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#lyspeaks
lazyneigh · 2 years
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Gay
Pic and drawing by ovary_harvester
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butyouknowiwont · 3 years
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"I've been sleeping so long in a twenty year dark night, now I'm wide awake...I wanna be defined by the things that I love, not the thing I'm hate, not the things I'm afraid of [afraid of], or the things that haunt me in the middle of the night. I just think...you are what you love."
(Daylight)
It's weirdly surreal. There were so many signs, glowing in neon lights, begging for someone to notice them. But I couldn't see them until now. A huge part of me feels foolish for missing them for all those years, after all, they're so obvious now. My therapist likes to remind me it's not fair to be mad at myself for not knowing what I didn't know.
There were the girls I had this overwhelming desire to be best friends with, but were too scared to talk to. There was that one friend who spent hours just driving with me at midnight, while we talked about being roommates forever. There's the way I panicked and just picked a boy to tell my friends I had a crush on when they asked. There’s the fact that men have always made me uncomfortable down to my soul.
But women? Women. I remember thinking that it was the best argument about sexuality not being a choice, because obviously everyone would choose to be with a woman. It turns out that apparently not everyone would choose to be with a woman, although if I'm being honest that one still confuses me.
I once read a quote talking about how people only ever ask why you don't like men, but no one ever asks why you love women. While I could give you a laundry list of reasons I don't trust or feel comfortable around men, I would much rather talk about how all I find is magic in women. How life can be so rough and cruel, so why wouldn't you want to come home to someone who is naturally soft and gentle and understanding? I'd much rather discuss how fascinating the dichotomy of gentleness and fierceness that women carry is to me.
But they only ever want to talk about if my ex knew I liked women. No one wants to hear about how I felt like a lightbulb came on, how for the first time I woke up from a nap and knew exactly which century we were in.
I am endlessly grateful that the family members who offered to let the boys and I live in their house are a lesbian couple. For one, it's incredible to be certain that my living situation is secure as I come out. But it's also really helpful for me to spend all these months in a world that's not centered around men, but rather a world that's solely centered around healthy relationships.
I get to spend every day in a world where women loving other women is beautiful and unquestioned. After a lifetime of religious guilt and suppression, that's really freeing. I have room to be a woman in her mid 20s having a schoolgirl crush on someone if I want to. (Sorry, no roofs or plastic cups here) And that's a really unique and beautiful privilege for me.
My world is undeniably different from what it was when I last wrote on here. But it's brighter and more clear and it all just feels right finally. I'm still figuring out what life will look like from here, but I'm certainly excited to build a life that's for my own good. It will take time, I know it will. And I hope that eventually I'll get to start all over again with the woman I never let myself dream of.
I do want to be really clear about one thing here. Yes, I was married to a man. Yes, we're getting divorced. No, it was not solely because of my sexuality. I had largely made up my mind that I wouldn't be going back before I realized this about myself. Our relationship had issues outside of this area, and each of those reasons is still just as valid as they ever were.
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lazyneigh · 2 years
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JACK WHAT THE HELL DID I JUST WATCH I'M CRYING AND THROWING UP
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lazyneigh · 2 years
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Ï̸͇͈̗̘̭t̸̹͇̹̣̓͂͗͛͠ ̵̫̱̆i̴͙͂̊̋̆̒̓s̵̩̼̮̫̈́̄̌͑́́ ̷̢̹̼̭͑̒t̸̡͓̀̃ͅr̴̰͉̭͇͈̓ĩ̶̛̪͈̮̠̑̕͝c̷̥̱͍̰̬͆͐͛k̴̯̂̀͋̅i̸̗̒n̶͎̯̠̭̰̒̾̈ģ̶̌̚͠ ̸̮͚̏̓y̴̥̲̬̓̈́̾͒̕ọ̷̬̭̙͚̝̈́̔͗͐͘u̸͓̞͈̳̕.̸̭̼̭̐̎̇̉̄
Uh. Yeah. No shit.
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lazyneigh · 2 years
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No thanks no thank
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lazyneigh · 2 years
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Just found this and I can't for the life of me remember the second antianon acc
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butyouknowiwont · 3 years
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"El, I know this is going to come across as rude. You know I don't mean it that way...but why do you talk about it so much?" The question came sort of out of the blue. There was a slight lull in the conversation and it slipped out. I wonder how long he'd been sitting on it. We hadn't been discussing my trauma. He hadn't been specific, but I knew instantly what he was referring to. He seemed nervous, like I was so fragile I'd break at merely the question. He looked at me like I might just cut off our friendship forever because he dared to ask.
