How My Abuser Still Haunts Me [2]

This is [part 2 of] a long article/memoir essay I wrote for SkirtCollective last month. It was hard to write, but once I started it just kept going and going until I had said everything I could. I had nightmares that night. 

Trigger warning here, I guess.

After a while, I said ‘no’ more often, hung up on him more often, went out of my way to spend time with my family or old friends instead of him. Eventually, I stopped picking up the phone altogether.

It’s extremely hard – and terrifying – to break up with an abuser. Especially one who’s known you for so long. After all, breaking up had happened before: over and over for years. This time I was determined, and after a week of angry phone calls, threats, insults, guilt and harassment, it seemed to stick.

I don’t remember how terrified I was. Maybe I blocked it out.

It was the end of the school year and I do remember him hovering near my classrooms and parking spot. There was one day, near the end, when I was waiting for my ride next to the school. He was standing by the entrance, eyes on me. I knew he would come closer when more people had left, but I didn’t know what he would do.

But for some reason, two boys I knew came out of nowhere to sit with me. One was a friend, the other an old friend’s brother. I didn’t know why they were there, suddenly on each side of me, making random, simple small talk about pretty much nothing. When my ride showed up, they left, and I’d made it through the day without a confrontation. I’ve never mentioned it to the one of them I still keep up with, but I’ve told the story a lot. I don’t know if this was intentional, to keep him away or just keep me company, but I couldn’t have been more grateful. It meant so much to me to feel protected, even in that small way.

After that, things were easier. Less angry phone calls to ignore, less days I stuck close to the few friends I still had, avoiding him in the halls. Then it was summer, and I could almost pretend he didn’t exist.

It didn’t occur to me at the time how much other people had my back in that time. Not only the boys after school, but old friends that seemed to conveniently intervene here and there. I have little doubt that everyone knew things were awful – though not how awful – and they seemed to accept me back pretty easily. It never felt like they judged me for distancing myself from everyone, and they seemed to take my side – even some that had once been his friends.

I wish I’d noticed that then, and appreciated that support more.

It’s been ten years, I suppose, since the summer I got out, but every once in a while he tries to contact me. We chatted once, not long after I started college – because I was stupid and thought it would be okay. He said I was crazy for still feeling bad about our relationship. That I must be really fucked up if it all bothered me so much.

He will never remember half of the things I will never forget.

I think that’s the only thing that still hurts.

He still tries to add me on Facebook sometimes, and once he contacted me via my tumblr page, violating a space I saw as my own. I don’t use it anymore.

There’s a special kind of pain that comes from sexual coercion. A very particular type of guilt that rots your insides. It hurts to think of all the things that were done to you and to think ‘I said yes.’

Now, years later, sex is an endless exercise in willful, selective memory. Exposed nipples remind me of the abandoned movie theater where he lifted my shirt to fondle me, barely hidden behind the building’s columns, pretending to be interested in it all and trying not to cry when a car drove past and might have seen. I have a strange relationship with my vagina as well, remembering his fingers, rough and forced, in my parent’s moldy, dingy basement, or his lips when he convinced me to lie to my mother, sneaking out of a movie to go to his empty bedroom.

Then there’s his hand pulling mine towards him under a blanket or table, moving my hand to stroke him while people around us talked. There’s a sense of hidden shame when my pubic hair grows out too much, remembering the time he sent me a series of instant messages that said ‘SHAVE THAT BUSH’ over and over again. Or the time he convinced me to go down on him for the first time, sitting on the floor in my bedroom with my parents in the next room. I have to be high to enjoy doing that now, to block out memories that make me want to curl up, shivering. I know this would legally be considered rape, and that there’s some kind of irony to it all, considering the context, but sometimes the only way I can have sex is to be able to let go – to focus on the sensations of my skin without the flashbacks. It isn’t fair, but it works.

Still, it leaves a sick, queasy feeling in the very core of me. Like it’s me that’s rotten. Sick. The days my depression hits hard and I can’t get all of these stupid moments out of my head, I feel broken.

But on my good days, when my husband is sweet and patient and caring, I feel free again. I remember how lucky I am. That I got out. That it didn’t get worse than it was.

That I am stronger and braver than he ever gave me credit for.

That it will never, ever, happen to me again.

How My Abuser Still Haunts Me [1]

This is [part 1 of] a long article/memoir essay I wrote for SkirtCollective last month. It was hard to write, but once I started it just kept going and going until I had said everything I could. I had nightmares that night.

Trigger warning here, I guess.

I talk about him openly: the abusive boyfriend I had for most of high school. I talk about how he separated me from my friends and family so well. My isolation was important to him. I talk about how he would “hug” me when he was angry in public; squeezing me so tight I felt like I might break. How he’d wrap his arm around my waist or shoulder in a similar way. From the outside it looked like affection, and if anyone could tell that his fingers were digging into my skin, they didn’t say anything. It made me feel so far away from everyone else. So alone.

I complain about the day he thought my jeans were too tight, so – when we were alone – he criticized me and grabbed the crotch of my jeans and squeezed so tight that I ached for the rest of the day. Or the time I visited my best friend at the beach and – because I’d mentioned that she was bi – he was certain I would end up in a threesome with her and her boyfriend.

