This is how it starts. Where it leads depends on many things, but this is how it starts. Kind-hearted people have their totally normal sense of reality eroded until other abuses creep in and create more trauma.
The topsy turvy world the victim/survivor lives in due to the gas-lighting is such an integral part of the trauma bond. When you feel like you can’t even trust your own perceptions, you cling to the person supposedly helping you.
Be careful. Trust yourself first.
I still have questions for you and I think that is mostly what makes it hard to let go.
My memories spin out and my mind follows down a twisting rabbit hole.
What did you really want from me? A sugar mama? A baby factory? A beard?
I don’t know why you need a beard in 2021 in Ontario’s San Francisco, even to have/adopt children, and statistically speaking gay men are better off financially than single moms.
Oh, right, I’m not supposed to have figured out you are bisexual at least if not fully gay. Monogamy is still something you insisted on. Judging by that random condom on your dresser that one time and your very active Grindr status though, it’s not something you even attempted for me.
You know I tout the rainbow myself so I’m having trouble accepting any possible reason for lying about this to your partner instead of honestly negotiating some parameters to get your sexual needs met. You never straight up asked what my limits were – it was always assumed. You may have been surprised.
Regardless, it’s clear you saw me as some variation or combination of those three things and that hurts. I wasn’t a person to you. I was just a means to an end.
How long did it take you to realize how smart I am?
MENSA is not knocking down my door but, Honey, I know I’m no slouch in the intellect department. While still together, you got mad when my academic achievements came up in conversation, to the point I started downplaying them and you still don’t even know all of them (your lawyers do though – I know they’ve researched me), but at first you played along. You pretended to speak languages you don’t, but I do fluently, until you realized I wasn’t just spouting a few catch phrases and swear words and claiming to speak the language. You gaslit my experiences which weren’t the same as your own so I wouldn’t make you discuss them further and highlight knowledge you did not share.
Did you know I actually would have found it more honourable and gracious and intelligent for you to acknowledge your own limits and treat it as a learning opportunity? Most smart people would.
What do you think I wanted from you?
Whatever it is, you’re not right. Your continuous lies about money and power and status make me think you thought I was a gold-digger.
Hand on my heart honest here – when you lied about your wealth before we even met, I contemplated ending it. I wanted a partner who was not dependent on me financially but I wasn’t exactly looking to play with a trust-fund baby either. Gag me. I kept talking to you as I weighed up my options and you didn’t rag on about golf or sailboats or how many bottles of liquor you and the boys pounded or anything and you seemed (at first) pretty humble. “He can’t help it if he inherited money,” I thought. It became apparent you weren’t raised with any.
I meant what I said everytime I told you this:
“I don’t want your money. I only want the things you can’t buy me.” (Like kisses, compliments, laughs and a hand to hold.)
I meant it – whether all you had was a nickel or a few million – I did not care as long as you lived within your means.
What were you thinking when you assaulted me? Every single time?
How did you justify that in your head? Or did you even? Did you know what you were doing was so wrong? When you choked me and the other assaults I can’t type now, what were you thinking?
Why did you target me?
What did you see in me that made you focus in on me? I assume there were a few attempts to manipulate other women between your last ex and me, but why did I fall for it? Or why did you go all in on me?
Does it haunt you just a little at the potential that was there?
In many ways, and even people who know us both can see it, we would have been an amazing couple. We have similar interests, preferences, values and intellectual pursuits. Our sense of humour meshes well and there were things we indisputably just understood about one another that, for me at least, is rare.
I don’t think you see it because you were playing a game and trying to manipulate me. There was too much wrong for it to be right, but there were pure moments which were perfect.
Maybe you were just mirroring me?
If I had a magic wand and I could make this all better and we were somehow reunited, what would you even do then?
I don’t think you even want me back (and believe me it’s mutual). I think if I showed up on your doorstep, I’d be summarily dismissed. I think the woe-is-me broken-hearted game you are playing to the rest of the world as you pretend to pine for me is actually an attempt at control within the legal parameters you’ve been afforded.