But it's a fair question. Most people don't talk about it. The thing I do is culturally unacceptable, and I know that, I do. I have often asked myself why I feel it's important. And I'm not so delicate that I can't handle a discussion about that. I think if we're really considering that question though, there's two distinct answers required. The first half demands to know why I ever bother to talk about it, the second almost abrasively wonders why I just never seem to shut up about it.
I didn't talk about my abuse publicly for over 6 years. I never brought it up. I held my tongue when someone else brought him up. I tried to participate in conversations as if he had never touched my life. I kept my story of surviving him close to my chest like it was my dirty little secret. And it was deeply unhealthy for me. I became this enigmatic shadow of a human being that would frequently lash out at people around in unexplained trauma responses.
I talk about my abuse because I refuse to continue to carry this sense of shame for how someone else chose to act towards me. I know now that I didn't do anything to deserve what he did to me. Having abuse in my story shouldn't reflect negatively on me, but it's often implied that it does. There's such a stigma for abuse survivors to keep it hidden, and I won't buy into it anymore. I won't stay silent because I don't feel shameful in talking about it.
I discuss the uncomfortable parts of my life because it's healing for me. Every time I speak or write about his behavior or my recovery process, it helps me make sense of my childhood. I once read that the deepest desire of the human heart is to be both fully known and fully loved at once. Having some semblance of that is good for me, but I can't even begin to grasp at that unless I'm allowing someone to fully know me.
I speak about his behavior because it reflects negatively on my abuser. Is this probably a less than ideal reason? Absolutely. It's true though. It is repulsive to me that he has been the only one writing the story of our lives for all those years, and writing himself in as the victim. Even though they will likely never hear my words, it is important to me that there is a version of his reputation out there that is accurate and that people who might be entering his life could seek out. Me not speaking up for myself enables him to continue to suck in people to use in his twisted game.
I try to be honest about where I was at the time because I truly didn't know his actions weren't normal. No one ever told me I could stand up for myself. No one ever thought to mention that other parents didn't act like he did. And if I didn't know those things, there have to be other people who still don't. Maybe, just maybe, one of them will stumble across my words.
After 6 years, I bring it up because I'm no longer unprepared to have conversations about it. People were perfectly willing to ask me about why we left when we left. I think they've all written off me ever wanting to talk at this point though. I'm not delicate, fragile, or easily breakable at this point in my life.
I write about my history of being abused because it makes you uncomfortable to read. Sorry, not sorry. I understand you don't want to have these conversations with me. I know you can't relate to what I'm talking about. I am extremely aware that you would love to not have to think about it. But you need to. People need to be more aware of the markers of childhood abuse that aren't bruises. Children like me need the circles of protection I didn't have. You can't be part of those circles if you don't know they exist. Trust me, if I survived living the stories I'm gonna tell you, you can sure as hell survive being uncomfortable while hearing them.
Now, I know the question you really care about is the second half. Why the hell can't I just shut up about it for just one damn conversation? Why can't I relegate it to just the serious conversations? Why do I keep bringing it up when we're just trying to have fun? To steal my sister's favorite question to ask me, why do you have to be like this?
Because I can't. You can hear what I'll tell you, put the lid on the box, and shove it back on the shelf. It doesn't exist in a box for me. It was my life. It is woven through almost all of my memories. Everything I experience is still filtered through my overactive nervous system and hyper-focused brain.
I talk about my abuse story so often because it affects me that often. It runs through my mind that frequently. I'm not laying awake at night trying to manufacture ways to sneak my depressing stories into our conversations. When the conversation triggers a childhood memory for you, you insert it into the conversation without considering what you're doing. When the same happens to me, you cringe and wish I hadn't. It truly is the same thing. It's just that your stories are family Christmases and mine are my uncle's funeral.
If I'm being honest, I talk about it as often as I do because I believe I have just as much right to share my life's stories as you do to share yours, even if that makes you uncomfortable. I spent 16 years of my life trying to fit myself into the box he was comfortable having me in. I choose to talk about my story because it is good for me to do so. And I won't deny myself further healing to spare you some momentary discomfort.
