stubborn love
It began the way we’re told so many of the best things in life begin–unexpectedly.
With a suitcase packed for the Aegean, I had arrived in Minneapolis the day before. The Minnesotan humidity washed over me like a lake at the gate. I hadn’t touched Minnesota since Christmas, but my sister and I had a flight out of MSP a couple days later. I landed in the Twin Cities eager to have sleepovers with my favorite Minnesotans and to soon spend seven uninterrupted days with my sister. I was just passing through, really.
That day, I woke up in my best friend’s childhood home. Two of my very favorite faces flanked mine in a bathroom mirror all morning as we prepared to take advantage of my short time in town. It was June, and swelteringly so.
Coincidentally, it was also Twin Cities Pride that weekend, and everything took on a more vibrant hue. Our trio roamed by the Basilica all afternoon, failing to come across anyone we knew from undergrad in the daylight. We only encountered old acquaintances by chance when night fell and our Plan A’s exorbitant cover charge made us reroute to another Minneapolis gay bar.
The dance floor was packed. Under the pulse of the lights and the haze of our combined body heat, it was stifling. The fans’ efforts to unstick our hair from the backs of our necks were futile. We worked really hard at convincing ourselves we didn’t care. We sank ice cubes to the bottoms of our glasses as we drank and then held the frosty remnants to our carotids for the condensation to join our perspiration there. We danced and danced and danced. We were drenched. We were drunk. Of course that’s how I met her.
Or rather, re-met her.
See, she was the close friend of close acquaintances, and I had first met her over a year prior on graduation day. With no organization on anyone’s part, so many of us recent grads pulled all-nighters after commencement and congregated on campus to watch the sunrise. It was there that she first spoke to me. Suddenly she was right in front of me, by the fountain, complimenting my commencement speech from earlier in the day. I remember being struck by the way she delivered the comments and the way she looked at me: so earnestly, like she genuinely meant every word she said. Then, she asked if I wanted to sit by her to watch the sunrise. I was seeing someone at the time, so I declined, just as I would later decline her DM asking me out for the same reason. But despite eventually realizing she had probably been so “earnest” because she was flirting with me, I strangely never forgot her. In my memory, graduation night is a blur of final outings and versions of “Hey you’re the graduation speaker! Your speech was so good!” that frankly all blend together. And yet, I always remembered what she said and how she said it.
When she saw me speak at graduation, she turned to her friends beside her in awe and said “Who the fuck is this girl? I have to have her.” But, I wouldn’t learn that until much, much later.
Flash forward over a year later, and there she was. In front of me again. And I was so much more single this time and so much gayer this time and so much more intoxicated this time. It was bound to happen.
A few things stand out about that night at the bar: that multiple people were flirting mercilessly with me while she was just being kind and funny and staying near me; that she was openly shocked when I asked to buy her a drink; that I ended up in her arms; that I turned down her initial invite of “come home with me” but then did, in fact, go home with her. I remember her singing in the rain while we waited for the Uber to come.
I remember being so nervous. But then we listened to records and laid on her roof and talked for hours that night and kissed and kissed and kissed into the morning. And it was beautiful. And I wanted to see her again.
She texted me the same sentiment after I left that morning, and I promised her I would save my lone evening back in town for her before heading back to Portland. I braved international text fees to talk to her while I was vacationing with my sister and was a little giddy about it. I felt confused as to why she would want to see me again when I lived in Portland, but I was going to let it play out.
When I got back to Minnesota, I put on my best friend’s clothes because I’d exhausted all my clean checked-bag options. I freaked out in his apartment because I was so nervous to spend time with her in the light of day. When she picked me up, I could tell she was nervous, too. I remember her looking over at me mid sentence while driving and forgetting what she was saying. I remember I didn’t know where to put my left hand, where to rest my left elbow; even the center console seemed to burn with proximity to her.
She had planned a whole evening for us. Walking through a nature sanctuary, she would stop to pet each of the velvety lamb’s ear plants along the way; I thought it was one of the most tender and endearing things I’d ever seen. We sat under the willow tree by the lake talking while the setting sun turned the water to sherbert, and I thought she was gorgeous. Stunning, really. I couldn’t stop looking at her. I wanted to know everything about her. I wanted to hold her hand but was scared to even touch her, instead sitting far enough away that not even our knees would brush. It all felt so sacred.
