Author’s note: I’ve decided to post some old essays from my various blogs. This post is about my recovery after a highly dysfunctional relationship. This relationship started out dysfunctional and gradually emerged as controlling and emotionally violent. I found it necessary to post here, as this site is my digital portfolio. Content warning for verbal and emotional abuse.
You will recall the one-year anniversary of your togetherness with worry like a mountain on the verge of avalanche. Your palms will sweat and your sleep will read in pulses, because you’re reliving it all and don’t know how you got there or made it out. You will have the day off work by some stroke of great fortune and need it so you can quietly disassemble yourself and recall the warmth of his kisses alongside the steel in his voice when angered. You will not understand still loving him despite, because the script says you should not only fear, but divorce yourself from all ideas of caring for this man. It will sting to call it an anniversary on the 11th; you mark the 8th month since you left on the 13th. The sting comes from being socialized to believe that if it fails, you’re to blame … and if it succeeds, you just might be worth a damn. You will remember that this is a lie. You will need to be more vigilant than ever about internalization and the havoc accompanying it. You will have to learn what letting go feels like from moment to moment, because it will change.
You will experience ambivalence like never before about her. She, who was guarded to protect herself from losing. You didn’t know her, still won’t be sure who she was, and will find yourself pissed at the mere idea of you owing her anything. She wanted direct communication from you about the breakup. At least, she said she did. You understood it then as a technicality that she “needed” to be mad about in order to have an emotional stake in the breakup. You were always skeptical of her sincerity towards you as a partner; you’ll realize later that you weren’t sure and afraid to say so. You were projecting a little bit and have since learned to check in with the source of every feeling you have. Every feeling about this relationship, yourself, your favorite food … everything. It will be exhausting sometimes, and rewarding all of the time. You will feel very deeply how bad you fucked that one up. You will also be crystal clear about your need back then to maintain the no contact rule. This included not answering her email or tweets those first tender days after the breakup. You will admit that was petty as fuck when you answered her email, “Okay.” You will mark that admission with a smirk; you know pettiness yields no actual rewards, and it didn’t really feel good to do that shit. You will realize that you were looking for a fight initially, but were not emotionally invested enough to carry it out. You will wish you’d known her better and be grateful you didn’t; the entanglement was enough. Your heart will sink a little every time you recall how supportive she was when you started therapy.
You will be angry at him all over again; he was the Dom, he was supposedly experienced enough in polyfidelity to have known what pitfalls may lie ahead of your rushed unity. You will feel tenderly about his childishness, because he told you more than once he was still five or six years old. You will be enraged at his knowledge of this and seeming commitment to remaining this way. You will wonder if you’ll ever talk to G about it, just because he freaked out so badly upon learning that you knew her, and there’s a part of you that is dying to know that you weren’t the only. Even with B’s constant mirroring and support, you will want to feel that it wasn’t just you. You will ache to undo the gaslighting that grew like kudzu in your mind: Your wanting to change him isn’t okay. You don’t want him to get better, you want him to be what you want, instead of who he is … You will remind yourself that when you asked him if he’d start beating your ass once you moved, that he made it about his shame and not your clear understanding of his escalating behavior. You will remind yourself that she was so afraid to talk to you about any of that shit, that she begged you not to tell him that you heard from her. You will remember that you stayed because you didn’t realize you never owed either of them a goddamn fucking thing.
You will take two weeks to write this, because you kept trying to think of ways to make it palatable to the people who’ll read it. Yourself included. You will be afraid that it sounds nonsensical, and quickly dismiss that fear because this isn’t about anyone but you. You will pray for your emotional release around this because you don’t wanna carry anything that doesn’t serve you. The lessons are the peach’s flesh; the pain is stone and stem. You can grow the stone into a tree if you do right. And perhaps you will.