Tags

, , , , , , , , , , , , ,

The longer I stay clean,the longer I process my addictions, is the longer I slowly start to remember the abuse. I fear discussing it with anyone. The fact that I allow him to still affect me four years later is madness. I am quietly becoming insane. Insane, not in my traditional sense, no, insane in the way that my thoughts periodically go to him throughout the day. When I am not fully submerged in Mommy-mayhem mode, as I’m washing the dishes, my thoughts travel to the blonde haired, blue eyed monster that I was so entranced by.

When I clean the memories are the worst. They are the most toxic because they are not the abusive memories. They are the memories of us laying on his hand-made, horribly uncomfortable couch, his hand traveling across my back as we watch the movie he had allowed me to choose from red box. My mind drifts off to the scent of his axe, too strong, but in a way fitting for him. It makes me hate myself. I was broken for so long from his obsession and sadism that surrounded me. Now, I am consumed by thoughts of him. Four years later, when he is tired of me. I am finally thrown away like an old, worn up toy. And I hate the feeling. Why can’t I be that bright fire truck, shiny, and new, that he HAS to play with?

Then, as if my brain is in salvation mode, it brings me silently to the abuse I’d repressed and ignored. It might have been the drugs blocking it, or the pregnancy, but now it all rains down on me. When it rains, it’s not light mist hitting my face, it is a hurricane, destroying my psyche. The conflictions I felt in 2011 choose to reappear. I start to remember when he showed up to my high rise shit-faced and he couldn’t get erect, but when he started criticizing it suddenly all worked out. I used to remembered this as passionate sex, where I got so heated my water-proof mascara smudged, giving me the “raccoon look.” Now I get the full story from my mind. He had to put me down to get it up and I, as a bright eyed, happy go lucky, 18 year old, just took it. When he left, to avoid Andrea, because God-forbid he knew my friends, he was still drunk and made me stay on the phone with him until he got home so he didn’t fall asleep at the wheel.

I fear I am having a mental breakdown sometimes. Why does he haunt me at my most stable time? I have never been so consistently OK. It has been 14 months since I touched any substance, it has been over two years since I last intentionally overdosed. Why do things have to change? I have this beautiful baby now, with his bouncy curls, and wide smile, that I would do anything for. The memories don’t affect him yet. I don’t cry from them, I just get this tension in my chest. When I hold my son it slowly eases away. But what if one day he’s not enough? What if I stop being the attentive, attached mother that I’ve come to be proud of? I don’t want to handle this with medicine. I’m scared if I don’t deal with it now, one day, when I’m in my 30’s or 40’s it will all come rushing back. I’m scared that the longer I avoid my memories, when they do come back they will come back with a vengeance, because when has anything about him not involved vengeance?

There are so many weird things that trigger thoughts of him. I have had to stop watching cable because commercials of the new “Mad Max” movie are constantly popping up. Mad Max was his favorite movie. It’s how he started his motorcycle gang. He made a page to recruit people and covered it with photos from the movie. It’s almost comical, I could never remember what Mel Gibson movie it was. Now I can. Now that I don’t want to and the trailer for this new Mad Max doesn’t fail to appear on any channel I enjoy. So instead I watch Netflix. Or when I’m feeling daring and a bit masochistic I force myself to sit through the commercial in the hopes that I will miraculously become desensitized. It is ridiculous that four years later I still have to alter my life to accommodate parts of this man.

I think back to that perfect first date and am now realizing that I romanticized it. When we were driving to downtown he sped, he was aware that it scared me a bit but he did it and laughed about it. It was not a bright banner warning me of abuse but if you coupled that with the constant remarks about how young I was it was something. I’m still not as old as he was on our first date. I am two years younger, but I still would not choose to be with someone who is a freshman in college. He saw me as easy pickin’s, and I was. I had been cheated on, I had been hurt emotionally, betrayed but nothing prepared me for the pure ruination he would bring to my pretty little world.

I hate myself for writing this. I am a strong woman. I have grown from his abuse and I have become more resilient than I ever imagined I could be. So why am I burning with our memories? Why am I allowing myself to be re-victimized? That is the perfect description for what I am doing; re-victimizing. I ascended from the decay that he left me in and when I have stabilized myself for a significant period of time I start spiraling lower and lower. I am allowing myself to remember. I’m not resisting the part of my brain that he still occupies enough.

I allow him to visit my mind. I remember how sure he was of himself. He knew what he wanted, he knew who he was and he always had an explanation for his character defects so that they were never his fault. I think part of the reason the physical abuse escalated so quickly was because I saw him at his worst and he resented me for it. He wanted to eliminate any part of me that could judge him. He would use sexual manipulation. It was one of his favorites. He knew I prided myself on being sexually alluring. And he tore down parts of that. He made me feel green and inefficient. On the first date I was this temptation, this seductress that he had to have but as our relationship progressed I became talent-less to him.

The sexual manipulation is probably the hardest part to expose. I’m not sure I even have gone in depth in regards to it because I am ashamed. Not being able to satisfy him intimately made me feel repulsive. Just writing this I feel disgusting. He made me hate feeling virginal in anyway because it was the worst quality I could have, that I couldn’t even “be a good hole.”

I truly do not want to look at this section of the relationship because it became a part of my identity to be such a good fuck. I am terrified that if I divulge what he thought of me I will be perceived as just that. It is a paralyzing fear that once I talk about our sex life that who I became will all go away. That I will be viewed as sexually inept once more. His words haunt me. I don’t know what changed in us. We were so good sexually at first.

After we broke up, the only way to save my pride was to emasculate his penis. If I complained about it being too thin or too small then we never had to see what was hiding behind my mask. If I took the offense then I never had to address how I struggled with my sexual identity. The only times it was mind blowing for him was when he overpowered me in some way. What does that say about me? He had to hurt me in some way for me to be good in bed. Later in life I embraced being a slut because at least that meant I was satisfactory.

So much about our relationship shaped who I am today. Seeing the correlation of things causes me to pause and wonder if I am truly anyone or if I am just a product of him. The fucked up thing about all this is that I should be the most confident now. But instead of being content my twisted brain has chosen for me to feel completely insecure. It brought back the savage memories of the beast who killed a part of me. I had forgotten he had murdered beautiful pieces of the girl I was before. Now I’ve been reminded.