But I don’t know; I could be wrong.
Assuming you did love something about me, what actually was it?
Specific compliments were basically non-existent and there was clearly some pre-existing mould you were trying to slot me into. I learned later most of the gifts you gave me were originally intended for your last ex or your ex-wife. Things you spoke about for building a life together were things you liked about one of them, but they weren’t something you actually wanted or asked me about. I was a placeholder in the dreams you already developed.
I’m not either of them. I’m me. Assuming you did love me – why? I don’t see it.
And how dumb did you think I would be to not realize this? How you can simultaneously try to pass this off and avoid intellectual topics I could school you on is contradictory to say the least.
Do you think I’ve forgotten your threats and attempts to get me fired? Do you think I don’t occasionally still listen to those voicemails to remind myself how ugly the other side of that coin is?
Darlin’, they’re saved on multiple drives.
How many of your lies do you think I (and everybody else) have figured out by now? How many?
So why are you maintaining the charade?
How do you justify the unnecessary pain you cause the people around you?
Not just me.
Why? Who hurt you and how? When? Why do you perpetuate it?
Something happened at some point and your life came to a fork in the road. My heart wants that story. I don’t expect to get it, but I want it.
Do you even know what an honest apology looks like to me?
I can’t speak for others but, for me, actions will always speak louder than words. Even with all your restrictions, you still have lots of freedom. What are you going to do with it?
Do you miss Bean? Do you still miss them?
Please say you at least miss them. I could barely function today for sorrow over losing them.
————————————————–
I’ll never get these answers, at least not honestly. It’ll be a contrived answer to tell me what you think I want to hear – not the truth – if you tell me anything at all. The latter is more likely unless something comes out at court.
So, since nobody else can tell me either, I might as well ask you. How do I make peace with all that?
What’s one more question?
New scars are forming, some more visible than others.
Depression is a houseguest I’ve been unable to evict since evicting Asshole from my life. Occasionally they leave to visit another friend for a few days and I get to glimpse my old life and I am regaining hope, but thus far they’re still returning regularly.
During just one such period almost two weeks ago now, when Mz. D had her shit flung all over my life and tucked in every crevice, I was focusing very intently on the mental image of long fingers with bitten nails gliding across the keys and trying to think of something else.
It’s an agonizingly slow process from inside and Mz. D doesn’t make me cry in any sort of therapeutically purging way; she makes me sigh and think even that is too much effort if I can think at all. And eat junk food. Junk food is good.
The microwave beeped, drawing me from my reverie, and alerting me that my soup was ready. I clicked open the microwave door and the harsh thud and click seemed rudely loud.
Apparently my thinking was not working so well at that time. Maybe I added an extra zero to the microwave timer and didn’t notice it in my Mz. D stupor?
The mug holding the soup had miraculously not shattered in the extreme heat but my skin audibly sizzled the second it touched the scalding hot porcelain.
I don’t think I screamed or even hissed. I know I felt the pain and was vaguely concerned but it was some sort of distant reaction. I put the mug down, turned and put my fingers under cold water.
They still burned. Through icy cold water that was making my joints ache, my fingers still burned. Blisters were already visible.
Well this is gonna suck.
After what felt like a few minutes, I took my fingers out of the water.
Ow, I thought with all the expression of a socialite with too much botox.
In retrospect, I probably should have gone to urgent care or the ER. I just stuck my fingers back in cold water for a few more minutes and tried to get my brain engaged. The pain was becoming more apparent.
I decided to hold ice on it and eat my soup. Who really cares if two fingers fall off when one has soup?
After eating my soup, and with half the ice melted, I inspected my fingers. At that moment it would have been easier to list the parts of my palm which were not blistered as the burn seemed to spread subcutaneously while I was focused on noodles and broth.
Ugh. I’m tired. I can’t deal with this right now.
My next, entirely logical, step was to take a nap.
(Thankfully, I was “working” from home that day after waking up in physical pain and trying to find a reason to open my eyes. Gracing others with my presence seemed an unnecessary punishment, for both of us.)
