the next morning, it was still bleeding so I drove to the emergency room. At check-in, I told the woman I had been injured. She raised an eyebrow: “Yes? Where?” I pointed down. I was twenty years old, and didn’t know any medical terminology, so I told her that I had ripped my vaginal lip—that I didn’t know what it was called, but I had ripped my vagina. She looked bemused. She brought me back and asked if I minded that the ER doctor on call was a man. I didn’t, but thought it was nice that they had asked.

  I told the doctor the story, and he said, “All right, I know that story isn’t true.” And I said: “Yes, it’s true.” And he said, “No, you had to have been using a sex toy.” And I said, “I wish, but I actually tore my vagina because I picked a front wedgie.” Everyone at the hospital thought it was hilarious, and if I’m being honest, I thought it was pretty funny, too. The guy I was dating wasn’t amused, because like the doctor, he assumed I had gotten it from using a sex toy—with someone else. By the way, who knew that sex toys can be so dangerous?

  The doctor told me that he didn’t have to do anything, that the damaged part would fall off—like a lizard’s tail—and it would regenerate, good as new. I thought he was bullshitting me, but he actually told me the truth. When I got back to my apartment, I had to show all of my girlfriends, because none of them believed me either.

  I think one thing that our friends have always appreciated about me and Nicole is that we are very open with our sexuality and our bodies. We aren’t shy of, or ashamed by, our body parts. My mom was very open with us from a young age. It would make her crazy that we were so sexual, but she was still adamant about not hiding anything. Because she grew up in a strict, Catholic household, she always hid everything from her parents. And, well, we all know how that turned out. Because she hadn’t been educated about protection, she made sure that we were. She wanted to get us on the pill and teach us how to protect ourselves against STDs as soon as she knew that we were sexually active. We were comfortable saying “vagina,” “penis,” and “sex” because she didn’t create a culture of shame around it.