When we finally kissed, I fit my hand to her jaw and was again mesmerized by how a jawline could be so soft to the touch. I was more used to feeling stubble there on the cheek of another.
I told her in her lap that I had been surprised she’d asked to see me again since I lived in Portland; she told me she didn’t see why Portland had to be a problem. She told me that she never thought she would get this opportunity to be with me. She said “Portland doesn’t need you tomorrow,” and I knew it didn’t. She told me to change my flight home, and I did. Early the next morning, she disappeared to get ready for work and came back smelling like sunscreen and asking for a kiss. I missed her all day and then told her all my secrets over espresso martinis that night. When I returned to Portland for an audition, I’d already made plans to come back to Minnesota, to her, in just ten days.
My life felt like a movie. The novel was writing itself. People got chills when I told them the story. It was complete gay insanity, and I was in heaven.
It is crucial that you understand how gorgeous it was in the beginning. How seemingly-fated it all was. Because otherwise you will not be able to fathom why I could possibly have stayed. You won’t be able to understand the uniquely confusing pain of watching someone you love fail to get out of their own way. How at times you feel worse for them than you do for yourself, because you see how much their own pain and insecurity weighs on them even as you become the target of it. You won’t be able to understand how insidious and sneaky these patterns are, how it could happen to anyone, even you. Even me.
Because my storybook relationship became abusive.
I understand some people might feel shocked to learn this. Believe me, no one was more shocked than me at how things devolved. It should have been a sign that I wasn’t writing, because writing is where I go to be honest with myself. It was through writing that the true nature of what our relationship became started to sink in.
This has been my most painful, anxiety-inducing piece of writing to create and publish. I’m not willing to talk about it past what I say here or willingly bring forward in my personal relationships, and I can’t receive information about her that might be triggering. But abuse thrives in secrecy and shame. In speaking publicly, I cement my refusal to feel embarrassed or shame myself into thinking I did anything wrong by opening my heart and life so fully to someone who did not have the tools to care for them.
I struggled for a long time with how to tell this story. Because when you say that you were abused, you get put on trial along with your abuser. People want to know the nitty gritty, painful, ugly details of what happened, or they won’t believe you. But, any details you give can also be weaponized against you as moral failings on your part; failures of will or self-worth, just countless times you “should have left.” See, people point fingers at victims for not drawing the line sooner rather than appropriately focusing their whole attention on how their abusers brought them to the edge in the first place. I don’t think this phenomenon is even always malicious (though it certainly is sometimes). I think we sometimes can’t help but tell ourselves that, surely, we would’ve done things so differently had we been in the victims’ shoes. Regardless of how much we support victims and don’t want to think in such ways, our minds make the calculations. It is our minds’ way of making us feel safe, of convincing us we are in control. Because then we can feel protected by our own assurances that the same could never happen to us, because we would never “allow” it to happen to us, right? We can feel empathy for victims while also naively telling ourselves that our independence or intelligence or strength or good taste will protect us from ever enduring abuse in a partnership.
The attributes we think will protect us are smoke and mirrors. The issue at hand is not a matter of any deficiency on the part of the abused. More often, it is instead an abundance of positive qualities– under normal conditions– that are exploited by abusers. Victims are not stupid. In my case, I was empathetic. And patient. And optimistic. I gave second chances liberally and was generous in my benefit of the doubt. I was a believer in redemption and in the best of her. And, those are positive qualities that can only be weaponized by someone at war with themself.
Sometimes, in our transparency about our own experiences, we can hold others. I’m in absolute awe of the timing in which people have entered my life in the past year and been forthcoming about their own experiences with abuse. In their openness, these people paved the way for my future healing before I even knew I’d be able to relate to their experiences. Life is so clever in how it unfolds sometimes. Many victims, myself included, are hesitant to name behaviors they’re experiencing with a partner for what they are. I include some details here not to punish my ex but because someone might draw parallels between my specific experiences and theirs and begin to recognize harm just as I did. It’s not punitive, it’s not talking shit, it’s not spilling tea; it’s an issue of making sure people are cared for in their most intimate relationships and vulnerable spaces.
One of my teachers (ily Kelsey) said, “Abuse is an issue of community safety. It’s an issue of care and protection of those who are vulnerable. It is not to be handled privately.” I tried for a long time to handle this in private. Even now, after everything, I still feel an urge to protect my ex partner. I feel resistant to letting others learn of the reality I lived in while we were together even though she created that reality with her own actions. But, specificity is what resonates. So, I’m leaving my story here for it to ripple out to whoever needs it.