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butyouknowiwont · 3 years
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"Who was it that pulled the trigger, was it you or I? I'm completely numb, why you acting dumb? I won't blame myself cause we both know you were the one...The scars on my mind are on replay, replay...damage is done...you had the gun, you had the gun, you had the gun. I don't know what to do, you don't know what to say, the scars on my are on replay, replay. The monster inside you is torturing me, the scars on my mind are on replay." (Replay, Lady Gaga)
First, I just wanna say that I am still completely flabbergasted at how she managed to make a song that is both an accurate representation of life with PTSD and also such a bop that I keep wanting to listen to it on repeat. I seriously don't know how someone does that.
Replay has actually been such a helpful song for me because it gives a clear, concise description of what my life is like now. It's an easy way to get someone to have a basic understanding of my day to day experience in about 3 minutes, without exhausting me.
I would be surprised if I didn't pull more lines out of this one for a future piece, but for today, I wanna focus on the gun analogy.
He likes to do this thing where he shrugs his shoulders at me and pretends that it's impossible to know what happened. I mean, did I manipulate the whole situation or did he? Have I been lying through my teeth for years or has he? It's not like there is anyone else who can validate my story, it's not like there's documented evidence we can look at to understand what happened. So I guess we'll never know. I guess we'll have to spend the rest of our lives wondering what's true.
He acts as though it's impossible to recreate the crime scene and figure out what happened. I think about being a kid and getting handed one of those activity sheets with a connect-the-dots puzzle where it's immediately obvious it's going to make a smiley face. It's like he thinks he's done this incredible job of concealing what he did to me, and that no one else will ever be able to connect the pieces he's left behind.
And it's exhausting. It's infuriating to me that he can't see how blatantly obvious it is that I'm not the one at fault here. I could sit here and lay out pieces of evidence for days. I could call in so many people who saw snippets of his behavior that would validate the full picture I'm telling you of. Hell, there were holes in our walls. But at the end of the day, I don't even have to.
Sure, we both got hurt by the time it was all over. But he's walking away with a scrape and I'm still trying to plug the bullethole he left in me. I've spent over 5 years in therapy and he visited a "spiritual guide" twice. I have documented medical diagnoses backing up my story. He's out here trying to act like there's no way to know who fired the shot that blew our whole lives up and he's still holding the fucking gun. He's still acting in the exact same toxic, manipulative, and abusive ways I've been talking about for years.
I think the thing that really gets me still though is that he acts as though it was even possible for me to be the dangerous one here. I was a literal child. He held all of the power. It shouldn't be that hard to put two and two together. I shouldn't have to be proving anything. Anyone who understands power dynamics should know that I never could have humanly gotten enough sway to get her to leave him if I wasn't telling the truth.
I love the line "I won't blame myself cause we both know you were the one." I think that's the biggest misception when it comes to abuse survivors. I know what I saw, I know what he did to me, I know what I lived through in that house with him. But there's so much victim blamimg, there's so much gaslighting, there's so much pressure to prove your story. It's so easy to get caught up in it all and not be able to figure out what's real anymore. It's so hard to sit down with yourself every night and say "I won't blame myself cause we both know I'm being honest."
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lazyneigh · 4 years
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Did Jack or Mark play The Textorcist?
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butyouknowiwont · 3 years
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"I see the permanent damage you did to me.. I wish it wasn't 4 AM, standing in the mirror saying to myself you know you had to do it, I know the bravest thing I ever did was run...I know why we had to say goodbye like the back of my hand, but I just miss you and I just wish you were a better man." (Better Man)
I find it very comforting that breakup songs feel applicable to my particular abuse leaving situation. I truly know no one who has been in a similar situation to me. Hell, I often refer to my parents' divorce as "our" divorce. I mean, I went to court, I was just as much a part of this as they were. But I was also 15 and very much understood all of it. I suppose you could say I was the reason for their divorce, he sure does.
When you think about, choosing to cut off contact with a parent is not unlike breaking up with someone you thought could be the 1. You never saw the rest of your life without them. Your lives were wildly intertwined. Every day you find something that reminds you of a miniscule moment shared at that street crossing. You spend your nights awake wondering if there was anything anyone could have done to change how this all ended up. Your house feels haunted, your bones feel strangely fragile. And so I listen to a lot of breakup songs and cry. Not many things feel accurate when it comes to my specific experience, but often breakup songs come closest.
