Tangled Up Puppet (2/3/16)

February's a bad month for me. Granted, I've never been a fan of Valentine's Day, but now I loathe the day. It's a yearly reminder of what I've lost. Some years I'm okay. I make it thru. But other years I just want to die. This year is looking to be the latter. I've had my first panic attack of the season and it was a doozy. My usual methods helped very little.

February 12, 2011 I lost my mom to cancer. And the pain hasn't subsided. It never will. You just learn to survive with it.

She was home. It didn't matter what I did, she was home. I lost so much that day. More than anyone can imagine. When the world was trying to change me, she encouraged me to be who I wanted. She let me explore myself without pushing me into a mold.

I didn't cope well to begin with. I was told at a young age that crying was a sign of weakness. I didn't want to be seen as weak, so I trained myself to not cry. Which makes mourning painful, emotionally and physically.

By default, I bottle up anything emotional. Emotions equate to weakness, because that's how I lived for so long. Even now, trying to bring out true emotions is hard. I know it's no longer a weakness, but rewiring my brain is hard. And this month makes it nigh impossible. All I want to do is cry. But crying causes pain. So I fight against it. Which only leads to more problems.

How can I work thru the pain if I never properly grieved in the first place?

Yes, I cried when my mom passed. I cried a lot. But I was also numb to my feelings. I distracted myself. With making the video for the funeral home. With packing up my mom's clothes for my dad. With watching my nephew for my sister. I distracted myself until I couldn't feel anything. But I never grieved.

Five years later and I still haven't grieved. I've distracted myself thru everything. Everything that I should have had an emotional reaction thru, I didn't. I didn't know how to. I don't know how to grieve. I don't know how to live without numbing myself. Emotions cause me pain because I never knew how to experience them. They were a weakness. They caused problems.

Even now I'm trying to stop the tears from falling.

Wishes

So I've been trying to write this one for years. And I never realized some things about it until I wrote the last entry.

Gaston #3 was another abusive relationship and I never realized it. Almost a decade later and he still has power over me. All because I convinced myself he was a good guy. But he made his choices. I don't need to constantly make excuses for them. It's time for me to let go of all the blurred lines and realize he wasn't a good guy. He was emotionally abusive to me. He manipulated me.

I'm going thru old journal entries, looking for certain ones, and I'm realizing how naive I was. I was second to a fucking game. And I let it happen.

It was my first, and only, on/off relationship. But the "off" portions weren't really "off". It was all confusing.

For starters, he was controlling again. Flirting was a huge no-no. And he complained about my guy friends. Complained to the point that I felt bad for having them. Didn't stop me from having them, tho. I wasn't losing friends again.

I was constantly second to MMOs. He would ask me over for the weekend and spend the majority of the time on the computer. So I ended up online on forums, talking to my not-so-imaginary friends.

When we weren't together, I was the one who had to instigate communications. And when I got tired of doing it, and stopped, he would complain about how I never want to talk to him. Most of the time I felt like the guy and I just wanted to be the girl. But I wasn't allowed.

Reading thru these old entries is really enlightening, and I wish I could go back in time and slap some sense into myself.

On one of our "on" moments I had the biggest scare of my life. It would have changed my life, and his drastically. And he laughed it off. I thought I was pregnant and he wanted more sex,

So I finally found the entries that I was looking for. The flashing neon lights that I ignored. Well, burned myself on while I was ignoring it. And it all started with a kiss at Momocon.

I had asked for a break because I felt we were rushing back into things after he stopped things. We were trying to focus on our friendship and he ended up talking with a girl online.

Then the kiss happened. And that turned to sex later on. And, well, he's the only guy to ever ask me to marry him....in bed.....during sex......when he was technically dating another girl. I was so stupid.

For a month he dragged me along. And I let him. He used her for the emotional and me for the physical. And it tore me apart. I still can't believe I let him. He tortured me. Dangled a romance just out of my reach and made me beg for it. And I let him. I let him abuse me, even tho I had my reserves about him. I still let him torture me

I was the other woman. And, even tho it tore me up, I didn't want to stop it. I needed to stop it. But I didn't. It was easier to be in that crazy situation than to be by myself. And that makes me question what I was thinking.

So, yeah, I've gone thru my old journal, but I still don't see why I did it. I had the ability to tell her but I didn't. And she isn't the last that I didn't tell. I'm not proud of either situation.

She did find out. A mutual friend helped.

Looking back at it, I realize I'm done with it all. I don't want to dissect it. I don't want to give myself the chance to come up with more excuses. He's not a good guy. A good guy wouldn't put two girls that he "cared" for thru that.

