I still check my damn blocked message folders with this thought in the back of my mind like “maybe she will have realized her mistake in losing me”. How many times now have I been proven wrong? Everytime I do find a message there its far from being a kind one, not once in two years has one of those messages included an apology or empathy.
I still find myself scared to run into you, scared to see you, scared when I realize I know people or met someone who is friends with you. I know you don’t speak kindly of me, which is fair enough you can do what you want, but I know you spread lies about me, start rumours, tell everyone that the abuse never existed, that I’m making it all up. I’ll ask you this: lets say for a sec I did make up the abuse (I didn’t though), why would your reaction be to push me away say horrible things to me and not try and see a therapist like I suggested? Like deep down, if you thought for real I made this up: why didn’t you help me? Because you know I didn’t, somewhere in there.
I still have trouble when people are loving unconditionally, I feel like I anticipate a catch or the lie of it. Fun fact, thats how I finally realized I was being abused, I went to a teacher training and while there I felt unconditionally loved and accepted for the very first time and it was SUPER uncomfortable. I reflected on it for a bit and then it all hit me like a ton of bricks, all the treatment and the pain caused, like my whole view shifted because I realized that all these years you’ve been saying I’m the problem, I’m the flaw but its not me. It had nothing to do with me, I was just the scapegoat, the thing easiest to take out your feelings on. I have trouble asking for help, or taking some compliments/kind gestures because I still hear you or feel you in the back of my damn head telling me that I’m not enough, I don’t deserve it. You made me feel like I didn’t have the right to exist, or be loved.
I still sometimes struggle to stand up for myself, but I do it. Standing up to you made standing up to others easier, because the hardest shit has been done, and if I could stand up to you and end abuse I can do anything.
I still miss you sometimes. Not in the way that I want you back in my life, as you are anyway, but I miss what could have been. That family I always dreamed of, finally feeling loved and enough, and safe. Damn, what a dream that was. I miss the good moments, and the ones where I could pretend everything was fine.
Most of all, I still feel all of the effects of your abuse. I still feel the pain of it everyday, I still feel the struggle of believing in my own damn eyes/ears, and feelings. I still feel angry, disappointed, shame, and confused. I still question if it was me, if it really was my fault, maybe if I was a better person somehow (skinnier, smarter, kinder, funnier…) you’d have loved me. I still have tangible physical reactions to things that seem small like a hand on my shoulder or dragging feet behind me that put my body into a panic like I’m unsafe, in danger.
All of that said, you never really knew me. The version of me that I was around you was the version I had to be to stay safe. You didn’t like me being goofy, so I hid that away. You didn’t like my sensitivity so I tried to push down all my feelings, and I did for a long time…but the funny thing about doing that is they always come back. You didn’t like me standing up to you or being assertive, taking up space, so I made myself really small. So small I felt invisible for a lot of my life. I’m not that person anymore. Funny thing is, I think you’d really like this version of me. But I couldn’t be this me without losing you.