Better Man is one of those songs I literally can't make it through without crying. Most breakup songs are either angry, placing blame, or wanting to get back together. Sometimes I'm still angry, I definitely know he's to blame, and I'm absolutely never ever going to let him back in. I think the intriguing thing about Better Man for me is that it's half acceptance and half this inability to let go fully. And that, that is hella accurate for me.
I written 1000 different pieces where I talk about recognizing how his behavior was abusive, how it nearly destroyed me. I know that us running from him saved our lives, and I know that he was never going to change. I know I gave him way too many chances to get his act together and become the better man I could see in him. I have stared all the reasons he was bad for me in the face until I couldn't keep my eyes open anymore. I don't waver in my choice to stay gone. Not anymore.
And I know this makes no sense, I know I was absolutely hopeless and miserable when he was in my life. This is probably a trauma bonding situation, but I loved that man so much. I think part of me does still love him, in a "I'd have to force myself to run the other way if I saw him" kind of way. I wish he would have been someone who wasn't bad for me. I wish he could have been someone worth keeping in my life. I wish he could have been at my wedding. I wish my babies could have known their grandfather. All of the big moments will always be moments where I miss him in some odd way, not really who he was, but definitely the potential I saw in him. Do you know how wrong it feels to admit you miss someone who abused you? But I do, I still do.
I just wish he could have been someone I didn't need to leave, because I never wanted to. I don't know why I keep trying to re-word it and explain something she's already done beautifully. I know why I had to leave him, but I still miss him and, yeah, I just wish he was a better man. That's it.
@taylorswift
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butyouknowiwont · 4 years
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"I knew you'd linger like a tattoo kiss" (Cardigan)
I've found myself thinking about the things that linger with you throughout your life. How a swingset will always make me think of my childhood best friend and giggling over somehow nothing and everything at once. How seeing the kind of car my first crush drove takes me right back to wishing I could end up in its passenger seat. How anything related to dragons will inexplicably be tied to my first real boyfriend. How I can never eat cookies and cream ice cream because it was my father's favorite. How the name of a specific beach transports me back to the 4th of July in 2013.
It's not like reminiscing. It's not necessarily a fond memory or a bad one either. It's often not even a full memory. I don't automatically want to remember those things and don't feel the pull to be there again. They weren't particularly formative moments. They're not core memories, not ones we built ourselves around. They just are exactly what they are.
I think it's beyond fascinating that we don't get to choose which pieces linger within us. We don't get to choose to toss them out. They both mean nothing to us and are intrinsically tied to who we are as people.
It's extra intriguing for me because I truthfully barely remember my childhood. My therapist says it's a trauma response, and that just makes me terrified there's worse things my brain is still hiding from me. It's like my brain had deemed this small snippets of my former life safe, and so I'm allowed to view them at times. It's weirdly comforting to me to know that there are good times hidden away with the bad ones. Maybe one day, if I ever gain those memories back, I'll find something truly lovely tucked inside.
I know I've mentioned before that I don't believe in insignificant moments. This is yet another example of why I believe that. Because when I see a Ford Freestyle driving down the road, I stop, smile a bit, and briefly think of him. I don't miss him. I don't wonder where he is or how he's doing per se. It feels as though it was just a small reminder that he existed, and I existed too. A tiny reminder that a specific moment in time happened. And that's just sort of lovely.
@taylorswift
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butyouknowiwont · 4 years
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"You're the hero flying around saving face...and you're tossing out blame, drunk on this pain." (My Tears Ricochet)
"You never gave a sign, I gave so many signs...he didn't even see the signs" (Exile)
Last week, I contacted my abusive father voluntarily for the first time in 6 ½ years. I sent him this incredibly long piece I had written to him, and also sent him a lengthy piece I had written inspired by Mad Woman (which I'll probably post here soon), along with the link to the song itself. I said things like "I know I have a right to be angry with you now", "I'm holding all the power again", and "I no longer intend to stay silent and let your voice be the only one heard." I wrote out specific things he had done that tore me apart. I was the most direct and transparent I had ever been with him. 
