(no subject)
Abuse. It's such a big, ugly, dramatic word. It's hard for me to say it without feeling melodramatic, overreactive. That was always your favorite tool, to use my inability to trust my own emotions against me, making me feel like I was overreacting. I look back now and struggle to find a time when you were genuinely worried about my hurting, and all I see is you being worried about my blaming you. How sick is that? Truly, where was your concern for me in all this? I always wondered that, even before I put those big ugly messy words emotional abuse into the mix. I've lost track of the number of times I accused you of caring more about your convenience than my sanity. But every time, it was my emotions that were wrong, not your actions. Every time the blame could be oh-so-conveniently steered back to me. It's easy to blame someone who's depressed for being upset. I've heard for the majority of my life that I'm too sensitive, that I'm too defensive, that I lose all sense of proportion when I'm upset, and that's the truth. But you would let me down and leave me alone and wondering, again and again, deliberately withholding the concrete details and simple straightforward answers that I needed more than anything while giving me just enough to keep stringing me along. You won my love, an all-too easy feat, but you never returned it in the way I deserve. You always made my place clear, one of many, another figure to add to your always-evolving myth. Hell, you'll use your stories of me and how I broke your heart to get the next little girl who wanders into your trap - and I use the phrase to describe all ages, because you make us all alike in our weakness, our dependence, our surrender of power and control. You played me well, sir, and everyone but me saw it. That, I think, is the most perverse thing about this entire episode, the fact that I come out of this maelstrom of shit ashamed of my ability to love, because you made a fool of me for it. In truth, I know that you are the fool for hurting someone who truly did not deserve it, for manipulating a love that probably could have saved you if you'd returned it rather than toying with it, for becoming one more guy who fucked me over. But in our only-too jaded world of hookups and breakups, my sincerity and utterly unbridled love makes me look the moon-eyed calf being led to slaughter, when in fact opening myself to love, being hurt, and being able to open myself yet again as freely should be seen as a sign of my strength, and every time indeed makes me stronger. I loved you, and you made that beauty into something ugly, something that I have to carry with me every day as I try my best to function normally when it feels to me like everything I understood about my life has been ripped out from underneath me. I am not too enlightened to hope that fact kills you. I want you to carry this around like I do. I want you to have to face anew every day the fact that you were emotionally abusive to me, just as I have to wake up every day to the fact that I was emotionally abused, that I let myself be abused.
But in spite of what you did, in spite of what I let happen, I'm still as strong and as clever and as beautiful as I ever was. (How sad that a simple affirmation of my few good qualities sounds egotistical and narcissistic in the cold hard light of today's world). I will be fine when the pain and the fear and the memory of you has finally faded. I am blessed to have so many good people in my life right now, all of them kind enough to see through all the things they have to face each morning to see that I need help, all of them kind enough to reach out to me despite their own considerable burdens. The oldest of friends and new ones, family from all over, people who don't even know me that well and have no reason to care about my shit, all reaching out because improbably, they do care. And in the midst of all this outside support, there is all the love and support I'm finding within myself. I suppose I should thank you for that, but I'll just thank myself instead. After all, I'm the one who came through for me when you didn't.
But in spite of what you did, in spite of what I let happen, I'm still as strong and as clever and as beautiful as I ever was. (How sad that a simple affirmation of my few good qualities sounds egotistical and narcissistic in the cold hard light of today's world). I will be fine when the pain and the fear and the memory of you has finally faded. I am blessed to have so many good people in my life right now, all of them kind enough to see through all the things they have to face each morning to see that I need help, all of them kind enough to reach out to me despite their own considerable burdens. The oldest of friends and new ones, family from all over, people who don't even know me that well and have no reason to care about my shit, all reaching out because improbably, they do care. And in the midst of all this outside support, there is all the love and support I'm finding within myself. I suppose I should thank you for that, but I'll just thank myself instead. After all, I'm the one who came through for me when you didn't.