disclaimer: includes sensitive topics like emotional abuse and trauma in a relationship. i have never been able to put this into words until now. i must sound sick in the head but it’s because i am. i don’t know. i really don’t know. maybe you can relate. if you read it all the way through, thank you.

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 why don’t you leave?”


because imagining a future completely alone feels more painful than a bad future with him. to be isolated, with a thousand intrusive thoughts going through my brain all day all about him, literally makes me suicidal. i would rather put up with all of the mental, emotional, and verbal abuse on a daily basis than to be alone and have my mind eating me alive. because at least at the end of the night, we are always stuck to each other skin-to-skin; whereas alone i would be sleepless. with him, i can fall asleep in five minutes. without him, i would be an insomniac, my brain replaying trauma caused by him driving me crazy. 

to explain better: he could throw me out onto the street in the cold with too much to carry on my back and say “good riddance” (and he has); but if you asked me to choose between never speaking to him again but consequently dealing with loneliness and suicidal ideation and intrusive thoughts racking my fucking brain over the option of just giving up and “forgiving him” for his abusive behavior, followed by hugs and kisses and someone to share life with, i’d look at you crazy. 

maybe this only makes sense to me and you’re thinking “with enough time, these feelings would pass.” except they won’t. they really won’t. i will think about him every day for the rest of my life. i have spent over three years with this man, in my most formative adult years. he has changed my life, both in good and awful ways. he has left me with passionate, euphoric, loving memories, and he has left me with trauma, severe emotional pain, and complete loss of self-respect. 

he is it for me, as much as he is not okay for me; and it has been the most gruesome battle for the last three years. but in his presence i never find myself overthinking... my mind is always peaceful. i repress everything that has happened because i’m still distracted by him. i’m still loving him, i’m still holding him, i’m still looking right at him. if i were to leave him, my brain would click on like a light and i would have to face the trauma he’s given me. i’ll be trapped, vivid memories replaying in my mind like a movie i can’t fucking turn off. a movie i will NEVER be able to turn off.