What I wrote for facebook but don't have the bravery to post
What you don't know, is that when you deal with years of psychological abuse and manipulation, you wake up some mornings and your face is wet and you can't breath. You dreamed of him.
Sometimes you can't stop crying and you're not sure why until you realize your brain is playing a compilation of the Worst Moments, on a loop. You can't stop it. And ( Read more... )
I used to be part of a private group, and I'd talk about it on there until his new girlfriend became part of that group. It was a broad feminist group for anyone who identified as a woman, and someone added her.
Someone had posted about a horrible person they'd just broken up with and I was offering solidarity. In this group there was a "bad date list" on which we could write the names of men who were abusive or coercive. She was struggling with whether to put him on that list or not, and I said something like, "I've had that struggle too. But he's a fairly known person in ABQ so I'm afraid to. Plus his new girlfriend is in this group now and I'm afraid to speak about it at all now." and she made some reply, which i said something along the lines of, "When we split he was in therapy, so I hope he's doing better and isn't treating her the same as he treated me."
This woman I've never met then made an entire post trying to confront me without confronting me. She implied that I was bringing her into some conflict. She said something like, "It's possible to speak your truth without bringing someone else into it."
I never responded. I left the group, which had been one of the only "public" spaces I felt safe enough to be honest in. There were a lot of his friends in the group, and I know they took me seriously. But his new girlfriend got angry when I said I hoped he wasn't abusing her? It was gross, but also really made me afraid of being called a liar or told that MY truth nothing more than the delusions.
I'm afraid if I'm public about it, I will be eviscerated and he will be told that he was right the whole time, I AM a "cr**y ex." Which I'm sure is the line he's fed everyone by now. He fed it to me about his lover before me, so what reason do I have that he isn't saying it about me?
I also DO still love him, and I DON'T want to make assumptions about his life now. I really DO hope he's doing better, because I KNOW that his pain was real and that he probably couldn't have treated me better even if he wanted to (which he didn't. He was fine with continuing the abuse because it gave him power and control).
So what point would it be for me to go public? To be metaphorically stoned? So he can walk with his head a littler higher knowing no one believes me? No thank you.
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