I have decided to share this story in its entirety, despite physical threats from my ex. I had agreed to remove some things, but as I see it now, they are integral to the story. And give her what small amount of sympathy she deserves. I was unsure about doing this. I felt confident that it would be okay. But after my mother told me not to dare let her shake me...I decided that this was best. I was told to write this so that I could understand every aspect of what happened with us. And I was encouraged to publish it for all eyes in the offchance someone with a similar situation may stumble upon it and realize that they may also be a victim of abuse. Despite the fact that she thinks I'm trying to punish her by doing this, actually, she needs to wake up and realize the world does not revolve around her. (She needs to listen to that Carly Simon song YOU'RE SO VAIN). I did it for myself. To help myself and to help me get better. IT IS ABOUT ME NOW. I use no names...not even my own. The people that actually know me have heard the story from my lips and already know she's scum. The strangers that see it...have not a single clue who the fuck she is. So there. And if there is a bone in my body that is out for revenge. So be it. You did these things. I am just speaking them. If you are ashamed of who you are, you should get help.
Here you are...
One Friday night, my heart was ripped through my chest and shoved up my ass. No...this is not a joke...unfortunately. Here's how it goes....they tell me if I write it...peace will come. I've started to feel a little better already.
I went to a bar with my friends. I had such a shitty week and really wanted to relax with my friends. My girlfriend (although she usually refused to call me that) wandered in a little while later. We were both surprised to see each other. We had been fighting a little before, and we were supposed to have a night off. Well...God must've been planning on this one. Allow me to give a little history to this relationship before I reveal the fantastic ending.
I have spent over a year in my life in a relationship filled with emotional, physical, verbal abuse, as well as cheating. I have gone through it all. I am not without blame. I made every single choice to stay with her despite the mass disapproval of my friends. I have not been perfect. She cheated on me the first time (that I know of) last Thanksgiving. I knew that one of her old flames was going out with her. I was uneasy. The day after she called me and told me that this girl had spent the night but nothing happened. I felt very uneasy. When I returned, on the advice of someone who cares, I looked at her cellphone. Aha! She sent a very dirty text message to this girl that she "DIDNT" sleep with?!?!?! I confronted her. She begged my forgiveness, and despite the fact that we were already strained due to the fact that for the first few months of our relationship she still fucked her ex-girlfriend on a weekly basis, I forgave her. I did not, however, forget. A few days later she asked me to move in with her. Primarily out of convenience since, her latest roommate (ps she is currently on her fifth roommate in less than a year) was moving out and she needed someone fast who could live with her. I loved her, despite everything working against it, and agreed to take the plunge.
It was pretty much traumatic from the beginning. I always looked at this relationship through some really fucked up positive and pretty stupid eyeballs. I refused to see that she was some sort of -path (whether psycho or socio I'm not sure). Sure, she was transgendered and suffered a lot of trauma from that. Sure, she was physically abused from childhood. She had the "pity me" going for her from the start. So, me being me, I tried and tried to save her. Tried and tried to make her happy. Tried so many different things and still she was suffering so I was suffering. I should probably interject here that I'm somewhat sure that the fact that I was sexually molested as a child played a part in accepting the abuse as normal and allowed her to so easily lower my self esteem. Oh and PS...This didn't qualify me for the "pity me."
Not to say that there weren't happy times. Even in more recent months our relationship did get a little better. I'll tell you why in a minute. So, I put up with all of the shit for a long time...despite my friends begging me to leave. And then here I am living with her. Let's just say a month after we moved in together, she dumped me. She decided at that time it was time in her trans phase to date gay men. She pursued that to it's end a little while later with no luck. Needless to say, I was devastated. And here I was living with her. It was rocky, but I agreed to stay after she wrote me a heartfelt letter which I now see as pure bullshit. This is someone who for Valentine's Day bought me the book EAT PRAY LOVE so that I could get better from it. The inscription was that this book was from the person who took everything from me. HER!! She knew it then. Scum.
At the end of February, it was time to celebrate my birthday. All of my friends were meeting up to celebrate with me. At one point in the evening, she started dancing with a friend of mine. (Note: She had wanted to celebrate my birthday with me and was there as my date.) She was acting sort of inappropriate with my friend (I feel to make me jealous). I could tell that my friend was mortified and uncomfortable, but a non-assertive person to stand up for herself. (She's such a sweetheart. I'm sure she didn't want me to get hurt. Too late.) So, the night was ruined, and later on back at the apartment, my ex changed into one of her other personalities and was trying to be sweet and sleep with me. Of course, I was pissed, and this turned into a vicious, vicious fight. (I will say here that at this point I did sort of freak out, start yelling about how could she do that to me...and blah blah blah...she tried to make me stop. I did not stop. I was so angry.) At this point, she snapped, and blow by blow I felt her fists pounding into me. Her fingers around my throat. It was awful. The next day we cried together not knowing what happened. And here I accepted half of the blame for this fight.
