TW: Abuse & ED
There are some things in this life that you simply just cannot forget. I have only ever had a bloody nose once in my life, I was four. Red streaming down from my nostrils. The slushing and stirring of moments from my childhood; these core memories, these moments, smells, tastes, textures, these details my mind carries. Why this one and not the other? Who is going to tell me it can’t be true? Were you there? Do you remember? Who’s to say that your brain remembers more correctly than my own? Am I crazy? Delusional? What is really true in this world of dark, disgusting, horrific, horrible, terrible, terrifying things?
It was a Saturday, I was wearing a light blue t-shirt underneath a navy cotton Tommy Hilfiger dress from a charity shop. The dress had red straps and a teeny tiny logo on the chest, at the time I thought it looked like a flag of a made up country. I grew up knowing a lot about flags, just not about the red ones. My hair was tied up in two uneven buns which was unusual for me. My hair was always down, but I always wanted it in two long braids.
It was the afternoon; I was setting my stuffed animals up on my bed. One by one, next to each other, perfectly spaced, even and nice. I was extremely cautious as a child to not give extra attention to any of my toys. I was awfully scared I would hurt their feelings, I was afraid if I picked favourites the others would get angry in the night. I thought while I was sleeping, they would hurt me. I was often scared.
Suddenly, for the first and only time in my life, my nose started to bleed. Red touched my lips. It tasted like licking metal. Fear rose through my small pale body like a swarm of flying beetles. I couldn’t understand how something like that could happen for no clear reason. Why did my nose start to bleed that day? Why has it never bled again? How can blood pour out of me and somehow I can feel no pain?
20 years later, I’m scrolling on Pinterest and I come across “deep questions to ask your partner.” When I see it, I suddenly forget everything I’ve ever wanted to ask. I sit with the pain of being alone. The world keeps telling me how to have a relationship and I keep listening. How many months to wait, when to take the next steps, what behaviours are red flags, acceptable and unacceptable age differences, signs they actually hate you, things people wish they knew at 22 instead of 45. I listen to my friends, my family, my therapist, YouTube videos, Podcasts, Tiktoks and see Instagram infographics. I am terrified of being where I once was. The noise has gotten so loud I can’t even hear my own heart beating. I am often scared.
When I was younger than I would like to recall, I had a boyfriend who wanted me to be his doll. I lived by his orders and completely lost my own sense of direction and self. I was living only to please him, I was obsessed with pleasing him, but he was rarely ever pleased. He wasn’t pleased when I was dressed head to toe in an outfit his mother bought me in an attempt to make me fit the picture his family desired. He wasn’t pleased when I starved myself after he forced me onto a scale and ridiculed my weight; I needed to lose more. He wasn’t pleased when I put on black lingerie and tried to be sexy like he asked me to; he laughed at me and I felt like a pig in lace. With him, there was no such thing as “no.”
Months into the relationship I started to try to document the things he was doing to me, bite marks he left on my skin, bruises, videos of him tormenting me in the dark while playing demonic hymns. One time he put a plastic bag over my head as a “joke” and he caught me trying to record him doing it. After that he started going through my phone and I became too afraid to save photos or videos of the abuse, so I stopped and it was as if it only existed in my head. There were days when he would buy me flowers, tell me he loved me more than anything in the world, that he would love me forever, he would cook for me, he would tell me that he would get better, that he would be better and that we would be together forever.
The experiences I had with him made me feel as though the only way a man would ever love me would be if I played a part and if I allowed them to take whatever they wanted from me. I became convinced that the real me, who I really was, authentically, me, I was unlovable. I told myself I felt special, even when his hands felt like claws and his teeth often latched on to my lips causing blood. When I tasted the blood I was reminded of my childhood. My first and only ever nose bleed, how painless it was, was that blood a painless warning of all the pain to come?
The way he touched my body felt intrusive and I felt powerless to it all. I felt broken, how and why could I love someone who did these things to me? But in some ways I was addicted to pleasing him, the rush of his anger, the rage, the tactics and games. The lowest of lows came with the highest of highs. I learned to dissociate when he got mean, I left my body when he touched me, I left my mind when he yelled and called me names, but my heart still stayed—it took on all the pain. I loved the person who was abusing me and I didn’t know how to stop.
My young desperate heart glorified the abuse to get through it, I didn’t know what else to do. Sitting on the floor of his bedroom with all the windows open, my legs sprawled out on the tile, smoking cigarettes as thick velvety curtains fluttered in the wind and the warmth from the outside seeped in. The sun was always so golden, the sunsets were most beautiful from his bedroom, peaking through in beams of light, waving on the walls like messages of hope.
One night he forced me into his vehicle after he had been drinking, my limbs felt so heavy. He drove so fast and when he sensed my fear he drove even faster. He liked to scare me, I think it actually turned him on. I closed my eyes and tried to breathe, he started to swerve, I felt us leaning closer to one side, I didn’t see what happened but suddenly there was a loud screeching sound, the honking of horns and we came to a sudden stop, still, for a moment. I kept my eyes shut, he sped up and drove away quickly, avoiding the scene.
I was threatened to stay quiet, blackmailed with photos he had taken of me, he destroyed me and I was silent. I didn’t know how to leave because I made excuses for his abuse. I empathized with him, I wanted to save him from the destruction he was creating but I was just drowning in it and I realized I wasn’t going to survive if I stayed. I didn’t know how to leave for good until it started hurting the people around me, and until it almost killed me. Then I did it, I left for good.
When no one believes you, and you’ve been told to stay quiet, you begin to believe the lies yourself. I have spent the majority of my 20s longing for a witness, longing for partnership, without realizing how lucky I have been to have so much time in private to witness myself, freely. Without realizing that I am now free from the abuse that shaped my perception of love at a younger age than I would like to recall. No one needs to believe what happened to me, I believe me, and I will choose myself, over and over, even when it means the only person is the one I see in the mirror.
I put new things in my memory box and know that time has passed, more than I want to remember. I don’t have a partner. When I strip away the tape from the boxes I have put myself in I realize that though dating in my 20s has felt like a tumultuous trek along rocky overgrown mountain paths, there have also been ridges and valleys. These rest areas of soft romance and I allow myself to fully indulge in the dream. Subconsciously I find safety there, knowing they likely won’t stay, and knowing I will be free to leave, because part of me is still afraid of leaving. So, I let the trek go on. Maybe it’s a gift, that we can experience passionate, beautiful, loving moments, even if it’s only for a moment.
I will long for days like these. Evenings spent alone in candle light, eating a tin of fish because no one is around to tell me it stinks, letting my stomach fold over my leopard print pajama bottoms. Not thinking about how my arms look or having to explain to anyone that watching reality television is fascinating and comforting to me.
When someone criticizes the men I have gone after, the patterns I regretfully have found myself repeating, they are talking to a girl who was once powerless, a girl who once didn’t envision a life where she was free. They are talking to a girl who thought love was submission, they are talking to a girl who thought abuse was the love she deserved, they are talking to a girl who loved her abuser.
There are wonderful, ethereal, curious, magical, beautiful, serendipitous things in this world. Laughter, kisses, honey, bellies and trees. I had a dream of a shooting star, bright white, beaming through the darkest night sky like an angel, like a blessing. Through the sky it fell, landing in sand in front of me. When it fell, I got close. It was made up of thousands of tiny shining stars. Slowly, they all melted away, like a snowflake, revealing its beauty to disappear. Time has passed and I am free.