
“I’m sorry I haven’t been able to really see things from your point of view. If you need to be at [REDACTED], be there. If you need to be at [REDACTED], be there. We don’t have to acknowledge each other/I will be respectful and keep it moving. Ultimately, I know I’m in the wrong and this is all the consequences of my selfish and abusive actions. You have been more than generous with me and I need to deal with my shit. I can deal with my feelings. I was feeling protective over my work spaces, and you need space too. I don’t want to take space away from you. I know we can navigate space, I will take my queues from you. I’ve taken some time to really think about how you might be feeling and realized I’m causing more issues and stress. I don’t want to get in your way or cause problems for you. I want you to do you and be successful and happy and in community. I know you’ve had to go through so much hard shit and I’m not helping your life be easier, better, or create more space for you. That’s fucked up and I’m sorry. Thank you for being willing to talk and negotiate space, you’ve obviously done more than enough labor around this. Let me know if there is anything else you need from me around space or anything else.”
It’s been a long ass time coming.
Today is November 2nd, 2019. And I finally cut all ties to my abuser. What you just read was the last communication I received from my ex. Under any normal circumstances this message would be nice to read but considering the pattern of the last 5 years with my ex — I can only read this message as manipulation.
I’m married now and monogamous with the most perfect person. We’ve been together for 3 years, married since June, and they actually encouraged me to write this. We recently moved back to the South and to the same area in which my ex lives. I immediately got swept up into being in relationship to my ex. I wanted to try to navigate living in the same community. I wanted to live out my value of practicing restorative & transformative justice. Until recently when I just said: Fuck. This.
When someone enacts violence on you, they do not get to dictate anything that you do. They have to navigate around you and you can participate in that navigation as much or little as you want. This is a belief that I have said to other people in my life. And only now am I believing it for myself.
There are so many reasons why I kept getting pulled into being in relationship to my abuser and why I stayed silent for this long:
- But when you abuser is white and you are black, you are silenced.
- When your abuser is femme and you are masculine, you are silenced
- When the situation involves mental illness, they get a pass and you are silenced.
- When your abuser is queer and you are queer and resources for queer people in IPV situations are slim, you are silenced.
The original version of this story was 10 pages long and a recounting of only some of the shittiest shit that happened in the last five years with my ex, SK. I could probably write a book on each year but ain’t nobody got time for that. So this is the shorter version that I feel really, really good about letting flow out of my body.
Some of you reading this know parts of this story. Some of you know a different story. Some of you have no idea what I’m talking about and that is okay. I’m just really tired of being silent while others spread lies that are dripping in guilt. I’m here to finally lay this to rest for myself and practice something that people like me don’t get to do a lot in this world: I’m telling my story.
2014 was the bulk of the shit.
TW: physical abusive / domestic violence / IPV
I met my ex, SK, in college. The first red flag should’ve been the immediate control they wanted over my friendships and other relationships. I let them isolate me. By the time I graduated college in December of that year, I had not spoken to my best college friends for months.
When SK and I started dating I was so happy for someone to appreciate me for being me. I had come from situationships in which people wanted me to transform into what they wanted as a partner. So I did a lot of fitting into personas that were not me just so I could be liked. By the time I started dating SK, I had no idea who I was and was programmed to be whatever someone else wanted me to be.
I remember the day I woke up and felt the realization come through clearer than anything I’d thought to date: I wanted to spend the rest of my life with SK but I had to come clean about the things I lied about to them.
Five years later, I still can’t remember what exact lies I told SK. I do know they weren’t major — probably ranging from sexual experience to hobbies. But to me at the time, a lie was a lie. I was so torn up about this conversation. I cried, told the truth, tried to not dissociate. There was a hair tie around my wrist that I kept twisting and twisting to keep myself feeling and in the room. They saw that as me self-harming in front of them.
We stayed together but looking back, we should’ve broke up right then because everything from this point forward went more downhill than I ever could have imagined.
For the next couple of months we broke up and got back together so often I lost count. They always broke up with me and reconnected us. They had control. I felt crazy. I got blamed for everything bad that happened to or around them. They told me, unprovoked, that I remind them of the abusive men that they dated. I have memories of SK telling me that if I don’t eat when they are eating then I am triggering them. I believed it. So I ate when I wasn’t hungry and didn’t eat when I was.
They got mad at me for everything too. I remember one time that I decided to comb out my dreadlocs and cut my hair short. They wanted me to send them a picture of my hair once I cut and combed all my locs out. I said no, because that’s embarrassing and because Black hair is big deal. They got mad at me saying that I got to see them (they invited me) as they cut off their very long, very white girl hair to a buzzcut. If that ain’t anti-blackness, I don’t know what is.
In between me and, well, me, they dated the only other black masculine queer person on campus. They have a track record. Since we worked together, we tried to be friends, kept things platonic. I thought things were good when they invited me to a party in early September. I went with a new group of queer friends who had been holding me down in the longest stint of singleness I’d had from SK. I danced with one of the people that I had known for a week at SK’s house. We were broken up but this set off a fight that resulted in me blocking SK’s car with my body, and SK running over my foot with said car because I guess backing down the empty street or actually talking to me wasn’t an option. A lot of this night is a blur but the other moment I remember clearly from this fight is this: at one point we were yelling at each other outside. They got really close to me and kissed me in the middle of the fight. I kissed them back and then was immediately told I was being predatory and trying to use sex to get them to stop fighting with me. I wish I could say that was the moment when I learned what gaslighting is and was able to call them out, but I only just learned.