He called me three times to make sure I wasn’t doing anything he didn’t want me to. He begged me to go back to my family at the hotel, to promise I wouldn’t spend time with her. He hissed insults through the phone line and, when I hung up on him, he called again. And again. And again. I turned off my cell phone, knowing I would regret it later.

Sometimes I laugh off the way he’d threatened me on the phone, or threatened to kill himself if we broke up. I always say I wish he had. It’s kind of true, but I know it would have made him a martyr to our teenage romance; our tragic love story. I also know he probably would have botched it on purpose – for sympathy and attention and to make me feel guilty. I vaguely remember him doing something like that. Still, it would have saved me a lot of pain, fear, and isolation.

It’s hard to ask an abuse victim of any kind why they stayed with their abuser, because it’s hard to answer. Love? Fear? Desperation? Guilt? It’s so hard to explain all of the bizarre feelings that come along with being someone who hurts you. The excuses I told myself so often were internalized over time, so I could almost convince myself that it was all true.

I can’t say I didn’t think I could do better, or that he was just misunderstood or needed love. I was a teenager. He said he loved me and that was important – that was what mattered. I still thought Romeo and Juliet was a love story. That fighting and persevering somehow made our relationship more real, as if it meant we care more, or something. It didn’t help that I thrive on emotional drama, though this all might have been how it started. I used to pick fights with my now-husband just because I could.

I think I also wanted to be saved. I wanted someone sweet and strong and brave to stand up for me. I wanted someone who would tell me I was brave and strong for living through it all. I wanted a hero.

I thought I got one, years into the wreck that my life had become. Three years of being pushed against walls, threatened, called a slut and a bitch then being coerced into activities that made me cringe. Three years of him being so very good at convincing me that these sexual activities I didn’t want a part of were about love. Three years of being made to feel guilty for anything I wanted that didn’t involve him. Three years of the kind of pain that never left a bruise or a bloody lip.

My so-called hero talked his way into my heart via online instant messaging. I was desperate for a savior and he was happy to oblige through text, though only in theory – never doing anything for me offline. But I didn’t see that he never really stood up for me, never tried to protect me, and I never questioned his claims or confessions. I have known a few mildly compulsive liars over time, but none were quite as damaging as this one. Eventually this would all lead to the most intense heartbreaks I would ever experience; one that lasted for too many years and too many nights feeling like such an idiot. But for now he was my reason for wanting more, for wanting out. I felt special – loved – in a beautiful, magical, safe way.

{next part...}

A Dream I Would Have Kept Private If Not for an Intense Need to Share it

I had a dream about a boy. He was young and beautiful and naive.
He had an amazing accent and a face I could love. I didn't want to tell him I was older than him. That I had a boyfriend. That I couldn't- and wouldn't- be his.
We met by my first apartment and we, with another girl, his roommate, went to drive, then walk, somewhere. I asked about school and life, and it felt real. They are quiet from friendly and fun. I didn't notice an accent, or the face like james mcavoy, until later. I spent this early time appreciating this chance with new, young people. Making friends. Soon we were walking towards the school, and at one point my best friend was there, then gone, but soon the tree-lined streets became new york lights and bustle. I talked about my love of the city and how I'd never gotten to do the things they do on tv. Be with friends on crazy adventures on manhatten streets. I keep asking questions, talking, laughing. I stay close to the boy. I tell myself that we could just be friends, that he wouldn't want more- that I wouldn't. I talk the most and the three of us lose each other in the crowd all the time, but my hair is blue and I'm wearing my new jacket and my arm is around them like old friends and I love it all.
There were strange parts in between- stores and cars and fear and drinks and a tennis court- but then we are back on the street and my heart already aches for him.  [this feeling will last the rest of the dream, and carry through my slow wake up. I want to hold on to it so much I will put off waking to create an ending to our story. I want to hold that feeling, that aching longing, as long as I can.]
After that the dream was soon different. The three of us want to walk home. At one point the boy does drugs I don't want, and it makes me sad. At one point he kissed my now-bare shoulder, forgetting I wasn't his to kiss, and I wanted him and it hurt. At one point my boyfriend was there, his arm around my waist as we all walked, and though I didn't want him gone, it hurt as well, and I wanted to wrap my arms around the boy.
Then it is just us, walking somewhere else, still trying to go home. I don't know where I am but I keep going. A busy highway, a shopping center. We're arguing. I'm mad about something. I mention his behavior, and the fact that I'm not his to-- what? be jealous about? At some point I notice the accent. Mild, almost irish. I love it instantly.
There's a turnstile and then we're in a grassy valley, walking. There's a few other people and it's bright and I don't feel afraid. He asks about school and I finally tell him I'm older than he is. We walk and talk and I'm dreading the end. I'm offered a joint I gladly take. We say we'll meet later, go for a drink. I see in his eyes that we both need it. We meet at a bar I've been to in my dreams before. I find him after seeing other people I seem to know. We see something strange here that I don't understand. We've already realized that we want to be together. And that we can't. There's something here we find, something that tells u s we were supposed to meet, that because of it he will do something he's meant to do and become a better person. His face is afraid and hurt. He worries that it won't be true and that he'll be the same. The face is so young, his self-doubt so strong. I hold his face in my hands and tell him I don't care, because even if he stays the same, that's a pretty great person. What I mean is that I love him anyway. I can feel it and it hurts.
Then we're in a cobbled street and someone knows me. I'm supposed to do something. Another part I didn't understand, we follow them and we're somewhere else, a gun fired into the air and i am supposed to be there. I don't understand but the me in the dream is sobbing, and the boy is holding me tight.
Here I'm waking up.
Somewhere in between dreaming and waking I slow it down.
He doesn't want me to go, and I don't want to leave. I try to explain. there are different kinds of love, and just because you could - or do - love someone, doesn't mean you give up the love you already have. you can love an infinite amount of people in different ways and for different reasons, but you can't always be with them. i tell him he's young and fun and beautiful and maybe I could spend the rest of my life with him, but I'm already spending my life with someone else. i can't leave that life, and wouldn't want to.
Being in his arms is a painful, beautiful longing. When my eyes open, I wrap my arms around myself and let my heart ache. I want to hold on to this feeling. This passion. I miss this kind of pain.
Soon I'll forget his face and the way his voice felt in my head and how his long, slim arms felt around me.
Soon I'll forget. But I'll miss it.