The idea of writing about the abuse felt impossible at first, and that’s how I knew I needed to do it. It’s an extremely daunting task, trying to say exactly what you mean–trying to do your own story justice in all its nuance. I wept actual tears and screamed in my car and damn near clawed my way through the writing of this. What I give you is a snippet of my experience; please be gentle with it. In the end, I am unwilling to submit all my experiences to judgment and potential gaslighting and dismissal when I already gaslit and berated myself about them for months. I will not be ripping open my past in its entirety and letting the masses ogle my pain in hopes that I will be believed. The truth is verifiable and undeniable as long as you’re willing to see it.
It has been painful and cathartic and so so healing to write through my thoughts in this way. I hope that someone feels held by my openness here.
I saw evidence of my ex partner’s volatility the first time I returned to Minnesota to visit her.
I clocked the red flags in real time at a party at her house. In the middle of an otherwise great night, I witnessed, for the first and not the last time, her erratic and unkind behavior when drunk. When I later expressed to some of her friends that it was a “weird night,” they responded knowingly, “Oh– is she being aggressive?”
I remember thinking, “Oh… so that’s alarming. This seems like a regular thing. Perfect.” Sirens were ringing.
But when I brought it up the following day, she apologized profusely. She told me she used to have issues with being an asshole when she drank and that she had confronted those things and worked on herself and drank less in order to prevent that behavior. She said that she hadn’t exhibited any issues like that in a very long time. She was very sorry and very frustrated with herself that I had been the object of such bad behavior.
I remember specifically asking her,“Is this something I should be worried about? Is this something I will have to experience again if I continue to see you?” She repeatedly insisted it was not representative of her typical going-out behavior these days. She vehemently insisted it would not happen again.
I wanted to believe her. So, I moved past it.
You can already guess how this story goes. It’s so painfully predictable, looking back on it. Hindsight is always 20:20. But remember: we’re talking about my life as I lived it in real time.
Put yourself in my shoes: not even looking for a relationship, but nevertheless finding myself excited about this undeniable instant connection with someone. I liked so many things about her. I was already invested in the narrative of this budding romance, of its unexpected potential to transcend 1,700 miles. And, if I'm being honest, in my pride, I loved the way she mythologized me. I was flattered, probably too flattered, by my previously unknown role in her life as someone she had wanted at first sight, as someone she had waited for, and I loved that everyone knew it. I loved that she regarded me as a dream come true. I loved how, at first, she treated me as such. She was a complete sweetheart 99% of the time. I had no real reason to think I couldn't take her at her word. I thought that I could maybe even help her heal those harmful patterns once and for all by providing safety and grace (ugh). On top of it all, it was summer. Everything felt extra shiny. I didn't have any real reason not to be optimistic.
This wasn’t some Colleen Hoover novel where you enter the story already knowing the direction it’s headed: where you watch from a distance with superior foresight and zero optimism that things will get better as the protagonist’s relationship inevitably and painfully unravels. When you’re living it, when you’re falling in love, when it evolves over a period of months, when you’re gaslit about what’s occurring, and when you’re a benefit-of-the-doubter like me, things aren’t so glaringly obvious.
But as you can probably guess, my ex partner’s issues with alcohol became a predictable pattern, just as her behavior when sober was revealed to be increasingly unpredictable.
When my ex partner drank in excess, which she did almost every time a situation involved alcohol, the light behind her eyes would become glassy. She became unrecognizable to me. Glazed eyes were accompanied by stumbling and slurred speech that made little to no sense. The smile I loved would contort into a drunken sneer. It was her tell; she only smiled like that when she was drinking. By the end of our relationship, that look made my skin crawl. Because I knew what it would bring.
When drunk, my ex partner was off putting at best and catatonic or cruel at worst. Sometimes I could play it off, diffuse the situation in the moment and file it away for later, sober discussion. But oftentimes, she would push and push; she would try to get an emotional rise out of me in order to provoke an immediate conversation. She would ignore all my boundaries and follow me from room to room as I prepared for bed. She would get up in my space. She would neg me and belittle me, she would make these horrible comments insinuating I wasn’t faithful or that I didn’t take our relationship seriously. She would hurl incoherent hurtful statements at me. Alcohol abuse in a relationship is so painful in part because it makes civil interaction impossible.