And. Well, he doubled down on not apologizing or acknowledging any of it. He said no one ever gave him a chance to change, while simultaneously insisting he didn't need to. He mentioned that he kept all kinds of things we had left behind like serial killers don't also keep souvenirs from their victims. He says that until the day we decided to leave, the day I thought he might finally be angry enough to kill me, he didn't believe anything was wrong. 
He tried to explain away the smear campaign he immediately launched against me, before even trying to understand what we were saying. He went around to everyone we knew and painted me as this unhinged, vengeful mastermind getting back at him for one tiny argument. I'm smarter than he thinks I am. I know that when you jump first to damage control and trying to repair our relationship second, you're just confirming that you and I both know that what I'm saying is true. 
Half of my mind is still blown by how completely oblivious he was to every sign we had been giving for years. The other half of me is still reeling from the sting of hearing once again that losing us meant that little to him. I don't think I will ever get over the idea that, at the very first opportunity, he threw me under the table to save face with the people who were willing to stay around. 
He has spent years telling anyone who would listen that I'm to blame for "ruining" his life. I have spent years holding all my words in and being eaten alive by the injustice of it all. I have been this enigma of unexplained trauma responses and unkempt fire that would occasionally escape. So I'm done letting him hold all the airspace for his own narrative. I'm spilling all the truth he wanted hidden away forever. I have all of the power now, and I hope that terrifies him. 
@taylorswift
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butyouknowiwont · 4 years
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"I guess I just think about all the people who weren't believed, and the people haven't been believed, or the people who are afraid to speak up because they think they won't be believed. And I just wanted to say I'm sorry to anyone who ever wasn't believed, because I don't know what turn my life would have taken if people didn't believe me when I said something had happened to me." (Taylor Swift, discussing her sexual assault trial, from Miss Americana)
Let's fast forward about 2 hours from my last serious post.
I didn't exactly decide to tell anyone about that night. While it was not unlike many nights before, it was the one I couldn't bounce back from. For whatever reason, every other time I would have my panic attack and manage to stitch myself back together before someone noticed my gaping wound, but that night I couldn't.
He had left the house 2 hours before, and I was still a weeping ball on the floor. I was still convulsing like I was in the middle of a seizure. I had no grasp on the concept of time or the fact that my mother would be coming back home soon. And I didn't notice when the door opened and my sobs were impossible to miss.
I didn't choose to tell her that night. It was just obvious that I wasn't okay, and I couldn't come up with a good lie to tell her. I would have lied if I could. I am lucky she believed me when I did figure out how to make the words fall off my lips. I would later learn that her experiences with him had been similar for years.
I am lucky my best friends believed me when I told them something so unlike how i had acted for years. I am lucky my husband (then boyfriend) believed me, even though he never saw it first hand. I am beyond lucky that his parents welcomed me into their home almost daily between that night and the day we finally moved out, even when my husband wasn't there.
Don't get me wrong, so many people have never believed me. I walked away from 3/4 of my family to save myself. But I am also well aware that I am incredibly lucky to have anyone who believed me. I know if I hadn't been believed that would have been the end of things for me. He'd have found out I said something and either done something himself or made my life a living hell until I chose to end it.
I don't believe in insignificant moments. Now, I don't believe that every moment is life-changing. But I do know that every life-changing moment is made possible because of thousands of unnoticed ones before it. I see that in love stories. I see that in therapy sessions. I see that when I look at my boys' faces. I know that everything I love in my life today is because someone chose to believe me. My mom, my sister, my husband, my in laws, my cousins, my friends. All of this beauty is because of them. And that is not lost on me.
And I guess I just think about all the people who weren't believed and chose to fight through it. I'm sorry. I'm so damn proud of you. I believe you. I will be your family from now on. You are remarkable.
@taylorswift
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butyouknowiwont · 3 years
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"Tellin' those stories we already told, cause we don't say what we really mean." (Two Ghosts, Harry Styles)
He used to tell this story of me when I was 3. Over and over again, it didn't matter if the audience had already heard it. He would bring it up as a "silent" warning for me that I had been toeing the line too much. He'd use it to remind me that he had all the power in any situation and that I better follow all his rules or else. But he'd phrase it as if he was joking around with me and telling a funny story to embarrass me. Whoever was around us would start laughing and I...I would start disappearing. I know now that it's called disassociating.