In therapy later that week, my counselor told me I had to move out. He told me that there was no excuse for physical violence...no matter what I said, did, or how I acted. I had a hard time agreeing with him. I was so far into this hole of a relationship...and I had not one single breadcrumb. My counselor suggested, at this point, it may be necessary to seek some pharmaceutical assistance. That I was at a point where it would be very difficult to get up. So, I began taking Wellbutrin (behind the girlfriend's back...she hated pills...even though she needed them more desperatly than me.) I managed to pull myself together, find an apartment, and then tell her. I didn't tell her at the start because I didn't want her to try to convince me to stay again. When I told her I was moving she flipped. I ended up paying for rent in two apartments in April, but I am so happy I did it.
So...I moved out. I moved out and then started dating her again. Yes...now you're saying...you asked for this...and I did. I did. At this point she had screwed her ex...cheated on me with another ex...asked me to live with her...broke up with me...wanted to date gay men...and beat the living shit outta me. And, yes, I chose to stay. A few weeks later, another fight ensued. I should say that at this point I was less docile and began to stand up for myself more and more. (Which she saw as accusatory and completely insane behavior.) She thought that I questioned her to death about everything, that I suspected her, made her explain everything, that I didn't trust her. Which I should confess, I didn't. And I'm sure you are saying to yourself...WHY WOULD/SHOULD YOU TRUST HER? Yes, you are right. I should've walked away at this point...and I nearly did. The fight continued for the entire day. And into the night. We met later for a play and she made a complete fool out of me in front of her roommate. She treated me like a dog...less than a dog.
Here's my problem. I fall very easily prey to manipulation. On this night, she told me things my worst enemy would not tell me. So...I went home...cried (while she went out clubbing--and probably fucking). The next day she started calling...then she showed up at my apartment. I wasn't there to answer the door. She kept calling until I finally txted her back to say I DON'T WANT TO SEE YOU! At this point, she begged and begged to see me. After a few hours of this...blah blah blah... I didn't mean it... I need to see you...I need to tell you something shit, I finally agreed.
When I met with her that evening, she told me that she had felt the entire time we were together (nearly a year) that she was too good for me. That some of her friends thought I wasn't pretty enough...didn't deserve her...Nonono...I didn't throw her out at this point...because she said she SAW THE LIGHT...oh yeah...the light shining out of her ass. Ah...yes, I took her back. Yes you are now saying NONONONONO!!!! You would be echoing the sentiments of everyone I know.
I cannot say that I was entirely surprised that her shallowness had found its way to the surface. There had been talk of my weight, clothes being too big and exercising before. So...the things she had said in the past had hurt me, and I started to worry that I would lose her because there was something wrong with how I look. I'll interject that I do have self image issues, but this was the first time someone had hinted that I actually look worse than I see in my own warped mind.
Again, she promised she'd change. She would try harder, be better to me. And she did/was...sort of. She wanted to give us a shot, and of course, pathetic lap dog that I was, I jumped at the chance. YAY! I wasn't going to lose her after all. She could stomach the way I looked enough to stay. And here's where she made the seemingly honest attempt to be there for me, meet my needs and be present in the relationship. And this continued..ohhh... for about a month. For me, that was an eternity of not having to deal with the side of her of which I was afraid. For others, it was just a teensy weensy drop in the bucket.
And after that month, it went downhill very rapidly. Only two more major fights and we're up to where we are today. The first started after I confronted her about some things I noticed about the way she was treating me. Here's how it went down. I had a sinus infection and felt like shit. I had gone to bed early the night before and missed around 20 calls from her. In the morning, when I made it to work, I finally, IMed her to tell her that I was sick...and also that the way she'd been acting was bothering me. We went round and round until I explained myself...she saw what she had done (or just said she did to shut me up) and apologized. At this point, I'd heard I'm sorry from her every week for a year. So, I told her that I'm sorry just wasn't enough. At this point, she snapped, and there we were in the middle of our own personal war.
She had said she wanted some space...The space. She always pulled this. Where she wants it...gets overwhelmed. Then a few days later comes back, all over me. The cycle. Coincidentally, she told me once that she wasn't strong enough to stop and give herself the space...so it was my responsibility to evaluate when it was needed and to keep her in check. Um...can you say YEAH RIGHT. She hadn't listened to me in a year. Why would she start now? We agreed to only meet twice per week. I was resentful (not because I didn't want it or like it) mainly because I felt as though, here I am, again, being controlled and told what to do. But I agreed as usual because I was so afraid to lose her.
So, back to the fight. Now she had her usual freak out/meltdown. I apologized for telling her that her apology wasn't enough, and we took a few days away from each other.
Now, I'm going to interject and explain how these fights of ours went down. The fights ranged from small, moderate to severe and usually happened every week for the time we were together.