In the days following these outbursts, she would simultaneously try to tell me that what I saw happening wasn’t actually happening… and also that she was “so sorry.” She would write off her harmful behavior and my reactions to that behavior as growing pains in our relationship: growing pains of long-distance, growing pains of living together, whatever applied at the time. She regarded it as something to be mutually worked through. She never took accountability, blaming anything else–even me–for her anxiety or alcohol-fueled actions. She insisted she must have an adverse reaction to certain types of booze. She insisted she would drink more moderately. She insisted she was drugged. She insisted she didn’t remember any of it. She insisted she wasn’t that drunk. At the same time, she insisted to me that things would change, that she would do better “for [me].”
The cognitive dissonance– of being told by her that she wasn’t doing anything “wrong” but also that she was “sorry”–drove me crazy. She would ask me pointed questions like, “have you told [insert best friend’s name here] about last night?” Her guilt was evident, as was its source, even if she couldn’t admit it to me or to herself. There were times when she woke me in the middle of the night after a bad night out, crying and asking for my insistence that we were “okay” and that I loved her.
I grew to love her, but not to trust her. Because she was so emotionally volatile, I never knew what I was going to get. Even her sober behaviors and reactions could be unexpectedly extreme without clear cause. I began to tread lightly, to try to anticipate these outbursts, but they existed independently of my actions. Her inner turmoil was evident in our relationship. Sometimes I would get gushing adoration from her (“I am so in love with you” “I want to marry you” “I want to be with you forever”) and sometimes I would get really alarming and hurtful behaviors. In the middle of an otherwise great day, she would suddenly say things like, “I don’t want to lose you. I just want to be with you forever. I’m scared you’re going to get sick of me.” And, her self-hatred was like a self-fulfilling prophecy.
She painted an illusion of a perfect relationship around her friends while she exploited, isolated and manipulated me in private. She looked through my phone while I was sleeping because she had a “bad feeling” and lied about it. She discouraged me from talking to my friends about our relationship and became angry when she found out I had told them of any specific mistreatment of me. She was rude to my friends and my sister and made bad first impressions on them that she never cared to mend. She would pick fights with me right before I was supposed to go to work or important events. She made a big public show of having a girlfriend who was a professional dancer while she complained constantly about my work schedule in private, hardly ever came to my games, and embarrassed me in front of my superiors when she got belligerently drunk at a game by herself. She would put my safety at risk by insisting she could drive the both of us when she was clearly drunk. I found myself worrying what might have happened had I not been of clear enough mind to know that was a terrible and dangerous idea. She would say things that made me concerned for her safety on top of my own. I told her on drunk and sober occasions that she was scaring me. But I saw how her maladaptive behaviors came from her own insecurity and trauma, and I felt bad for her even as I became the object of those behaviors.
Of course, there was so much good. The good, and my empathy for her pain, is why I stayed. Sometimes, things would be almost completely good for weeks at a time, to the point where I would think, “maybe this won’t happen again.” But then it always would.
My ex partner’s self-absorption and self-hatred were dressed as apologies. She would hurt me and then cry and apologize and proceed to tell me how she felt so bad and she felt sick to her stomach.
“I feel so bad about last night”
“I hope you know I’m sorry”
“I feel like such an asshole”
All these “I” statements, just begging me to tell her it was okay that she hurt me. She wanted me to soothe the sting of her own actions. She wanted my forgiveness so she could have permission to shed the weight of knowing how she mistreated me.
I saw how it weighed on her to hurt me, and I felt sorry for her. Meanwhile, she was feeling sorry for herself the entire time. She didn’t feel sorry in a way that was empathetic towards me and my suffering; she felt bad because the guilt was a blow to her self esteem. Did she ever have any real consideration for my feelings at all? Or just how my feelings injured her perception of herself?
She told me on multiple occasions that she worried she was a bad partner to me. She would say things like “You’re going to get sick of me eventually.” “Please stay patient with me.” “Thank you for putting up with me.”
I hated when she said that. Because I was thinking, “I don’t want to endure you; I want to love you.” I was thinking, “must I again be made to endure someone’s purported ‘love’? Must I again suffer at the hands of someone who claims to love me?”
