I watched as the content of the IV drip bag trickled down, each drop reminding me just how lucky I was.
The gush of the fluid into my body seemed to provide an instant sliver of strength to a body that felt too weak to do anything. The ache from the needle that had just poked my behind was nothing compared to the emotional rollercoaster I had been on for so long.
I closed my eyes, helpless against the onslaught of painful memories that demanded a home in my mind.
My fiancé had done it again. The one thing he knew that I detested with every part of me. He knew that, and yet he still did it.
Again.
Truth be told, I’d be lying if I said I was surprised. I’d expected it, and he did not prove me wrong. The last time it happened, he had sworn that it would never happen again. But love is all about forgiveness, right? And that is why I had forgiven him, again and again, and again. Even when he confessed that he had been intentional.
Now, I understand better. Sure, love is all about forgiveness. But it is about forgiving someone when they deliberately put in the effort to change. Efforts expressed by intentional actions are much louder and clearer than mere words could ever hope to be.
I remember the thinly-veiled taunts he chirped in the guise of friendly or romantic “yabs” and “disses” when we were out with friends. Some of them were so hurtful that I knew without a doubt that he could not take them if they were hurled in his corner.
The loud criticisms of parts of my body that he didn’t like made me cringe each time until I dreaded looking in the mirror. There was no way he did not see the hurt in my eyes. But did he stop? My pain was not strong enough to deter him. Maybe it was what spurred him on. I cannot say.
He was not perfect, my man. You see, there were parts of him that did not come close to fitting into society’s definition of perfect or manly. But I never uttered a word in that direction. Instead, I accepted him, warts and all.
I simply lacked some physical features that he wanted in a woman. My small behind, nonexistent hips, and slim thighs were his complaints. And he never let me forget that each time I visited. The open comparisons he made between me and other girls that seemingly had those features were never-ending.
At first, I would laugh whenever that happened, a weak attempt to veil the emotions that threatened to burst out. But later in the dead of the night, I would lay awake, wondering why he didn’t date these girls. Why he had chosen me instead.
He was never physically abusive. He never laid a finger on me. But the words he said tore and bit into me, producing a thousand scars on my soul. Scars that no one else but me could see. Sadly, he never saw it as emotional abuse. He was simply speaking his mind and I had to deal with it.
Finally, everything flashed before my eyes and I finally understood a sad truth, that I was only hanging by a thread.
When that thread wore out due to the repeated actions he had promised to change a gazillion times, I found myself falling to the cold hard ground.
That fall was an epiphany. I saw then that every warm feeling that I thought I had perceived from him was only a figment of my imagination. I was sadly living in la-la-land, the kind that was the replica of what I watched in romantic comedy movies.
I began self-harming, to escape from the craziness of it all. It started with a few cuts on hidden parts of my body, but soon I had progressed into exposed body parts.
My best friend discovered me in a pool of blood that fateful day, a day I had nicked a vein on my cutting spree. And here we are, at this very moment. A patient in a hospital, barely hanging on to life.
I will never forget the words of the therapist who visited me in those critical moments as they helped me gain more clarity. Now, I know better. It’s almost like a heavy fog has been cleared from my eyes. There is still pain, but I feel that it is the cleansing kind of pain. I know it will take with it the debris and the clutter, leaving me free to rebuild.
Now I know that the duration of a relationship isn’t enough reason to remain in an abusive situation. Someone who genuinely loves you would never intentionally do something he knows would hurt you. And finally, that true love does not abuse, not physically, mentally, or emotionally.
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Love,
Diane