Beautiful Books:: The Elementals

Currently reading FLBs "The Elementals".

It had a slow start, I think, but I've fallen in love. Very pretty. Very ... relatable, if that's even a word. In fact, I find it more relatable than some of her other books. 

There's just something much more relatable and understanding about a girl entering college after traumatic setbacks and feeling lost, alone, and grasping onto the things she finally finds magical. 

 "That was when I started to run. I ran and ran as fast as I could along the pavement. Sweat poured down my face, mixing with the tears that had started to come. I could run fast. But you just can't run faster than time, not faster than death and, as I'd find out, not faster than love."

-- page 8

Weetzie Bat led a beautiful life, but it's not one everyone gets, or understands, or even necessarily wants. But Ariel is so real and complex in her fears and desires that I see myself behaving much the same way as her in many of the situations she faces. Her fear and anxiety and loneliness and desire to find her friend (and herself) definitely reflect me back at myself in a sad, beautiful way. And I'm sure I'm not the only one.

"I walked past groups of laughing frat boys in monster masks and sorority girls dressed as sexy cats, sexy witches or sexy fairies in accessorized leotards and tights. The homeless were out in full force as well but the Greek kids were ignoring them in the usual way, as if they were invisible, phantoms. But I saw. The woman with the wings held a skeleton mask over her face and her small companion was dressed head to toe in clothes that looked as if they had been dipped in blood. The man with dreadlocks had twisted them into horns. He approached me, mumbling and waving his hands. I froze. As he got closer he shouted, 'The end is near and the parallel universe is not near complete!' He kept walking past me and I resumed breathing. The air smelled of coffee and chocolate. I stopped at the corner and looked around. People were sitting in the cafe. It seemed so warm and cozy in there."

  -- page 29

It reminds me a little of Echo, in the searching, and Quakeland in its self aware anxiety, The Hanged Man in its views of life and the self, and Ecstasia in its lush sensory descriptions.

But all of these in a much more narrative, realistic, understandable way. I can see myself as Ariel in ways I couldn't with other characters. I don't aspire to be like her or in her life; I just could be. Anyone could be.

The story is part coming-of-age, part supernatural, and part crime mystery. It's lovely and touching and sad and scary, and reminds you of those times when you just want to run and jump and dance, dress up, play, light candles and kiss and write and sing and be alive as much as possible.

"Everywhere I went I imagined she was walking with me. I tried to see things through her eyes; it wasn't hard. I knew how she thought. The faces she would find beautiful or interesting, the scruffy and disabled dogs she would stop to pet, the jewelry she would life from black velvet on the street vendor's table, examining to see how it was made, the buildings she would want to live in."

--page 17

It's also incredibly grounded in its representation of love and fear and tragedy, and I swear it's a wonderful read, Teen-Fiction or not. 

It's amazing.

Romance of Sadness

"My version of the truth is every letter I never sent and two broken watches sitting on my desk; one that slowly stopped ticking after five years wrapped around my wrist and one whose strap snapped as soon as I tried to put it on and I’m sure you could make a novella out of that but I do not want a metaphor anymore, I want you. Fuck meaningful glances and the smell of rain sneaking through my windowpanes in the early hours, fuck untaken chances, fuck serendipity, your heart is not an empty room. FUCK EVERYTHING I SHOULD HAVE SAID AND EVERYTHING I SHOULD HAVE DONE AND EVERYONE I COULD NEVER HAVE BEEN BECAUSE NONE OF IT WOULD HAVE BEEN ENOUGH. I am begging you to tear out your fears now and run and run and run from the romance of sadness because for however many birthday cards I keep, however many long poems I write, however many aeroplanes don’t crash, I only want your hand in mine. I want you a train ride away. I want to lick the stamp and walk to the postbox and know my love will find you."

-Finn (A Greater Reality)