dissociatedmess
a little past due
- Apr 30, 2022
- 41
Honestly I just need to get this off my chest. Keep in mind that abusive relationships are complex and I suffer from dissociative amnesia. Most people discount what happens in kids' teen years because it's always this overly-dramatic, hormone-driven nightmare, but I think one of the biggest things that kept me and some of my friends sick was that the adults basically looked away the entire time, brushing off everything that was going on as "teens being dramatic" instead of attempting to provide any level of support.
______
I cannot believe that years later I am still having nightmares about you. I'm not sure they qualify as nightmares sometimes, but it feels like they hit me somewhere inside I didn't know existed.
I saw new cuts on you every day when we were thirteen. I pulled razors out of your pockets. I picked up the phone while you screamed about death and wanting to die, while your mother screamed in the background. You sat at my mother's kitchen table eating hot food in a house that made a good show of caring for people, as false a front as it was. Your mother called mine one of those days as we were sitting there doing our homework. She told my mother you shouldn't be around me, that you were going to hurt me, and neither of us believed her.
I got so exhausted trying to manage your self-harm that I took one of your razors and I used it on myself. And then I kept using it, over, and over, and over, and would continue to hurt myself for the next thirteen years. I don't blame you; I had hurt myself once or twice in the past, at eleven years old.
I just couldn't handle the intensity of you needing to be near me at all times. You knew my entire life schedule and you were always right there. And I couldn't handle the way you talked cryptically, and how you pressured me. I couldn't handle that I couldn't help you and I felt stretched thin. And when the school found out I was covered in cuts, you told me to tell them you did it to me and I couldn't handle that either.
What I can't understand is why I kept going back to you—never fully, but throughout eighteen years I felt compelled to check on you, to make sure you were still alive, feeling like if they find you dead in a ditch it will be my fault.
When I was 18 I tried to prove to myself that you were safe, and joined you for a barbeque at your apartment. You picked me up after I had cut myself deeply and you patched me up and promised an evening of friends. But then your girlfriend left the house, and it was just you and me, and no one else was coming, and I spent the next hours trying to find a way to get you to take me home without angering you. And you kept talking about me staying, me moving in, me getting away from my family, and it was a nice sentiment, but you couldn't see that I was scared you were not planning on taking me home. You grabbed my body and I went limp as you pulled me onto your chest on the bed and all you did was cuddle with me. I stared at your scars and the sheer size of them. So many times you needed stitches and didn't go. You kissed the top of my head, brushed your fingers against the scars on my arms. I thought I was safe because you had a girlfriend, but I was afraid you would force yourself on me and I knew I couldn't say no to you.
I don't know why I feel that way with you. I feel like I can't say no, but I can't remember why. I feel like we're somehow the same person and bonded for life but I can't go anywhere near you without feeling fear. If you died I would feel like I died too, but I also want nothing to do with you. I tried to fix it, to make those emotions leave, but I couldn't.
You know I don't even remember if we ever actually kissed? I don't remember much other than basically what I've stated here. I told my dad I had been to your apartment once at thirteen; he cocked his brow and even laughed a little, saying he took me there all the time and that i would need to "Unpack that in therapy."
Sometimes I think I have memories of things—things I don't like. Things that make me justified in feeling tied to you and frightened by you. But then they go away, and I can't remember anymore, and I'm stuck with knowing that I don't know. Eight Years ago I tried to ask you. I begged you to tell me the truth. You didn't even deny any of it, you just stopped responding. Why didn't you say, "I don't know what you mean, I don't know what you're talking about??" You ghosted. Maybe that was an answer after all. You had been accused before, of heinous things, and I stupidly defended you. I had to believe you could never be that type of monster because it was the only way I felt safe again.
But sometimes I have these dreams. In this one, you came into my work. You got a job there. All of the emotions in me flatten and I only feel a sense of deep sadness and regret. I'm standing in an aisle of books and handing you papers, and something in me just understands that no matter what I do, you will always be there somehow.
I feel bad for us, looking back. We were both children of severely abusive homes. The only difference was that everyone saw into yours, while my parents were the "behind closed-doors of the fancy 5 bedroom house" type. I wanted us both to get out, and we never did. I'm just as sick as you are. I'm just as sad. Sometimes I think you're the only person on the planet that could understand it—really understand it.
I got out of that town, and you didn't. I traveled, I went to university, I got engaged, and you rotted. And somehow it feels like my fault, like I left you behind, like even though you scare me, I wasn't supposed to leave you behind.
I wouldn't be surprised if you were scrolling on here. Maybe it would give you some insight. Maybe it would make you mad. Maybe I'm just insane—at this point, I have no idea.
All I know is that we weren't supposed to be going through all of those things at a young age and I'm sorry nobody helped us.
I'm sorry that I'm scared of you.
I'm sorry that I left you behind.
Sometimes I think if I had stayed, that something in you wouldn't have broken, and you wouldn't have hurt other people, and you would've been happy.
I wish I knew the truth about the accusations, but I'm sorry because I believe her, and I regret defending you.
Sometimes even if the memory is gone, we feel it in our bodies. It's a somatic response, a somatic flashback, an unexplained reaction. I just need to listen to my body.
If you somehow are actually scrolling here:
Please stop sending the requests. Please stop sending the once in a blue moon message. Stop making new accounts. And I'll stop looking, making sure that you're still alive.
