I have been avoiding this story. I have been hiding under my bed from it. It is not pretty. There is no happy ending, but the gestation period is over. Before I begin it, I want to say this:

I’m scared that my friends will read this and judge me for not leaving when they think I should have, for choosing to try and work things out, for not doing what they think I should do. They’ll call me stupid, delirious, blinded by love. They’ll talk about me like I’m a wax statue, just a model of who I really am, because to them, I can’t possibly be the fearless me and this woman at the same time. They’ll say that I was just “deep in it” and that I’ll come to my senses eventually. So I hate talking about this. It no longer becomes my story, it becomes a fireside chat of everything I should have done.

I haven’t written this story because of how abused women are received. They are forced to justify their actions and resistance constantly. They are held to an unattainable standard to be “the perfect victim.” They are asked, “well, what did you do…to provoke him?” Their actions are dissected as if by a sports commentator. “So-and-so should have done this, well why didn’t they do this, what about this?” It’s almost as if the pressure to be the perfect victim is more important than fighting for your life.

The first time he put his hands on me was some time in Fall 2013. He was wearing a dark green and black Nike jacket, black pants, and a black cap. We were arguing in the kitchen. I stood in front of him in my underwear and a t-shirt. He grabbed me by my forearms and dragged me to the bedroom and threw me on the bed.

The violence never stopped. All the different times blend together. He wasn’t really a puncher or kicker. He always chose to strangle me. That was/is his go-to. The violence persisted on/off, maybe every month or two for about a year. Each time, I would brush it off. I would tell myself, “it’s going to stop when he gets better. He will get better. He’s trying.”

But it never got better, just worse. He would come home drunk and things would escalate into a physical fight. I’ve blocked these ones out of my head. I just remember glimpses of what his face looked like as he was strangling me. His eyes, huge and red. I could smell the whiskey and cigarettes. I kicked him out a few times, and let him back after maybe a few weeks. I would ask for space so I could figure out what I wanted. He would resent me, lash out at me, tell me how much he wants to come home.

In June 2015, I graduated from my master’s program. A week or so after that, we got into another physical fight. I was laying on the bed and he was standing on it, trying to step on my chest. I was kicking my legs at him to get out of it. I pulled my back. My back injury persisted for 3–4 months with no relief. I spent most of my summer bedridden and in pain. I took a lot of painkillers as Percocet and Vicodin appeared to be my only solace, which destroyed my stomach lining. I was depressed and suicidal. I told people I hurt my back doing yoga.

The same day I hurt my back, he strangled me (of course) and headbutted me and put his knees on my chest and told me that’s what his father used to do to him. I remember after he headbutted me, my nose started bleeding. I was crying for him to stop, and there was a glimpse of kindness in him as he told me to put my head back to stop the bleeding.

In July 2015, I kicked him out because the violence got so bad. I told him he needed to be sober if he wanted to live with me. For about 2–3 weeks, he came back twice, drunk, saying that he had nowhere else to go. One time, he came in really really angry. The cab driver had jacked him. I told him he needed to leave, but changed my mind after realizing what he might do if he left. That was the worst night.

He dragged me across the living room by my hair.

Now I hate it when people touch my hair.

He lifted me up by the neck and squeezed as hard as he could.

Now I have panic attacks when scarves or clothes are too tight.

He threw me around the living room. I screamed for help because I thought he was going to kill me. Someone did. He ran away before the cops came. I called his mom, crying. Praying that something would stop him. He punched a hole in the bedroom door, which I would later pay for.

The cop was tall, white, and had a big American flag tattoo on his forearm. He sat me down, looked at my face (I had a fat lip). He asked me who did this to me, where he lived, and I refused to snitch on him. He eventually left, gave me his card with a case number written on it and a domestic violence pamphlet. I remember him being kind and direct and saying, “I really hope you call us. He shouldn’t get away with this.” About an hour after the cops left, my partner came back and found the pamphlet. He accused me of calling the cops, held me down and started hitting me in the face with the pamphlet over and over again. I cried, begging him to stop, crying that I didn’t call the cops.

So I decided to move to a different place with him. I was scared someone would see him and call the cops. I thought that maybe that would have changed something, but it didn’t. He said he would stop drinking, and I also thought that would change something, but it didn’t. The violence became more and more frequent and he was sober.

I was depressed because of my failing health. Lead poisoning makes you depressed! We got into an argument and he lifted me up by my neck, strangled me until I begged for my life, then he would release me and say, “see, you don’t really want to die.” He would tell me to strangle myself with the dog leash.

On Christmas, he decided to leave. The next day, I was sitting on the bed as he was packing up. I told him I was changing the Dropbox password, as I was paying for it. He had a bunch of files on there. He dropped the clothes in his hand, attacked me, and strangled me again. I grabbed the nearest thing to me, which was a glass of water, and smashed it on his face.

That was the last time he put his hands on me. Since then, he has blamed me for everything. Actually, he has always blamed me for everything.

He blamed him getting kicked out of art school on me.

He blamed his career not taking off on me.

He would say I wouldn’t let him have fun and hang out, because he had ignored to do any of his portion of the housework all day.

He would say I was holding him back, even though I told him that I would financially support us until he got on his feet.

He would yell at me for asking where his check was when he was late with the rent.

And the list goes on.

So why the fuck am I writing this? There’s the undeniable urge to say this out loud, because if I don’t, I will probably shove it into the corners of my psyche and eventually die from it. I’m writing this to make it real.

It has taken me years to arrive at a place where I can say that I like myself again. I let him take these little pieces of me until I was all but gasping for air. That’s what it feels like to be a survivor. You are a bundle of mislabeled missing parts and people look at you with such pity or disdain. People ask what happened to me. I don’t have any other words except, “I ran from myself.”

I’m not going to tell you why I chose to stay, even now, nor am I going to say that others should follow suit with what I did or do. I don’t really give a fuck. I don’t have a responsibility to anyone but myself. Women of color carry the weight of the world and this is my tiny little fucking pocket for myself.

Most of you reading this will start to poke holes in my story because you’ve been conditioned to not believe women. Despite all statistical evidence, most of you will think it was my fault. Most of you will ask me annoying questions that survivors aren’t obligated to answer.

I am not a role model, but I am myself.

I am still the same creative, loving hard-ass who tells her story. And this is a part of it. I am not speaking to other survivors. I’m not writing this to make you feel less alone, because nothing will make you feel less alone. This isn’t my first time being in a physically abusive relationship. The last time I went through this, I had all the support and friends in the world, and I felt completely alone. Nothing makes the wounds heal faster. No amount of cauterization will help close the giant fucking gaping holes that live inside of your soul now.

The only way I know how to be okay is feel my emotions when they flow through me, to not fight them, to breathe them in fully. To understand them, and hold them like little precious plants. To allow them to take me whole so I can learn what I need to learn from them. The moment I stop feeling is the moment I become small is the moment I start to die.

And I want to fucking live.