By that time my palm was tomato red and my index and pointer fingers were basically a series of blisters interrupted by knuckles. I put band-aids over the worst of it, took some tylenol and went about life grateful I am left-handed at the very least and that Mz. D seemed to be dulling my pain sensors somewhat. I’ve been badly burned before – this should have hurt more.
I was able to baby the hand well enough to let most of the blisters recede without the skin falling off – hallelujah! – but was not lucky on one finger. The other blisters are leathery and painful but not terribly visible and healing well. The popped blister got infected though and ta-da!
New scars – new, visible scars from Asshole. (Not him directly, but the distracted depression our relationship sent me into which led to it.) The irony is he has a history with hand injuries of his own so now when I try to bend my knuckle and it aches or I feel the rough skin rub against the other finger or it weeps and bleeds, I think of him.
I was hoping the reminders would fade.
Photos are posted in black and white to save you from some of the more gruesome aspects. Ew!
Pristinely chilled air painted my cheeks pink as the flaming orange leaves cackled above me. The sun was hung low in the west and it wasn’t even supper time.
My boy’s blond head had already bounded off ahead of me for the bouncy motorcycles on the playground he once rode with Asshole back when the humidity of the great lakes basin gave us all curls. When he reached his favourite, the blue one in front, he turned to smile at me and called.
“Mommy! This one!?”
“Sure, Baby. You can ride that one.” I continued strolling closer, Trixie the stuffed Triceratops under my arm, as he rode the toy so hard the back of it made wood chips fly behind him. His laughter was infectious and we had matching dimples in short order.
Before long, Trixie and Pumpkin and I were all on a giant teeter-totter. His cheeks were rosy and his hair was wild in the autumn wind but it was a rare pure and sweet moment that stretched an eternity before flashing to a close.
I am blessed and I know it. Even as a writer, I haven’t fully been able to articulate how lucky I am and how grateful I am for what has happened. I would put the pain down in an instant if I could, but I am not blind to the blessings and love which have been heaped on me since the start of September. Things I never could have dreamed of have literally fallen in my lap recently.
It’s October now – late October – and I’ve been away from Asshole as long as I was with him. The good days and hope are starting to rival the utter despair I felt when I left after I was broken. Little things are making me smile, I’m noticing the beauty in others again, and I have questions and hopes and dreams for the future. Simply breathing from one minute to the next isn’t enough anymore.
This could have broken me beyond repair. This could have ruined every aspect of my life completely but, even as I told him in the thick of it, “I’ll be ok”. I’ll have scars, but I’ll be ok.
My colleague and friend who has been there for me through it all told me last week she thinks God chose me, in a way, because he thought I was strong enough and had the necessary people around me to withstand this trial and somehow do some good. I haven’t told anybody about my little chat with Mary.
I don’t know if I am strong enough but I have so many people supporting me that together we are. My only unique “strength” (or weakness) is an inability to not speak my heart, so when he tore it open, everybody knew. Then I discovered I was more loved than I knew. Regardless, this pain will seem more worth it if something good can come from it.
Luck or fate or God or the cosmic Her did the rest and is continuing to do it. I’m just trying to play my part as blessings continue to be heaped upon me and I don’t know what to do with them. I’ve been promoted in my corporation, they keep offering me different leadership roles (which I have thus far turned down), and two boards I work with have asked me to take on leadership roles as well. Clients and friends are throwing clients and compliments at me left and right and my business is growing. A neighbour recently asked for help with a development project which would provide much-needed high-density housing for the city.
I don’t deserve this and I still wish I could have healed him. I can’t, so I’ll serve where I can. I’m trying to be ok with letting somebody else put together this puzzle of a man.
Does every abuse victim in recovery feel this way?
We were talking in your living room that morning and things were generally normal apart from, oh, right, the fact I found your HIV drugs that morning.
Then the depression slipped over me with a speed and totality I had never experienced before. It was like being covered by a suffocating blanket instead of slowly slipping into quicksand.
Something had just been sucked from my very essence and I sat suddenly lifeless, yet somehow still breathing, on your teal-green couch. I saw you in front of me but I couldn’t see you really through the blanket.