It would never just be the story telling though. My blood would turn cold in my veins because I knew the lecture I would get when we didn't have an audience. Just a lecture if I was lucky.
I just remember back when she was just a little toddler, I think she was 3 then. She was so stubborn and loved to tell me "no". I had asked her to do something, I don't remember what, and she put her little hands on her hips, turned her face into a pout, and told me "NO" as loud as she could. And I couldn't believe that she thought she could take me. Here was this tiny little girl staring up at this large man and standing her ground. Didn't she know I was strong enough to break her bones if I wanted to?
Before I move on, I wanna point out two things in this story. First off, this is normal toddler behavior. This is developmentally appropriate. Toddlers constantly push boundaries because they're beginning to explore their world and figure out their own tiny role in it. It is not misbehaving or being defiant. It is important to note that this story has a child exhibiting normal behavior and an adult who can't respond appropriately to that behavior. Second, this is a beyond extreme response to the defiance he thought was present. It is one thing to be frustrated with your toddler for pushing boundaries constantly, that's also normal. It is a completely separate thing to jump to "You know, I could break her bones right now". It is so mind blowing how he rationalized that jump to the extent that he would casually say that, out loud, to strangers. Honestly, I just end up wondering what the fuck kinda thoughts go through his head that he's decided are too bad for someone else to know if that's an appropriate thing to say.
After we left him, people would tell me they'd never seen anything that would make them think he was manipulative or someone that might be dangerous for us to be around. I still have a hard time understanding how they could think that. How does your brain not flag the memory of someone telling you they had thought about crushing their child's bones? Shouldn't that stand out to you? How did they miss the light in my eyes disappearing when he'd begin telling his stories? How could you not see how I'd catch my breath when he'd put his hand on my shoulder? How does someone not notice how I would go out of my way to not be around him at family events? How did they not know the difference between me being alive in my own body and me floating above it all, staring down as if I was watching my life as a movie? It felt so damn obvious. I felt like I turned into a completely separate person when he was around. Nervous, uncomfortable, anxious, distant, quiet. It should have been obvious.
I think a lot about that story now.
I think about the little girl who stars in its narrative. Honestly, I'm really proud of her. She has no idea who she's supposed to be yet, but she's so damn sure of herself, even though it was completely unfounded. I think about who she could have grown into if someone hadn't tried to burn that instinct out of her. I think about how she'd do the grown up version of that at 15, but this time she'd have a sliver of actual power in the situation.
I think about how everyone around me missed it. Sometimes I'm angry they didn't pay enough attention to have protected me from some of it. Sometimes I wonder what would have happened if I had been able to tell someone. Sometimes I'm almost impressed as how well he was able to control me without tipping anyone off. Sometimes I wonder if they did see through him at points, talked themselves out of being sure of what they saw, and couldn't bring themselves to tell me.
But, most of all, I think about how easy it was for them to miss it. When we think child abuse, we think broken bones and bruises, emergency room visits, and CPS coming in to save them. You never think of casually repeated stories in the middle of a crowded room being used as a threat.
My story hinges on someone hearing him tell that story and making a confused face for a second. On someone acting surprised when I was upset over a B in Algebra. On getting glimpses into more normal homes during sleepovers.
My story doesn't have someone sititing me down and asking questions about what home was like for me. My story doesn't have anyone recognizing something was wrong. My story doesn't have emergency room visits or calls to CPS. My story doesn't have anyone saving me.
My story has people unknowingly placing red flags on certain actions of his. My story has enough people showing me where the dots were so I could connect them myself. My story hinges on people changing things I thought were normal into question marks I'd store away to deal with later. My story hinges on people who didn't laugh along with him, but instead looked me in the eye and watched the light in them go out.
There are so many times someone should have seen through him, but didn't look hard enough. I'm sure there are lots of instances where they thought they saw something wrong and rationalized it away again.
At the end of the day, I did have the ability to eventually connect those dots and do something to save myself. I shouldn't have had to. There were numerous adults who should have done something sooner. I am lucky I was born a little spitfire who knew how to fight. Because no one decided to fight for me.
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butyouknowiwont · 4 years
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"When all you wanted was to be wanted, wish you could go back and tell yourself what you know now." (Fifteen)
Well, some asshole, I mean, some  well-meaning coworker of mine nominated me for our company's "Fun Fact Friday" feature. So now a photo of me and my answers to 5 questions are going to be emailed to everyone in the company and posted on all our social media accounts.