In the end, the nature of our relationship grew into something all too familiar to me. The intermittent reinforcement of receiving glowing admiration that would put me on cloud nine, interspersed with volatile outbursts that brought me lower than ever, resembled my trauma. I know how addicting and painful a cycle like that is; I cut contact with my own mother two years ago to escape that kind of volatility. I would certainly not endure a situation like that again, and I told her as much. And yet, she clung to me and promised me the relief of sweet change that would never come.
I think I always knew on some level that it wouldn’t. I’ve punished myself time and time again for not trusting that feeling. But, I loved her. I wanted to believe her. And I don't necessarily think she was even lying to me; I think she truly believed she was telling the truth. I think she couldn’t even admit to herself that she didn’t have the strength to stop mistreating me/drinking.
When I first began to admit the harm that was done, to recognize the abuse I had endured, I was so hurt and honestly so angry, namely at myself. That’s not what you’re supposed to say, but it’s true. Initially, I victim blamed tf out of myself. I was so angry that I hadn’t trusted myself, that I hadn’t honored my intuition when it first started telling me something was wrong. I had instead believed this person I loved when she repeatedly told me things would get better. I was so angry at the injustice of being roped into sticking around long enough to watch her choose her vices over me. I endured so much in the name of giving her space for growth just to never get to reap the benefits of any lasting change. I stayed with her as she manipulated and exploited me. I acquiesced when she pulled me back in after I tried to leave. I am so smart, and I felt stupid. I felt like I gave it all away for free. I opened my life and my home to her, bankrolled her entire existence, catered to her every volatile emotional whim, offered reassurance after reassurance, and became a never ending flow of patience and generosity, of entertainment and fun, of kindness. I felt taken advantage of. Worst of all, I felt complicit in my harm.
But I need to forgive myself for not knowing the things that I know now, back then. Because I wasn’t going to know until I knew.
I’m still finding ways to grieve aspects of this type of violation. Abuse robs you of so many of the luxuries of a normal breakup. It’s unfamiliar territory to me. I don’t get the usual friendship and mutual well-wishes from an amicable breakup or the pettiness and “you aint shit” anthems from a less amicable breakup. I’ve tried all that on for size and found that none of it really fits. Because the grief has more breadth than I’m used to. We often grieve our exes as partners, yes; as friends, maybe. But, I’ve never had to grieve the very idea of who my partner was (namely, someone who would never abuse me) in this way. And, the particulars of our relationship have made it extra confusing.
I’m making space for the emotions that come as a result of so much of the abuse happening in my space. She lived with me for a time. So, I was suffering in my own home and safe space–this gorgeous, lush, alive state that I love so much, the place I ran to when I was running from all the things in Minnesota that might hold me back (how ironic). Portland was my oasis. Reclaiming my home and my city as a place that was mine before it was ever hers and will continue to be mine in the aftermath of her isn’t always easy. The bastardization of my safe space is a violence that lingers. Luckily, Portland is oh so easy to love.
The abuse was definitely perpetuated by the living situation. I tolerated more, allowed my boundaries to be violated more, because it felt like there were such high stakes to truly asserting those boundaries. Ending things would’ve meant kicking this person I loved out of my home, sending her back to Minnesota with her tail between her legs, and possibly never seeing her again. For a long time, I didn’t feel prepared for that. So, the living situation prolonged our relationship, and it put me in constant close proximity to my abuser.
I’ve thought a lot about how ~the queerness of it all~ informed our relationship and what I tolerated within it. My ex partner had been the more intense one about our relationship from the start– more futuristic, more giving of intense expressions of love from very early on, etc. Looking back, it probably should’ve been a red flag. But, falling into quick love is a canon event for queer women. There’s a running joke in the queer community that goes like this: if you see a U-Haul driving down the road, it’s two lesbians on their second date. She was my first girlfriend. I often feel a level of instant camaraderie with women that makes it easier to get intimate more quickly. And, I wanted to think that I was worthy of such adoration from her. So I thought, “This must just be how it is with women.” I thought we were just being gay. Now, I realize that I was more likely being love bombed, because she would go on to treat me worse than anyone else I’ve dated. But manyyyy queer women have walked this path before me I am sure.
I wouldddd say something like, “Girls will abuse you for months, give you the worst vacation experience of your life whilst pretending that everything’s fine to their friends and posting calling you their WIFE, and then break up with you over the phone a week later. And then, three days after that, girls will post an entire carousel of your film photos that you took on said awful vacation you were on together that they still owe you over $900 for!” … but I think that’s actually just my ex partner.