From then on, following more break ups, I did my best to deal with my crippling depression & anxiety, and had other traumatic experiences including being sexually assaulted by The Girl I Danced With. To this day, SK is mad about me “leaving them” for a “basic bitch” despite knowing that The Girl I Danced With assaulted me. If that ain’t telling of the kind of person they are, I don’t know what is.
Fast forward through more fights, more breakups, and deepening isolation. to December 2014. I was again single, but still tied to SK. I felt like an SK puppet. They said jump, I jumped. They said fuck them, I fucked them. There was no saying no and I was scared of what emotional manipulation would happen if I did. It felt like I no longer had control over myself.
On a night close to graduation, SK heard that another girl told our mutual friend that she thought I was cute. SK got upset, drove to my house, broke in my window, and proceeded to beat me up for the next couple of hours.
I remember them calling me on their way over, yelling. SK lived close to me so I knew I wouldn’t have time to get out. And where would I go? I remember wishing I was allowed to go to the graduation celebrations happening but SK didn’t want me around the person who thought I was cute. On top of that, I hadn’t talked to my friends in months.
So I stayed at home. I will never forget pretending to be gone and hiding behind the front door. They pounded on the door, screaming that they knew I was home. Eventually, they broke the screen and lifted the window from the outside. I went over to try to close it before they could climb in, but they grabbed my shirt and tried to pull me out. I backed up and asked them to come in and please talk to me. As I unchained the door, they came in and pushed me to the ground. I remember them saying that I fell by myself and to get the fuck up. From that minute on, all I remember is snippets.
Getting pushed to the kitchen and choked, back up against the fridge. I almost passed out. I ran to my bedroom and remember trying to hold them off of me. We both fell to the ground, I got up, and SK started kicking me in the stomach. I ran back out of my room, SK slammed and closed the bedroom door. I contemplated calling the police, but let’s be real: Mike Brown just got killed. That would not end well for me. While in the room SK was reading my journal — all the entries about times we broke up and how much I loved them. They started ripping out pages and calling me a liar.
I don’t remember how but I got back in the room. I gathered up the pages and got mad for the first time that night. I picked up the journal and a lighter and started to burn everything I had ever written for them. SK tried to grab the journal from me and I wouldn’t let them, so they punched me and left the room.
My next memory was SK going to the bathroom crying and yelling. I followed them, also probably crying and yelling. I put my hand between the wall and door to stop them from slamming and locking another door. That did not matter to them — they slammed the door on my hand several times. Enough to leave a deep wound that showed the tiniest bit of white bone. I still have a scar there and nerve damage. I eventually got into the bathroom and the struggle continued. Grabbing, pushing, they ended up in the bathtub, I was over them. They were trying to choke and hit me again. So I slapped them. The first physical motion I made all night. And then things ended.
I thought I was going to get killed that night.
They spent the night at my apartment. My parents came the next day, but I had just enough time to clean the blood off the walls and put together a story about why there was a hole in my wall, why I had a black eye, why I had bandaids on, why I was limping, and why I was so tired. I will (also) never forget the way my mother looked at me; she knew I was lying.
That afternoon, after my parents left, I bought tons of fort making supplies, ordered our favorite food, and invited SK over so that I could say sorry. I apologized for making them so mad, we ate, and then I fucked them — bloody hand and all. I was afraid of what would happen to me if I didn’t.
2014 was a mess. Emotional, sexual, physical, and racially motivated abuse. I entered that relationship not knowing who I was, and I ended the year beaten into nothing.
2015 to 2019
The pattern continued for the next 4 years:
Step 1: Somehow, often by SK, we’d be back in relationship to each other. We dated until 2016. I would always take them back. After 2016 we continued to be in the same spaces — conferences, shows, towns, etc.
Step 2: SK would apologize. Often saying that they still love me which is a total midfuck. You can’t say that you love someone and also have an overwhelming desire to control them in any way possible.
Step 3: I felt hopeful that things would continue to be good and feel that some of my pain would be taken way
Step 4: I would do something that: (A) Demonstrated that they did not have control over me OR (B) they would get mad at me for a real or perceived mistake that got spun to make them the victim and me the abuser because I was “masc.” The most recent iteration was telling me and others that I was intentionally triggering them by being in the same space as them. When I finally snapped out of it I realized they are just guilty as fuck and don’t want the reminder about the violence they committed.
Step 5: There would be a fight and/or communication would be cut off, again often by SK.
Step 6: Repeat
SK controlled me for entirely too long with this cycle. They tore down every single thing I did or thought. They hated my gender and expression.They hated my blackness. They isolated me.
I spent a lot of the last 5 years going through this cycle even when I wasn’t in a relationship with them. When I stopped engaging with them romantically, I stayed trying to navigate space. I thought I was doing the right thing and that I should try to make every situation as comfortable as possible. I spent the last 5 years feeling disoriented, confused, triggered, and mad as hell.
I wasn’t perfect in that relationship. I still struggle with feeling like I deserved the violence, especially physical. But more days than not, I believe that I didn’t.
Now I’ve finally broken the spell. And realized SK may be my abuser but I know who the fuck I am. And the only thing I need to navigate around is making sure I can heal, live my life to the fullest, and make sure to never become the abuser.
The last message I got from them would have been step one in the cycle, but I finally left. And I feel free.