Remember how I mentioned last time that I avoided looking at myself for years? Yeah, a photo of me being sent to everyone is not exactly ideal for me.
Naturally, one of the questions they want me to answer is "what did you want to be when you grew up?" And that makes sense for an employer's questionnaire. But...I've always hated this question. Dreaming of a career isn't often a luxury afforded to a child in an abusive situation. And I've never had an answer for it.
To be honest, from ages 11(ish) to 16, I wasn't even sure I wanted a future. I've touched on this before and I'm sure I'll do a more in depth piece on it eventually, but my father painted our life as the ideal. You know, the best one could ever hope to have. And I was miserable. I had panic attacks regularly. I cried most nights. Frankly, if this was the best life I could ever get, I wasn't interested in seeing the rest of it. I learned about suicide at 7, when someone I loved killed themself, and it definitely echoed through my mind on the worst nights.
Since I got the list of questions, I've been thinking a lot about what that little girl would have wanted if she had ever had the ability to stop and assess what she would want. I think she would have asked to feel wanted. I think she would have hoped to feel happy one day, or at least less overwhelmingly hopeless. I don't think she would have known what else to dream of.
Similarly, I think about what she could have heard to help her through it. I don't know if she would have believed anyone if they had told her. I feel so grateful that we all lived through who we were to become what we are today. I am grateful I never got bold enough to go through with something when the night felt like it would never end. But...more than anything, I just wish I could have tapped her on the shoulder, looked into her eyes, and told her that one day she'd be wanted by the most incredible man. I wish she could have know that he'd show up when her night got the darkest and that he would be daylight, illuminating a life that had never before existed for her. A life she would end up wanting. A life where she would end up happy more often than sad.
@taylorswift
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butyouknowiwont · 3 years
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TW: SUICIDE
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"I've been having a hard time adjusting, I had the shiniest wheels, now they're rusting. I didn't know if you'd care if I came back, I have a lot of regrets about that. Pulled the car off the road to the lookout, could have followed my fears all the way down. And maybe I don't quite know what to say, but I'm here in your doorway. I just wanted you to know that this is me trying." (This Is Me Trying)
It was pitch black, 9pm on a Friday night. I pulled put my phone, turned on the flashlight, and illuminated a slab of marble engraved with the dates that held within them the lifetime of someone I loved. My sister took a photo of it, adorned with flowers, undoubtedly laid there by estranged family members of ours earlier in the day. Sure, he'd been buried in that cemetary for 15 years, but for me, he died last Friday.
I have a hard time making my lips form his name anymore. The part of me that loved him is quieter now, perhaps a casualty of growing up, perhaps dispersed by a wave of new knowledge. I haven't talked about him in years, often because I just don't know what I'd even say about him anymore. But you also aren't exactly encouraged to rehash the details of a death 15 years past, even if they were someone you loved more than almost anyone. Then again, this is the place where I go to string together words that you're not usually allowed to place next to each other publicly.
It feels as though I was just 7 yesterday. I would have insisted that you knew I was just a month shy of being 8. I can still feel the weight of my mother's hand on my shoulder as she woke me up and told me how my uncle committed suicide overnight. I hate using that word: committed. Like he was some sort of criminal and not a deeply loved man who just couldn't see it then. I had to ask her what that meant, I had never heard the word suicide before. My body still gets chills when I think of how I spent that day realizing that the man that had made me feel most wanted and loved, who spent his time playing with my cousins and I, would never be those things to me again. I can still conjure up the memory of how I froze in place when we entered the funeral home and I saw him laying in his casket. I remember how I tried to stay as far away as possible, my childish mind trying to believe if I didn't acknowledge things they would cease to be true. They didn't.
For those of you who haven't been around my writing long, I have since discovered that the very fabric that side of my family is woven from could only appropriately be sewn into a red flag. The layers of toxicity and abusive behavior go so much deeper than I can express. We used to visit his gravesite for every single holiday. Eventually it slid down to only his birthday, the anniversary of his death, and Christmases. I had not physically been there since I cut off that side of my family over 6 1/2 years ago. In all honesty, I have pretty much avoided the town we all lived in like the plague. But, Friday, I woke up with this unshakable feeling that I was supposed to go there.
