Over the months leading up to the incident, I had lost myself. Though the occasional warning or hesitation from a friend would bother me, I convinced myself that I was "happy". That I was doing the right thing. I believed that though things weren't perfect, there was love.
The state of mind in this type of situation is complex and often misunderstood. When people simple say to remove yourself from it. Or to "just leave"; the person actually in the situation often finds it impossible... Even if they want to. Even if they know they should. Even if they realize that their very life depends on it.
The feeling of freedom is long gone. Independence ceased to exist a long time ago. You are trapped in a never ending cycle of darkness that is beyond your control. The hold, the grasp, the power that you allow someone to have over you thereby takes away all of yours. You find that you have given up yourself; so how could you possibly take back something that hasn't been yours for so long?
At the time, I was no longer me. I had been molded into what he thought I was. What he wanted me to be. What he convinced me that I should be. My choices were no longer mine. I became totally dependent on him for everything; my decisions, my opinions, my happiness. I truly believed that I needed him.
By what would turn out to be the end of the relationship, I was broken. I was tired, more and more unhappy, and praying for an escape. I found myself (seemingly) inexplicably bound to him. There was no chance of escape while he was holding on to me; I was stuck like this forever.
Daily thoughts of suicide filled my head; I didn't have the power to continue. I could not leave and I could not stay. It seemed like the only alternative, the only way I could finally be free.
After a few weeks of useless therapy, I had all but ended my life. I floated through the days, barely feeling anything. It wasn't until a visit to a friend that I found what I had been missing.
By chance, or maybe some would call it fate, a "voice of reason" finally broke through; and I finally owned up to my own situation. For the first time in months, I spoke truthfully of myself and my relationship: I was broken and I didn't know how to fix it. There was no me, and I didn't know how to get myself back.
After many tears and a push in the right direction, I took what little part of myself and my courage that I had left and freed myself.
After it happened, I was so lost, hurt, and disconnected that I couldn't help myself. I didn't know who to turn to or where to do. I spent a lot of time away from home, in the only place that I felt safe anymore.
I was angry with myself. What had happened? That wasn't me? Why? Why me?
I was angry with my family and friends: why did you let this happen to me? It had to be obvious. I had exhibited every single warning sign that you could think of in the situation I had been in. Why didn't you care? Why didn't you help me? Save me? I was so beyond doing this by myself, how hard would it have been to take me by the hand? Shake some sense into me?
I was confused. It was incredible that I had even been through that. I felt unreal; like I had just watched some movie and now that it was over, I was in a theater all alone. Did it really happen?
I was hurt. I had just been broken in every way imaginable. Where was my support system? Where was the understanding? The helping hands or the friend that would stand up for me?
I felt like there was no justice. No hope. I felt dead inside.
It was a long road to recovery. And I still can't say that I am "over it". A part of me wonders if one can ever truly "let go" of an experience like that.
Sometimes I think that I can't. I think that I can learn from it. Accept it. Forgive. Understand.
If I could change one thing from my past; it would have been to speak...
One of the reasons I think that this one incident bothers me so much is because I don't think that I did the right thing. Looking back on it now, it's easy to say "I should have" or "I would have" or "I wish I had". I never went forward, I didn't take the necessary steps to heal myself and right the wrong that was done.
I wish I would have made you own up to what you did to me. Not to make you suffer or make you pay for it; but to make you realize that it was not okay. To make you realize that no one should ever be treated that way and that I will have to deal with this for the rest of my life. That this situation is a part of my past, and a part of me. To live with the fact that I was so broken that I couldn't even right a wrong kills me.
You will go the rest of your life without any real repercussions. You will walk around every day and people will see you as a decent person. Maybe you are now, but during that time I knew you: you weren't. And the fact that you walk around now saying you fight for the greater good bothers me. The fact that you claim to try to uphold humanity and protect the innocent without ever admitting what you did: it makes me hate myself.
You may judge me, say I'm vengeful, but:
It's never going to be "okay" for me. I don't hate you for what you did; but you don't deserve to walk around wearing the mask that you do. You changed my life in one night; I will forever live with the memory of what you did to me.
I refuse to be a victim, but I hate to have to claim that I'm a "survivor".