It would start with one of us (usually me) bringing up one of our issues. If it was her issue that she was bringing up, it was made into a big deal (because, just in case you forgot, the entire relationship was about her and her problems). If it was an issue I was bringing up, I would get one or all of the following replies: I'm sorry (on the rare occasion). OR You don't understand how I feel. You always assume things. You always nitpick. You always overreact. You always read into things.
At this point, I would begin to try to communicate to her and explain myself, which at this, she would shut down, ignore me, freak out and start screaming, walk away, leave my house or hang up the phone/turn it off. I understand now that she was an empty shell not capable of emotion. And if in fact she had a feeling, she wasn't able to express it and doesn't know how to in a healthy way, so her reaction is to flip and change personalities.
By now, I still haven't gotten my point across/a word in at all, and now she won't communicate at all. This pisses me off, and I freak out. Why do I always get cut off whenever I have something to say? Here are some thoughts that run through me when I freak: She doesn't care about me, She is going to leave me, She doesn't try, She never lets me explain myself.
On continues the fight, like a tennis ball, back and forth. For the most part, until the last two fights at least, she would eventually calm down, listen to me, hear my side, the light bulb would go off, she would understand. AHA!! FINALLY! YES! At this point everything would be fine. Fight over. When this happened, she would always tell me that if it happened again, just to remind her about what she was doing, that we'd already discussed it and worked it out, and that she would remember and she would stop. UH HUH! That worked... let's see...ohh... ZERO TIMES!!! And so... we would usually have the same fight every week. Let's compare it to Lucy in 50 FIRST DATES. Some accident had turned off her short term memory so we'd have to do it ALL over again. After a year of this, it became more and more draining for me to stand up to her and hold my own.
And that brings us to the last two fights... Her therapy ended and her therapist had told her that she always attacked herself about the issues and that's what would make her sick with migraines. When the therapist told her to stop attacking herself, she did. And the migraines stopped. YAY! That is good, right?? Um, for me, this was the worst thing that happened. Now instead of attacking herself, she attacked me, VICIOUSLY. She accepted blame for nothing, thought she was superior, that she had made this wonderful change and was on her way to becoming a healed whole person. Of course, she believed that I hadn't changed. She was doing sooo much better. Yeah fucking RIGHT!!! She had only turned from internal abuse to severe external abuse. It was the most awful experience I had. So, if the way she attacked herself all that time was the same as the way she was attacking me now, it was very easy for me to see how she became a delusional psycho with a personality disorder.
The last few weeks before the end I was on my toes. Please and thank you, very sweet and meek so as to avoid Mr. Hyde.
But, it happened again. Not really that shocking. At this point I was terrified I would loser her, worried all the time about her well-being, not thinking at all about myself. And this is where the higher power stepped in.
Like I said before, I was a a club that Friday with my firends. My girlfriend and I were having the time apart and were supposed to meet the next day. She ended up in the same club. She treated me okay. She wanted to dance. I told her that the other room was hers, to go and dance. I continued to hang with my friends. A little while later, she came back and asked why I wasn't dancing. I told her, I would, in a bit. Later when I heard a song I liked, my friends and I got up and headed for the dancefloor. When we came in, she sat down. She watched me dance. A girl sat down beside her. They talked and laughed, in a way that bothered me. My friends and I left the room. A bit later, one of my friends went to the bathroom, and when she came back, she told me not to get upset, the girl was gone. I calmed down. Later, I went to the bathroom. When I came out, my girlfriend was dancing up behind a DIFFERENT girl. I got upset again. I went and sat down. My girlfriend's roommate came to me and sat down. I was so hurt. I asked him what was going on. He said he didn't know, was surprised and didn't understand why she was doing that to me. He took me outside for a cigarette. He shared some wisdom and tried desperately to calm me down. I told him I wanted to leave. He told me to stay and not let her erratic behavior ruin my evening. TOO LATE! We went back inside, where at this point, my girlfriend was flanked with BOTH girls, talking, touching, flirting. I couldn't take it. My friends got very upset. No one could believe what she was doing to me. I had to leave. Her roommate walked us downstairs and put my friends and I into a cab. They came to my apartment and proceeded to listen and be supportive of me, as I cried and cried.
This continued for the next two and a half days. My friends came and stayed, listened, talked to me, called me constantly, tried to keep me busy and to get me to eat. On Saturday morning, I sent her a text message that it was over and for her to stay away. On Sunday morning, I got weak, began to think that maybe I had overreacted, and sent her texts and voicemails that maybe we should talk. And NOTHING 'til Monday morning. Then came the text from her reminding me that I told her it was over. I told her, yes, I said that, but I wanted to talk. That I got upset because of the way that the girls were touching her. She informed me that everyone touches her (ie...her roommate, her friends, her BOSS etc). What the fuck? I asked her how she could possibly compare her boss touching her to those girls. She sent me another text reminding me that I said it was over, and now informing me that she'd slept with someone else.
