I remember the first time my body tried to tell me something.
How hard it was to stay away from single-edge razor blades and sharper things.
Never sleeping before 3 in the morning and always waking up before 8.
Jack Antal
Condoms we didnt use hidden in his glove compartment.
The way my body folded in on itself when he touched me.
Cursing the building we lived in when the shower wasnt burning enough.
Wanting to throw myself into the pyre.
Wondering where I had gone.
Mourning who I was.
These are the things I remember most from the final year of our relationship.
They say your body knows things before you do.
I was always starved for touch, always starved for love, for anything, really.
The kind that washed the stains out of his shirts without him having to ask.
The kind who tried to perfect a recipe for some dish or another until it was to his liking.
The kind who wrote his business proposals, made his appointments, and refilled his prescriptions.
The one who was never allowed to be herself.
The one who took his shit and still got on her knees when he said when.
In that fleeting second, my body rejected everything that was him.
I realized what I had been in denial about for so long.
Not only was I trying to push back the fear I felt, but I was swallowing my disgust.
I was still trying to dismiss the truth.
I was still hoping it was I who had reality skewed.
Opening your eyes isnt enough, neither is reaching your threshold of pain.
You always think,That would never be me.
Im out the minute this or that is done or said to me.
You couldnt possibly know what its like until youre there.
It wouldnt be that simple for me.
We headed out for a pub crawl with some friends a bit later that day.
That entire evening, my whole aim was to just numb myself.
He did fuck me.
I had never felt cold like that before and I never once felt warm again after.
I felt anger, rage, disgust, hate as much toward myself as him.
I didnt sleep at all those late hours and that early morning.
For a long time, my body and I had been living in a state of hypervigilance.
On any given day, I was nervous about what mood I would find him in.
Which one of his personalities was taking a sip of the coffee I had prepared for him that morning?
Then there were times when he became angry when I expressed an opinion that differed from his.
It wasnt just that, I couldnt express my feelings, either.
He would make me believe that my feelings werent valid.
He would make me feel like I felt how I felt because I was mentally imbalanced.
He would insist that I was either thriving on the drama, or that I was insane.
If he did or said something to hurt me, then I was too sensitive.
He made me believe I was lucky for having him.
I was so broken down mentally that I actually felt grateful to him for loving me.
Not thatI love youwere words he used often.
Hed suggest I go stay at my parents and I wouldnt hear from him for days.
It was one of his favorite things to do, to make me feel like I was crazy.
He took things I had trusted him with and used them as ammo.
I think he actually enjoyed making me feel insane and making me doubt reality.
I was afraid of being alone sometimes.
Looking back, I am positive it was him doing both things.
It was a lie I believed, too.
I was lucky, I thought.
Who would want someone sad and unstable and not beautiful?
This was the narrative he insidiously fed me.
See, he liked me better smaller physically, mentally, and emotionally.
He wanted to have 100% of me.
He wantedallof me without giving meanyof him, and while making me feel like he didntneedany of me.
I didnt even register that anything was being done to me.
I said that he hadnt, not really, no.
All he had done was slam me against the wall and then punched said wall.
Did that even count?
I had been through worse it was how I excused a lot of what I put up with.
It was how I overlooked the times hedidbecome physically violent.
That was violent behavior.
No amount of time, healing, or therapy, leads you back to who you were.
You are irrevocably changed.
I was left with a rollercoaster of a battle with body image issues.
I doubt myself now, and become paralyzed by the fear that I am not good enough.
I cant love again and give my all.
Maybe my all should always be given to myself and only myself.