I can't say for certain if it is you, but if it's you making all of the fake accounts with weird names, I'm begging you to stop. I changed my name, for multiple reasons, and maybe you won't be able to find my socials now. I just want this to be over somehow.
______
I cannot believe that years later I am still having nightmares about you. I'm not sure they qualify as nightmares sometimes, but it feels like they hit me somewhere inside I didn't know existed.
I saw new cuts on you every day when we were thirteen. I pulled razors out of your pockets. I picked up the phone while you screamed about death and wanting to die, while your mother screamed in the background. You sat at my mother's kitchen table eating hot food in a house that made a good show of caring for people, as false a front as it was. Your mother called mine one of those days as we were sitting there doing our homework. She told my mother you shouldn't be around me, that you were going to hurt me, and neither of us believed her.
I got so exhausted trying to manage your self-harm that I took one of your razors and I used it on myself. And then I kept using it, over, and over, and over, and would continue to hurt myself for the next thirteen years. I don't blame you; I had hurt myself once or twice in the past, at eleven years old.
I just couldn't handle the intensity of you needing to be near me at all times. You knew my entire life schedule and you were always right there. And I couldn't handle the way you talked cryptically, and how you pressured me. I couldn't handle that I couldn't help you and I felt stretched thin. And when the school found out I was covered in cuts, you told me to tell them you did it to me and I couldn't handle that either.
What I can't understand is why I kept going back to you—never fully, but throughout eighteen years I felt compelled to check on you, to make sure you were still alive, feeling like if they find you dead in a ditch it will be my fault.
When I was 18 I tried to prove to myself that you were safe, and joined you for a barbeque at your apartment. You picked me up after I had cut myself deeply and you patched me up and promised an evening of friends. But then your girlfriend left the house, and it was just you and me, and no one else was coming, and I spent the next hours trying to find a way to get you to take me home without angering you. And you kept talking about me staying, me moving in, me getting away from my family, and it was a nice sentiment, but you couldn't see that I was scared you were not planning on taking me home. You grabbed my body and I went limp as you pulled me onto your chest on the bed and all you did was cuddle with me. I stared at your scars and the sheer size of them. So many times you needed stitches and didn't go. You kissed the top of my head, brushed your fingers against the scars on my arms. I thought I was safe because you had a girlfriend, but I was afraid you would force yourself on me and I knew I couldn't say no to you.
I don't know why I feel that way with you. I feel like I can't say no, but I can't remember why. I feel like we're somehow the same person and bonded for life but I can't go anywhere near you without feeling fear. If you died I would feel like I died too, but I also want nothing to do with you. I tried to fix it, to make those emotions leave, but I couldn't.
You know I don't even remember if we ever actually kissed? I don't remember much other than basically what I've stated here. I told my dad I had been to your apartment once at thirteen; he cocked his brow and even laughed a little, saying he took me there all the time and that i would need to "Unpack that in therapy."
Sometimes I think I have memories of things—things I don't like. Things that make me justified in feeling tied to you and frightened by you. But then they go away, and I can't remember anymore, and I'm stuck with knowing that I don't know. Eight Years ago I tried to ask you. I begged you to tell me the truth. You didn't even deny any of it, you just stopped responding. Why didn't you say, "I don't know what you mean, I don't know what you're talking about??" You ghosted. Maybe that was an answer after all. You had been accused before, of heinous things, and I stupidly defended you. I had to believe you could never be that type of monster because it was the only way I felt safe again.
But sometimes I have these dreams. In this one, you came into my work. You got a job there. All of the emotions in me flatten and I only feel a sense of deep sadness and regret. I'm standing in an aisle of books and handing you papers, and something in me just understands that no matter what I do, you will always be there somehow.
I feel bad for us, looking back. We were both children of severely abusive homes. The only difference was that everyone saw into yours, while my parents were the "behind closed-doors of the fancy 5 bedroom house" type. I wanted us both to get out, and we never did. I'm just as sick as you are. I'm just as sad. Sometimes I think you're the only person on the planet that could understand it—really understand it.
I got out of that town, and you didn't. I traveled, I went to university, I got engaged, and you rotted. And somehow it feels like my fault, like I left you behind, like even though you scare me, I wasn't supposed to leave you behind.
I wouldn't be surprised if you were scrolling on here. Maybe it would give you some insight. Maybe it would make you mad. Maybe I'm just insane—at this point, I have no idea.
All I know is that we weren't supposed to be going through all of those things at a young age and I'm sorry nobody helped us.
I'm sorry that I'm scared of you.
I'm sorry that I left you behind.
Sometimes I think if I had stayed, that something in you wouldn't have broken, and you wouldn't have hurt other people, and you would've been happy.
I wish I knew the truth about the accusations, but I'm sorry because I believe her, and I regret defending you.
Sometimes even if the memory is gone, we feel it in our bodies. It's a somatic response, a somatic flashback, an unexplained reaction. I just need to listen to my body.
If you somehow are actually scrolling here:
Please stop sending the requests. Please stop sending the once in a blue moon message. Stop making new accounts. And I'll stop looking, making sure that you're still alive.
I can't say for certain if it is you, but if it's you making all of the fake accounts with weird names, I'm begging you to stop. I changed my name, for multiple reasons, and maybe you won't be able to find my socials now. I just want this to be over somehow.