Now, don't take that to mean that I didn't think about him or commemorate his death each year. I did. But I've never been one to believe in the illusion that he knows I've visited or found comfort in being physically close to his body on the important days. It was just never worth the risk of running into our mutual family members while I was there. October 23rd has always made me forget how to breathe for a moment. I imagine it always will.
Perhaps one of the reasons I stopped going would be that I uncovered some less than desirable facts about him while I was grappling with the family as a whole. I learned that his first wife left him because he beat her. I learned that he enabled abusive behavior in his brothers, including gaslighting their victims to protect them. I've learned that he didn't choose to spend all his days with us kids, but that he was just too mentally unstable to hold a job. (Please don't take that wrong. I am not blaming him for his mental health state, but knowing it was more situational than a priority for him does take away some of the fondness I held for my memories of him.) I spent years not knowing if I even cared enough to go visit again. Part of me regrets not going sooner. But the warmth I felt towards him at 7 has faded throughout the years.
I've wrestled with how I should feel about him in the past few years. Part of me is still 7 and is wholly heartbroken that the closest thing she has to a daddy is gone now. Part of me is 14, near suicide myself, and feels nothing but compassion for where he eventually found himself. Part of me stand today at 22 and hates him for the facts of who he was. I think all of me is angry that I couldn't just have uncomplicated feelings towards him.
I have had an especially difficult time adjusting to the facts of who he was. I once believed he was a good man who loved and cherished me. In a past that has been very cloudy, for a long time he had been my one bright and shiny spot. He had been the one good thing I had ever had, and the only tragedy in our relationship is that he left it too soon.
Earlier this year, I wrote a letter inspired by Mad Woman, and sent it to my abusive father. It held all of my anger, all of my fury, all of my passion, and it unleashed everything on him at once. It was the first time I had ever let myself feel unbridled anger towards him for the things he's done to me. My Mad Woman letter was a physically safe way for me to have my moment of standing in front of him and finally saying all the things on my mind, all the things I wanted him to know. Doing that brought me a lot of closure.
I think I can say with some certainty that I now realize my urge to go visit his gravesite on Friday was our relationship's version of a Mad Woman letter. Similarly to how writing a letter to my father provided me a way to have my cathartic moment without the threat of physical danger, my visit on Friday provided me an opportunity to physically "stand in front of him" but to not verbally express myself.
On Friday, I chose to drive over 3 hours round trip for the chance to stand near his gravesite for 20 minutes and just have a conversation with my sister. I was able to physically be there, spend some real time recognizing the day, and figuratively hold out the dichotomy of how I feel towards him now so he could see them. I stood there vividly aware of how I missed him still, but how I was also unable to unsee all the reasons he wasn't someone I should miss. How losing him hurt me and how needing to choose to leave him behind would have hurt me if he lived. We took a photo. And then we left. I didn't say some eloquent speech, nor did I feel I had to. I didn't know why I needed to be there while I was there. I have done enough therapy to know if something in me is urging me to act a certain way, it's usually something I need to do. I don't always know if it did end up being important, but taking the action to do something that might be healing has always proven to be important. So, as Taylor says, this is me trying.
I think I subconsciously knew when I walked away that it would be final. A series wrap on the town, if you will. I know that the child in me will never stop loving the man I remembered him to be. But I know that the adult me cannot reconcile both continuing to heal from the abuse I experienced and continuing to hold warm feelings towards someone who perpetrated that abuse.
I know that he's been buried in that grave for 15 years now. But I left the part of me that loved him in that cemetary on Friday. When I say he is dead to me now, I mean that in all the ways one can mean that. He is both physically dead and I have chosen that from this point on he will be emotionally dead to me. The rest of his family has been emotionally dead to me for years. I left them behind in a radical decision to choose my own well-being first. Since I am no longer able to hold both pursuing healing and loving him, I am choosing myself again this year.
I am still grieving his physical death (since 7 year olds don't really have any coping skills and tend to avoid dealing with things) and I am also grieving the loss of that piece of myself as well. I am still in a bit of a tailspin from Friday night. But I know I'm right in choosing myself. I know I will eventually look back on this October 23rd as just as healing as my Mad Woman letter has been.
@taylorswift
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