I wanted this perfect gay love story. I wanted to finish out our story as perfectly as it had begun. And I thought if I was perfect, if I showed up to the work of the relationship with integrity, then it would be perfect. But that wasn’t true.
Discerning the truth in our relationship was always difficult for me. Even now, I haven’t fully decided if my ex partner was calculated or just absolutely clueless in her mistreatment of me, and honestly both are violent. Regardless, the light of day would always work in her favor. After a bad night, I would wake up better rested and not feeling as awful as I had the night prior. She would wake up sober and sorry and gaslighting me about what had happened. I would tell myself, maybe it hadn’t actually been that bad.
But it was that bad.
I’m healing by standing in that truth. I’m honoring myself by trusting my own eyes, my feelings, my gut. I know it was that bad because I was there.
It is likely my ex partner and I remember the relationship, and the breakup, very differently. Because I spent so much of it effectively alone.
I am the sole keeper of so many of our memories together, wonderful and horrible. Because she doesn’t remember them. Because she wasn’t present for them. Because she was drunk.
Alcohol abuse in an intimate partnership relegates the victim to a state usually reserved for those in bereavement: I’m the only one who lives to tell our story. In its entirety, at least. And for that, I feel sorry for her. For that, I also envy her. Because she didn’t have to be present for all her mistreatment of me. She can’t even acknowledge all the harm that was done because she doesn’t remember half of it. How tragic. How convenient.
I am the only reliable narrator of our story. What a burden, to remember everything. What a gift, to remember everything. How terribly lonely, remembering everything.
As is so often the case, I feel much less lonely now that I’m out of the relationship. Every day I am rescued by the small comforts of my life. People have shown up for me in ways I never expected and always notice. I’m proud of myself for forming a community like that, even across the country from the first 22 years of my life. I’m thankful for my best friend who still lives in constant proximity to so many people involved in this story yet honored me in his secrecy until I was ready to have it all be known. I’m thankful to have friends who keep me honest in all ways, even about myself. My ex partner certainly doesn’t have that, and I feel sorry for her for that, too.
I know that an intimate partner often bears the brunt of their partner’s trauma and maladaptive behaviors in ways that others don’t always see. I also recognize that it might be a lot to ask for people to intervene in their friend’s relationship in support of someone they only recently met. But there were multiple occasions where her friends bore witness to her mistreatment of me, and none of them expressed any concern for me. When I tried to talk to them about my own concerns, I was dismissed. So this is a call for honesty and growth, both for my ex and for the people around her who have coddled and enabled her. Because your denial is violent. You saw things happen right in front of you–imagine what I was dealing with in private. Why didn’t you protect me?
Her maladaptive and destructive behavior isn’t a personality trait. It’s harmful, and it’s certainly not normal. It is infuriating to watch her alcohol abuse continue to be the butt of your jokes when I know the devastation I suffered as a result of it. I know the absolute havoc it wreaks on her life and her relationships, including her relationship with herself. I see you post stories of her qUirKy drunk screams and remember how she used to scream at me. You’re not helping her in your blissful ignorance; you’ve enabled her to the point of crisis. She deserves to be held to a higher standard by the people close to her. It’s not fair that I was the only person to do that.
Abusers, of alcohol and of their intimate partners, deserve support and care. But they’re the only ones who can make real change for themselves. I feel so much relief internalizing that it’s not my responsibility anymore. It never was, but I took it on, anyway. The urge to mother a lover is palpable. More than anything, I’ve been feeling massive relief at not having to anticipate her outbursts anymore, at not having to anxiously await the approach of drinking holidays, at not having to compensate for and cater to her all the time. My ex isn’t a villain to me; I still mostly feel sorry for her. And then I think, “well, that can’t be right. Come on Maggie, stop trying to be virtuous. You were hurt so many times, you were wronged so egregiously–how could you not be angry? Stop trying to take the high road.” But even so, the feelings usually don’t come. Of course I feel hurt and still shocked by her behavior; I’ll never understand, and I don’t want to. I never want to be in a place where abusive behavior seems logical to me. I feel embarrassed for her when I think about how it seemed logical to her. I feel an array of emotions in regards to her, but she’s not a villain to me. She just has a lot of fucking work to do, and I don’t intend to ever be around her again while that work is in progress.