After this, email ping pong ensued, here are the basics that I got from her...
1. That she hated me, despised me, never wanted to see me again. (One of her defense mechanisms that she always used and then later begged forgiveness for, pleading that she never meant it but was only angry).
2. That I was looking for and loved my drama. That I wanted it so badly. So she decided she would give it to me. (I haven't yet figured out how my leaving the club indicated that I WANTED drama, it seems to me I was avoiding it... but again we are dealing with a crazy person).
3. That she was going to end it, that it was over before that night and so that's why she didn't care and did it. (Um...yeah... I have nothing to say. As you can see she's fucked in the head).
4. That she liked the girl in the skirt, asked her to come home with her and slept with her. (FUCKING WHORE, right? Say it with me now!!).
So, now I'm furious. She's actually blaming me for her cheating. How can it possibly be my fault? I send her an email explaining to her that she's a stupid whore etc etc. So later during the day, I get it from an unnamed source that the girl she slept with only looked good because of the skirt, and at least her skirt drew attention away from her butterface. Not being shallow myself, it didn't really make me feel better that my girlfriend had slept with an ugly girl. I was just surprised because my girlfriend was such a shallow whore. I was angry. So I sent her an email the next morning informing her that I knew she slept with butterface. She said she didn't even care what the girl looked like...that it didn't matter. That was not why she did it. (In my opinion and in the opinion of several PROFESSIONALs she was self destructive and liked and seeked to ruin everything good in her life. And that was what she had been doing for the entire year.)
I went to the doctor that day. I was having an emotional spike that the Wellbutrin wasn't helping. My girlfriend had broken me. I was the lowest of the low. Not worthy of an ounce of respect. She had broken me. And at this point, the doc wrote me a perscription for Xanax (made me promise not to swallow the whole bottle) and I was on the way to recovery. I no longer cared. Even in what some people may think was a drug haze, I could see her and what she had done to me. This put me into a rage. And a rage is a place far better than melancholy. And that was it for me, I was done.
However, that wasn't it for her. She found out after she blocked me on Facebook that I had written about how I was hurt because she cheated and that I was being blamed for it. And later she read Part One of the blog. Both times, she fired off a nasty text message letting me know how she hated me, how I was so low etc etc. All I could think was Puuuhhhllleaaasseee psychopath, get away from me, YOU DESERVE WHATEVER YOU GET.
My girlfriend always told me, I was such a good person. I was sweet and kind. That since her relationship before me was so abusive, she would now be able to get better because she was with someone good, caring, and nurturing. ME!! I became her FAITH HEALER. And, so like a leech, she attached herself to me. She sucked so much life out of me. And every time she told me to work on myself, my self esteem etc, it was because I was getting low on her medicine. The medicine of using someone to push down, knock down, treat like shit, so that she could feel better about herself. So, that she could feel like she was better. And at the end, she realized, maybe in the back of her mind, that she had broken me. There was nothing more left, and I couldn't fix myself fast enough to give her what she needed. So, she cut her losses, and left. (She never kept a single promise she made to me. But, she made me a promise that if she ever cheated on me again, she would go away. She has kept this promise.) But in the way that she is, she cannot survive without a host to live off of... so I bid good luck to the next. She has had this relationship before, she had the same relationship with me, and she will continue to have the same relationship. My doctor told me that unfortunately, having a good person around, meditating etc would never be enough. That she needed therapy multiple times a week and five different medications to regulate her personality.
As soon as I started walking away from the relationship that Monday, I started to feel better. It was like I was taking five ginormous steps away every day. It became slightly overwhelming to see the big picture. I became and am still slightly upset that I allowed this to happen to me. All that time I was so afraid that I would die without her (now I get to actually live), I was so afraid, and now that I am out, I see how simple and easy and relatively painless the whole thing was. All that fear for nothing. Couple that fear with her begging me to take her back, using her excellent skills of charm by manipulation and control, made it harder.
She has treated me like shit. And as I have heard her speak negatively, disrespectfully, and degradingly about EVERY SINGLE person she knows (and my friends as well), she may have a lot to say. I'm sure she's so happy to be rid of me. The nightmare that she couldn't live without. The nightmare that she was so sorry that she hurt. The nightmare that kept her safe and protected. The nightmare that was the one she trusted more than anyone in her life. The nightmare that treated her better than anyone had ever done. For her to say all of these wonderful things about me and actually do what she has done to me, there is something very very wrong. I am so lucky to be safe from her now. I feel so much better every single day. I now get to begin a new relationship with someone (and knowing all that I know now about abuse, I won't tolerate abuse anymore) I'm sure that new person is an amazing choice for me. And I am very very lucky and blessed.
