Our connection was something different and intense. On our perfect first date, you were charismatic and charming. You were interesting and had so much more depth than most people I had dated and I fell hard for you from the jump. I thought I had hit the jackpot. You made me feel safe and wanted and I couldn’t believe that you were mine and I was yours. We felt like a great match. One that would stand the test of time. My equal. My partner. My companion. Two weeks in and we were already talking about our future together. You could have philosophical conversations with me, ones that made me think differently about life. But then, slowly our relationship started to evolve into something dark and sinister.
*TRIGGER WARNING*
You started making hurtful little comments. You wanted me to cut and dye my hair because I looked like a “porn star” with my long, blonde locks. I complied and when I asked if you were happy, you didn’t even look up from your plate. “Why can’t your ass look like hers?” “I wish your torso was longer”. You wanted me to wear leggings in the house but designer jeans in public. I couldn’t see the small red flags that started to surround me because you had already locked me in a false cage of safety you had so carefully built around me. You blinded me with love before you became the monster.
Sometimes I can still hear you in my head. “Drama queen. Drama queen. Drama queen.”
As time went on, I had to hand you my phone as I got to your flat. I couldn’t have my phone at all when I was with you and you would screen who I was talking to when we weren’t together. Who was I calling? What was I talking about with my friends? I started to make you mad often. You were really scary when you were angry. It seemed as if everything I would do would set you off. I could no longer discuss my thoughts or emotions. Work out more. Don’t talk so much. Kiss me this way. Don’t wear your hair up. Use this laundry detergent. I didn’t want to lose the intense and toxic chemistry that we had with each other. It was addicting and intoxicating and I would do anything to keep you happy. Your unpredictability and sudden cold presence were things I started to fear. You wouldn’t like when I would try to express my insecurities, forcing me into a deeper, unconfident pit of confusion and despair. You knew how to be such a lovely man and I held onto the hope that he would surface again for good.
That was when you started to disappear. I convinced myself you were doing it to protect me. I wasn’t allowed to have deep and meaningful relationships with anyone else during these periods of severe drought. You would disappear for weeks on end, leaving me wondering what I had done to make you mad this time. You’d never stay away for long. I would see your car in front of my flat. Showing up in the corner shop where I was. Waiting for me after work. Creating fake accounts to get in contact when I’d block you. Pretending your flatmate was trying to kill himself and you needed my help. That one still messes with my head. I remember it like it was yesterday, barging into your flat and running straight to the bathtub to see if he was still alive. Only to find an empty tub whilst you blocked the doorway, my only exit. “It was the only way I knew how to get you here”. It was as if you didn’t want me but yet you couldn’t let me go.
“No one will ever love you like I do. If you ever leave me, everyone will see you are nothing”. You never hit me. I thought that was what abuse was. I was so young and I was easily deceived by your many masks. You made me believe that I will never be enough for anyone. Friend, family, partner. I was nothing. A drama queen. One who wasn’t worthy of love. One who was broken. The one who deserved all the times you cheated on me.
Then, the night happened. I know you remember the night. The one that I never thought I would recover from. The one when I finally knew… I was in an abusive relationship. The night you attacked me. I ran out of your house and that drive home was the darkest of my life. I kept replaying it like a reel in my head as the headlights passed by me in a messy blur. Watching your face change as you realized what you had done. I was driving on the motorway when my phone lit up. My stomach felt like it was going to fall right out of my body. Were you going to be mad at me again? When I answered timidly, you acted like nothing had happened. “Hey Babe. Are you home yet?” I was confused. After a few minutes of you blathering on, I finally said “were you not in that room?!”. Your voice suddenly changed. Dark and emotionless you said “I know how to manipulate you. You need to be strong enough to say no when I come back”.
That’s when I realized everything. You knew what you were doing to me for a year. You knew that you were poisoning my mind. How could you say you loved me? Your warnings were right. You tried to come back, showing up in my life when I least expected you. On your wedding day, even after you have had children, you still try to come back. I don’t understand why but irrational choices never lead to rational reasoning. I am proud of myself for never allowing you back in after that horrific and traumatizing night, even though you still try.
The thing is, the poison you fed me has affected my life so many years later. Your evil lies come up out of nowhere and they suffocate me once again. Not enough. Drama Queen. Nothing. False beliefs that were repeated to me over and over have become ingrained on the fibers of my soul. Lies that my wounded parts cling to like oxygen.
I hope you understand that what you did to me was vile. It stole my youth. It destroyed relationships. It ruined my trust. But the funny thing is through all the trauma, I have learned how to live without you. The weak young woman who walked out of your home that warm August night is not who I am now. I am no longer the co-dependent partner you once knew. I became strong. I became unbreakable. I became a warrior. You did not break me. You no longer hold power.
I genuinely wish you the best in life. I hope you can find happiness. I hope you never treat your family with the same disruptive traits. I hope you learn to cope with your demons just as I am coping with mine. I don’t hate you. And I don’t hate myself anymore either. I am learning to love myself again. I am learning that I am enough. I am learning I am anything but “nothing”. I am not a drama queen. I enjoy how intensely I can feel emotion. I love that I crave to find deeper and obscure meaning in everything. You remember how much I hate small talk? These experiences have brought me more empathy to have true connection with others; connections I was never allowed to have when we were together. I am free to say and think and feel whatever I want without your oppression and I wouldn’t trade that liberation for the world. I’ve become so much more because of the pain I experienced. My connection to my Heavenly Father and my Savior has become unbreakable through my relying on them to lift me when I could not lift myself. He understands everything I went through during those dark times and everything you went through as well. The atonement means so much more to me because of the strength I was able to draw on in my desperation to survive.
For all of this and so much more... I am grateful. I believe every person we come in contact with helps shape who we become. And I want to say thank you for your part, the darkest chapter, that has created an elevated version of myself; in me becoming more than I ever thought I could be.
If you are in an abusive relationship, please know there is help, there is hope, you are worthy, and you are more than ENOUGH! Reach out to someone you trust or call for professional help.
US National Domestic Violence Hotline: (800) 799-7233
UK National Domestic Abuse Helpline: 0808 2000 247
Suicide Prevention Lifeline: (800) 273-8255