So that’s a chapter of my story. I know there’s a community out there that needs to see this. So many people never speak publicly about abuse because they know they are the ones the questioning and shaming will be directed at. As I prepare to let this out into the world, my heart both breaks and swells with pride for me.
Healing from this relationship is an exercise in focus, in what I give my attention to. Because there are so many instances to be mad about. We should never romanticize abuse; I don’t think this was meant to happen to me in any way. However, it helps me to acknowledge the growth I earned in it.
I undid wrongs done unto me by doing right by her. I provided grace to someone in a vulnerable state just as I deserved in the past. I proved myself wrong about how patient I could be. And yeah, maybe I swung the pendulum too far towards patience. But I’ll never regret being gentle with someone.
I can feel proud of my conduct. I know that I showed up with compassion and grace. I shed my ego for the sake of love; I’ll always be someone that flew across the country to chase a feeling. How brave of me to have seen it through, to have opened myself up to someone in this way when I was long ago convinced my scars would prevent me from doing so. I am so proud of a younger version of myself, even from mere months ago, for how she conducted herself with integrity under such harsh conditions. I’m working on holding her with the same tenderness I’ve been shown by others. I thank her for no longer martyring herself for the sake of her partner. I thank her for honoring both of us by standing up for herself in the end, even if her ex partner wasn’t listening. I hold her face between my hands and tell her what I know now, what she helped me learn, which is also what I would offer to other survivors:
There are things you are, and there are things you are not.
You are not a therapist.
You are not a mother.
You are not the answer. Much as you would like to be.
You are an imperfect person with a massive capacity to provide and receive love and care.
You are someone with your entire beautiful life ahead of you. You retain all your dreams and all your people and all your gifts (one of which I am nurturing now by recommitting to my writing). Nothing can take these things away from you.
Most of all, you are so brave for being so committed to feeling everything life has to offer.
I refuse to numb myself out to sorrow or shame or grief. They are as intrinsic to a full life as joy and love. I watched my ex be so scared to feel big feelings, opting to live in this alcohol-muddled middle space rather than brave the extremes of her own life. I refuse to do the same. It’s better to feel pain than nothing at all. Love and grief are two sides of the same coin, and they both rip you into being alive. It’s good to be jolted like that every once in a while.
Now, all I can do is heal. All I can do is… never do that again. But also, do that again every single day. What I mean is: I will never diminish myself like that again, but I hope to never stop being so gentle. Healing is a return to innocence, to a time before I realized just how much abuse can look like love. I don’t want to come out of this with walls up–what a waste of precious time that would be. I’ve never been good at guarding my heart, and I don’t plan to get better at it anytime soon. I’d rather get torn into time and time again and allow myself to be changed for the better every time. I’m so proud of my ooey gooey heart that continuously refuses to harden.
Now, I will walk the streets drenched in cherry, magnolia, and camellia blossoms. I’ll sit on my back step with my tea beside me and stare at the stars as I always have, and I’ll feel held. I’ll feel seen as I haven’t in a long time, because I’ve finally validated what I saw and endured. I’ll know that I can trust my gut because it’s shown that it is wise enough to care for me. I will continue to show up for all the people in my life who deserve it, especially myself. And I’ll know that my ex deserved it, too. Because we all deserve love and care, even if we don’t know what to do with it.
I’ll leave you with a photo I took the day after the breakup. I got home from a game that I’d felt so good at and received so much support at, and then I peeled my fake lashes off and promptly fell apart in front of my bathroom mirror because I thought some new upsetting thought that I hadn’t thought of yet. I wrote these words shortly after, and I stand by them now. I’m impressed by my own foresight in knowing the most painful of the feelings would pass even as I was in the thick of them. Cheers to getting emotionally flambeed and continuing to live to tell the tale!
It is a gift to feel so strongly. I tend to forget how horrible things can feel. But, I embrace it.
I let the sobs take me, rack my body, reduce me to salt and snot and shuddering breaths. I’m lucky to be able to feel this way. Lucky to be alive to feel at all, lucky to be able to feel so strongly, lucky to have the good sense to know that it’s appropriate and exactly right to feel so strongly right now. Lucky to know that I was wronged, that I went out honest, that I tried so hard, that I loved so well.
I see myself in the mirror: bloodshot, blotchy, and brave as I’ve ever been.
I am so proud of me.
Better days are coming, if no one told you. Thanks for reading <3