You were fowl. You were awful. You were insane. Addicted to doing any drug that came your way. Unsanitary. Lazy. Easily angered. Irrational. Stupid. Controlling. Dangerous.
I had so much hate in my heart for you. I spent hours in bed after waking up from nightmares of you choking me, laying there in bed in a rage imaginging ways I could get back at you. Every time I shot drugs up into my arm I blamed you. I remembered you slapping me over and over as you held my collar screaming “WHERE DID YOU HIDE THE DRUGS I KNOW THERES MORE IN THE HOUSE AND I NEED THEM”. I remembered you breaking your ps2 controller on my back and then kicking me repeatedly bc I made you break your only good controller. I remember you taking my hair and beating my head against the passenger side window bc I grabbed your jacket but it was the wrong one. I remember you locking me out in the back porch room, soaking me with the hose in 40 degree weather, and leaving me locked out there for an hour. I remember you shoving a mcchicken in my face amd mashing it into my hair because I said I was feeling too ill to go with you to get drugs that day. I remember you wrapping a shirt around my neck and nearly chocking me out bc u we’re on a bad trip and thought I was a demon. I remember you picking me up and body slamming me one of the many times you caught me trying to leave. I didn’t try again after that. I remember the cops being called once and one angel officer in particular looking at me dead in the eyes as he asked me “has he hit you?” and feeling your firey gaze on my neck. Even tho I said no, I still got beat that night. I remember trying to open my jaw after you shattered my cheekbone with a pan, saying “I don’t think it’s suppose to click like that”. I remember trying to make the best of my situation and cleaning your entire house from top to bottom one day, only for you to hurl a glass vase at me that missed and instead shattered against the front door, splattering all over the living room. The broken pieces were everywhere. I cleaned it up. Cuts all over my fingers. I remember you burning cigarettes into my feet as you held my legs one at a time, asking “do you still wanna leave? Huh??” I remember you throwing me into the drywall and my body making a 3×2 hole in it. I remember trying to run out the door one day and being yanked back by the hood of my jacket, being thrown back into the floor and you kneeling down and screaming in my face “YOUR MINE BITCH AND YOU ARE NEVER LEAVING ME!!” I remember being afraid to do whatever drugs you had with you that day but more afraid of what you would do to me if I refused. I remember that I was still a cutter during that time, and you picking up the habit, sicking the fresh slices on your arm in my face and saying “See what you do to me? You did this. Fucking hateful bitch”
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I’ve had a lot of time to revisit those memories. Over and over. Wondering why I couldn’t escape. Wondering what was wrong with me. Being told by therapists that I had Stockholm syndrome. I turned it over in my mind every which way to try and rationalize it. Every angle still found a way for me to blame myself for what happened to me. And for such a stupid and clearly dangerous situation, I must be a piece of shit loser for just letting it happen.
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But then I awakened. I had an epiphany, a spiritual awakening, a collapse of ego. Self compassion and forgiveness engulfed me. And I had a chance to look at this situation with new eyes.
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I saw clearly for the first time. The child you once were. The soul underneath the monster. I had to have more love in my heart than the hate in yours in order to overcome what you did to me. That is how I healed. There is no getting over such pain and suffering other than completely letting it go. There will always be flashbacks. There will always be nightmares. But they don’t have to get to me anymore. They don’t. I don’t have to let that be the story of me. I can move on. And be at peace.
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What’s stopping you, my friend? 🙂
