No one likes being cheated on. Chris Olsen, unfortunately, knows the feeling several times over. He details as much in his new memoir, "I Think My Therapist Hates Me," out Sept. 1, and disclosed yet another incident in a July TikTok with nearly 14 million views.
"Just found out I got diabolically cheated on in the middle of an Olivia Dean concert btw," the text on the post read. Thousands commented, some of which declared "we ride at dawn" in support of the 28-year-old social media influencer.
Olsen's memoir touches on his mother's alcoholism and his own; his boarding school situationships; coming out as gay; his parents' divorce; his rehab during college; and his ascent into social media stardom peppered with heartbreak, including several cheating
incidents. If there's anything he's learned about relationships, it's that you can only take responsibility for your actions. And that means figuring out how you handle any kind of betrayal – a lesson we all face time and again.
A partner cheated on Olsen while he was in his early 20s, fresh off a rehab stay. "When I was getting cheated on, in the back of my head, it almost felt like, 'well, I haven't been a great person in the past. It's a karmic cycle,'" he says. Was this supposed to happen to him? He mourns how his 21-year-old self, and is glad to have new insight in his late 20s.
@chris amazing show though & thank u for the inviteee @Spotify
♬ So Easy (To Fall In Love) - Olivia Dean
"Now I know not to take blame or think, 'oh, well, if I just did this or like maybe it's happening because of this.' I think everyone struggles with their own things, and some people's struggle causes them to lash out in a way that does end up hurting other people," he adds. Olsen certainly hurt those around him, too, growing up, especially as his addiction spiraled and his platonic, romantic and familial relationships fell apart.
"Even when someone has done something that has hurt me, I can look back on all the moments where I have hurt someone else, and I've either been given grace, or maybe I haven't, and I've had to just work on the thing that I did – the alcoholism, the addiction, the things that were hurting these people – I had to work on it," he says.
Today, Olsen is focused on improving himself. "We can only handle what we tolerate ourselves and what we do ourselves," he says. "I know now different things that I tolerate and what I want to do and how I want to operate, and that's all I can handle and control. And I can just wish that anyone who has done something that's hurt me will want to heal that part of themselves that maybe felt the need to do that in the first place."
He's giving himself grace, too. He's a little worried he'll never date again, though knows he'll stop feeling that way.
"I want to protect my peace moving forward, but I know there's a fine line between protecting your peace and locking myself in my home and never leaving," he says. "So I want to just land in the middle, and that will be a conversation that I continue to have with myself daily, weekly, monthly."
He's clearly found a safe place to land – even if there are mild crashes along the way.
This article originally appeared on USA TODAY: He found out his ex cheated. He'd been down this road before
