Screwed, Blued, and Tattooed

When you're in a long-term abusive relationship, you reach a point where you feel it's what you deserve. Every day your self esteem is slowly chipped away until it's virtually nonexistent. The abuser puts on an emotional mask, projecting kindness, sweetness, helpfulness: a facade so charming no one would ever suspect anything negative. The true self - the monster - lurks just below the surface; it only has an audience of one, but the tears, pain and fears it elicits from the chosen target are all the beast needs to feed itself.

I was your target. Your whipping girl. For over a decade I remained loyal to you, silent and protective of you, hiding the truth of our private selves and my own private hell. I finally left, but only after one objective party finally got through to me. He said this struggle was life or death, and I didn't have much time before you'd watch me draw my last breath.

Is it any wonder that when I started dating again, I gravitated to men just like you? Men who drew me in with their games in the beginning: all sweetness and light, kindness and generosity. Then the gaslighting began, and a reenactment of sorts started, and I found myself mistreated, manipulated, and abused again. Again. Again. Again.

Finally I wound up in the hospital - my abilities at protecting the secret abuse fell away - and for the first time a little voice inside me whispered, "No more."

I've remained single for a while now. While it's lonely and frightening at times, I'm finally learning to stand up for myself. That doesn't mean confronting my abuser(s), or you. It means that when someone is cruel and decides to hurt me I'm strong enough to walk away. I'm rebuilding my life and my self worth. When I falter (and I do still falter) I place my hand on my cheekbone and feel the permanent scar underneath my skin that you left me with. Then I ask myself, "Life or Death?" And I choose life.

There will never come a day where you or the ones that followed you apologize, and that's okay. Better safe than sorry. Better safe.