What I do instead
I can’t really afford a therapist right now. Have a peek.
You used to tell me that I had no feelings.
I thought you didn’t know me, that I hadn’t shown you enough of my heart and mind for you to realize that basically I’m made up of nothing but feelings. Now I know that there’s something very wrong, and you were either trying to hurt me, consciously or unconsciously, or you were seeing a reflection of yourself when you looked at me. But since our entire relationship had been built on a platform of your twists of my reality, I believed you, and it turned me inside out.
How did I never cotton on to why you were turned on by tears? You would hurt me, I would cry, and you would turn tender and want me in your arms. My cravings for passion would be satisfied and I would forget for awhile. But now, with nearly a year gone by since the last time, I see that what pleased you was pushing me to my breaking point. Over and over.
I have feelings. I love (frequently) and loathe (rarely) so fiercely. I despair and spill over with joy and pine and rage and thrill and adore and get so goddamned confused and it is fucking awesome.
I told someone I trust but don’t know super well, after a really bad interaction with someone I don’t know at all and will never know, how you used to control me by telling me I was wrong, or crazy, when I knew I was solidly right. I react very strongly now to being undermined like that. I shake, afterwards. You traumatized me, and that sucks, because I want to be rid of you forever. I don’t want to see you on the street, even though you ducked and looked away the last time I did. I don’t want to know you exist. I don’t want to imagine, of what violence are you capable? I don’t want to wonder if your son is OK. I just want to forget you. But I can’t, because you took two and a half years of my life and made me a different person.
That gives me a whole lot of feelings, asshole.