You said something. I remember the sound of your voice and the rhythm of your words but I’ll be damned if I actually even heard them at that time.
“Hm?” I replied instinctually as if repeating yourself would somehow make your speech suddenly comprehensible. The effort it took to make the one inquisitive sound may as well have been a half marathon. I was only still breathing because I hadn’t yet processed the fact there was an alternative.
You repeated yourself, of course, but it made no difference.
I was a fish out of water and I stared at you blankly. None of your edges were crisp as my eyes went unfocused.
“Varity?” you said like a parent trying to get their children’s attention. It wasn’t harsh or sharp, but it was authoritative.
I blinked in your general direction and my mouth tried to form words. I’d just run a half-marathon though and I was out of gas.
“Varity!?” you said more sharply and I saw your amorphous shape in my unfocused eyes lean forward in your chair across from me.
I stared in your direction and willed my eyes to focus. Green eyes under dark, bushy eyebrows were trained on me. Your frame was erect and tense and you were ready to pounce on some unseen danger.
My mouth moved and my body started to feel like jelly as I slumped further into the couch. I wanted to tell you…I couldn’t remember what I wanted to tell you. This was all so much.
Suddenly you were crouched in front of me peering up into my face and cradling it gently in your hands.
“Varity?” you said and the panic was creeping into your voice. Your eyes were the size of saucers and the deep green of a winter pine forest. I swear, when I looked right in your eyes it was all I ever saw. “Varity? What’s going on?”
My pity played hero to your sad face again and gave me just enough of a hit of adrenaline to form words with my tongue and enough breath to put air behind them.
“I’m just so tired. I’m empty. I need to rest,” I said softly and closed my eyes for a moment.
You indisputably had more energy than I did so you did me the favour of crying so I could return to being catatonic. Hibernation seemed like a very good idea.
“Varity! Dodi! Dodi, come back. Please, you can’t do this right now. You can’t leave me,” you said with a simultaneous firm and panicked voice while gently shaking my shoulders, like I was a child who’d run out in traffic in front of their parents.
I tried to speak again. I felt air leave my throat but the words didn’t quite make it. I swallowed hard, took a deep breath and tried again.
My chest bolstered with full lungs, I summoned a little energy to bow my lips to your forehead. I planted a soft, slow kiss on you, before slowly exhaling reassurances closer to your ear.
“I’m empty. I feel empty. I need rest. I’ll be ok.”
I slumped back into the couch as you spun out in a low-grade panic attack trying to fix what you broke and having no idea how to do it. You still don’t, quite frankly.
There was some more chatter but I’m not even sure you could hear the words my mouth struggled to form. Zombies have more life than I did that morning.
I slept most of the rest of the day but the fog receded briefly a few times. I do remember one point where you lavished my feet with special lotion and fretted over me there on your living room floor. It smelled divine and you wanted me to feel special and loved – that much was clear.
After you finished, a hard, painful lump formed in my chest. I felt it grow and words failed me again before I heaved it out with deep aching sobs.
Concern contorted your face again as you came to my side. I expelled the physical pain from my chest as I cried “Bean!” and you wept softly with me for a few moments. You tried to cheer me up and said we could try again but I was still bleeding and there was no time for “next time”.
We played scrabble (and I beat you so bad). That was a happy dream within the nightmare of that day and it was genuinely happy.
I still had to go and I knew it. This was as good as it got and I had to be half-dead for you to treat me with this much empathy and concern and I could still see the red flags, even through my suffocating blanket, and my heart was breaking all around me and I still had to go.
I wanted to do it more peacefully, but you did me the favour of reminding me exactly how large and vibrant those red flags were by flagrantly disrespecting me, and pissing me off enough to give me the energy to physically get up. So I stayed true to our entirely dramatic six weeks and left with a bang.
You could only maintain the princely façade for so long. It made it so much easier to get out. Not coming back and struggling with trauma bonding was an ongoing ordeal, but getting out the door was easy.
Truth and Recovery 