Dear Mr. Darcy (from March 25th, 2010)

I have been infatuated with you for the past 5 years. I still am at a lost of words as to why, but you are always there when I feel down and lonely. Why must your infuriating manner arouse me so?? You are obnoxious and annoying, yet I find myself returning to you time and time again. You have been my rock and my salvation. As hard as I try, I just cannot let you go. I have tried and tried to get over you, but I cannot manage to leave you. Every time I have a low, I run back to you, be it thru book or movie. I thank you for always being there. For helping me thru the hard times. I know it's against your character, but you have caught me when so many others have let me fall. So many times have I sat and envisioned myself as Miss Elizabeth. Many times have I worn her shoes in my dreams. All just to be that much closer to you. You are my bad boy, not with tattoos and a motorcycle, but with a top hat and stallion. There's something in your nature, something in your stance, that just draws me to you. I am not quite sure what it is, my Mr. Darcy, but it is intoxicating and I cannot get enough of it. Your strength and sureness ignites my soul and makes me want to be a worthy conquest. One day I hope to meat a man as great as you, a man that makes me feel as beautiful as you make Elizabeth feel. For now I shall return to you again and again for you will be the constant in my ever changing life. For all of this I thank you from the bottom of my soul, my Mr. Darcy. I am truly indebted to you.
Forever Yours...

Bowling Ball (written 12/31/15)

So it's the last day of the year. I should prolly try to leave some things. Stop letting them have power over me. But it's so hard to take the control back. It's hard to convince my brain they were wrong.

I've been in my fair share of relationships, but only three wrecked my psyche. There still have power over me. And it's horrible.

Maybe he'll change, maybe things'll get better/ Maybe it would be nice, if he wouldn't always put you down/ Maybe things'll work out, but maybe they'll never/ And I think you've given him the benefit of the doubt.

My first relationship was horrible. I was unprepared and naive and he took advantage of that. I didn't know any better. I was in an abusive relationship and I had no clue because I thought it was love.

A couple months ago my friend shared an article called "15 warning signs of an abusive relationship".  By then I know it was an abusive relationship. It just hit home how bad it really was. As I went thru those fifteen signs, I mentally put a check by each of them. All fifteen pertained to one relationship. You can find the list here. (It will open in a new window)

The first one they mention is oppressive behavior. Looking back, I was barely allowed a thought of my own. I wasn't allowed to have friends outside of the ones he okayed. I lost touch with so many people because of him.

Second is possessiveness. I'm a natural flirt. I do it without realizing it. Flirting, to me, isn't a bad thing and should never be punished. Just because I flirted with someone doesn't mean I'm going to jump their bones. I'm showing appreciation for some aspect of their being. This became a huge issue when he best friend came into town. Before even meeting the guy, I was told I was forbidden to like him or flirt with him. I was told I wasn't allowed to be friends with his best friend. That's all kinds of messed up. He was scared I would jump his best friend because I couldn't control my lady bits when attractive people were around.

The fourth is manipulation. This ability was handed to him on a silver platter. I was so naive it isn't funny. All he had to do was say a few choice words, and he had all the control. One of his favorites was: "If you wouldn't eat so much, you'd look like a super model." Remember, I wasn't eating a whole lot to begin with. But my body was a huge weakness and he had no problem exploiting it.

The sixth one ended up being my wake-up moment. Violence-apology cycle. He had his violent moments, but never towards me. So I didn't see it as abuse. I know better now. He was instilling a fear in my brain without me realizing it. If he can punch a wall, what's stopping him from hitting me? Then one day he crossed the line and all the abuse clicked. He cornered me in the kitchen and started choking me. I still have no clue what I did or if I was just in the wrong place at the wrong time. I got out of the hold and he apologized profusely. But I knew I had to get out the relationship while I still had a say.

The tenth one mentioned is unrealistic expectations. I was expected to perform on queue without any reciprocation. And I was expected to do whatever he wanted at that moment. It didn't matter if I wasn't in the mood or if I had piles of schoolwork to do. I was on this planet to please him. And I still remember the one thing that would have pleased him the most. He constantly asked to add another girl. He used the excuse that she would be for me, but I don't think that's the case anymore. He was going to have sole choice in who was added. They only way I could stop it was tell him to let me to think about it. It didn't matter to him that I was visibly uncomfortable with the idea. He expected me to do what his wanted, regardless of my own feelings.

Provocative behavior is the thirteenth one mentioned. He didn't do a lot of flirting with other girls, or guys (he was bi), when I was around. However, he would take "breaks" from me so he could go out with other girls without our relationship being in the way. With no regards to how torn up it made me. And I know I killed my parents when I would accept him back a couple days later. What can I say? I was naive and he said he loved me. I'm fairly certain he never loved me. He just loved controlling me.

Obviously I just covered a handful of the ones they mentioned. I didn't want to relive some of them.

It took me a year and a half to realize I was in an abusive relationship. It took him becoming physical for everything to click. Before this piece of shit, I didn't realize there was such a thing as emotional abuse in relationships.

Even after I realized I needed to get out, I had a hard time doing so. There was no way I could end it in person. He would just manipulate me into not following thru. I ended up breaking it off over Myspace. I'm not proud of it, but I had no other choice. He had that much power over me.

For years I was scared of him. Scared I would run into him again. Scared he would weasel his way back into my life. Scared he would take back all the control. For ten years I let him have immense power over me because I was scared.

And then I did run into him. And I realized I could kick his ass if he tried anything. I had the power, not him. And there was no way in hell he could pry that from my fingers.

I still have the emotional scars. I still have the gut reflex to shy away from people reaching for my neck. I'm working thru them. But I'm not scared anymore.