I still can’t comprehend how we stayed together for so long after all the shit that had happened. The caring and shaming, the love and lack of respect, the cycles of degradation and reconciliation that at the time seemed impossible to escape. How do you continue to love someone who only months before had covered your mouth and muffled your “no”s and your cries...a heavy, drunken body taking away the hope and strength of the one below it. What he can barely remember is something that I will never forget.
I completely lost my sense of self after, tormented with a suffocating emptiness that I could not shake, which was only alleviated in his presence. I constantly pushed friends and family away as he filled the empty parts of me, the parts that he had emptied himself, and I held on to him the best I could to try to feel human again. It’s a really sad and fucked up thing when you can’t see the value in yourself anymore, when you need another person’s appreciation and recognition to feel like you’re worth something.
But fast forward through the arguments, the many breakups and all the chaos that followed, and now I’m here, getting closer to wholeness on my own. I am not what I once felt I was, used and neglected, an open body free for visitors to further deplete. Although I may struggle to convince myself of this, my rape, and my roller coaster of a relationship with my rapist, will no longer define me. I am not the product of those circumstances, but the wonderful work-in-progress that has resulted from my decisions. I am learning how to be broken and beautiful at the same time as I navigate through life, and I’m finding that my delicate intricacies and complexities will only make that journey more challenging and exciting. I am starting to see the value in myself again, and I’m reminding myself of that constantly with compliments and encouragements addressed to me and from me with love. I am strong beyond belief, powerful beyond measure, and finally embracing who I am.