subtext

All the in-jokes, the messages back and forth with a million kisses at the end, the I love you's and reassurances. All the heart swelling declarations that made my chest feel fit to burst and my limbs weak with wanting him.
I don't ever want to do it again.

Maybe one day there will be someone who comes into my life to stand calmly by my side, without fuss or clamour. But it won't be the awful fall from grace that happened too quick and shone too bright in crackling neon; a sick light born out of neediness. Blindly I fell.

Lately I've let myself re-read the nearly two years of messages that we exchanged. It's an ongoing stream of need and reassurance. Pretty much as you would speak to a child who has woken from a night terror, confused and still dreaming, their sweet limbs heavy and coated with a sheen of sweat... 'Shhh, shh... I'm here, I love you, shhh shhh... it's ok'.

And then the parents amongst you will know that you will lie in the darkness of your own room, unable to sleep again, full of adrenalin and the knowledge that you have to be up in 4 hours... 3 hours...

Now I can see the sinister subtext. And I  can remember things too. They swim into focus again as I read and I'm back there, but watching from behind sheet glass.
It is waking from my own night terror and being unable to sleep, the questions turn in my head, over and over as the hours creep by...
What was my agenda in all this? Did I twist and demand? Did I pressure and expect? Did I abandon, ultimately? Did I?

There is a lot to be said for letting it go. I've read blogs that have advised against the rehashing of the story, over and over to understand, or to voice indignation and ire. We, the left behind, are gathered here today to rant about the terrible thing this person has done to us. We are outraged! We deserve better treatment! We are victims and we are baying for blood!

Except that we won't ever get it; the apology, the clarity, the recompense. These things will evade us until we forgive ourselves for putting ourselves at risk. We are disempowered whilst we shout about our victimhood and mourn who we once were.
Whilst we stand and point at whats been done 'by that person over there' we aren't looking at the person who is still here; the one we abandoned.
And so we should put it down and move on and lead our best life...
I agree with all of that.

However...

When you are in an abusive relationship, the cavalcade of events; the things they say, the things they do, how those things twist back on you and shape you into something you were sure you were not, actually, becomes such an onslaught that you forget. To hold it all in your head would be to descend into madness.

I look now to accept what has happened, not by simply saying 'the past is done, c'mon kids lets skip along...'
I have to remember and grieve first. The awkward awfulness of it is that I walked right into that relationship without a backward glance and see that answer is yes; I did twist his meanings to suit my agenda. I did demand too much of myself. I did bend to pressure and not listen when I needed to step away. Ultimately yes; I did abandon myself. Yes. Yes I did.

I dissociated myself from all that happened, even as those things were happening.
Back once again with the cognitive dissonance - I reacted to the person he had told me he was, not the person he was in reality.

And I can see that I wiped my memory clean. Every. Single. Time.

Something would happen that was uncomfortable or upsetting; something that did not fit into this image I had of Lee. He'd say something or do something that would make me do an internal double take.
And all I would do is look past the facts or the incident to the fake icon I had of him in my mind. 'It's done, forget it.' he'd say. And we'd move on.
Of course it would happen again, and again, something different, something much worse this time.
And I'd find myself again, standing at the alter to this imaginary deity in my mind, whispering my rosary... 'it's done, forget it.'

And thats how it keeps on happening. Because we don't shout about it... We don't screech our breaks and say, 'you have done this and said that and I am fucking out of here, asshole'
We don't connect the dots. And then all of the things that happen are isolated events, like some terrible constellation that leads us away from ourselves.

'According to the New York University Medical Center, chronic stress resulting from emotional abuse or any other kind of trauma releases cortisol, a stress hormone which can damage and affect the growth of the hippocampus, the main area of the brain associated with learning and memory. This leads to mental diagnoses like depression, anxiety and PTSD.'                                                            click here for neuroscience!

It's amazing. We literally forget the abuse. Time after time. And thats one of the reasons we stay.

Years ago, whilst I was doing a masters in art history I read an essay by Julia Kristeva called, 'Powers of Horror'. At the time I was writing about what happens when people are forced out of the context of their homelands, due to famine or war and how the disparity between previous and present experience creates a kind of 'break' in our internal narrative.
Her essay discusses the language we have, the one we are born into that we come to navigate the world with. If we had no language to understand the world around us, then we would be lost in it. Language is our map, if you like.

When something terrible, awful or horrific happens to us it falls outside of our everyday understanding. There you are going along, things are happening as they do, the words that we have for the life that we live are reeling themselves off on the ticker tape of our minds... 'breakfast... tired... coffee... work.. car... car... wait what?!' Something unexpected happens that you have no experience of and therefore no language for. A car crash for example.

All you have is the pure emotion of it; the horror or the pain, but in its unexpectedness it falls outside of our every day language.

We don't have the words for it. We stumble into a blank abyss and there is nothing there to catch us.
What we have to do is tell and retell our story until we finally understand and contain what has happened within the words we have at our disposal. To put that experience on the map.
Until we do it is an unnamed, frightening thing. Psychologically, if we cannot describe, articulate or even consciously understand this thing that has happened, then we walk around with a gaping hole that cannot be filled.
It threatens our very identity. Our map is blank and we are lost.

If you cannot come to terms with what has happened in an abusive relationship, because there is such a cognitive dissonance and stress that you have forgotten everything, then you walk around in a dissociated state. You are not yourself, you have become outside yourself, someone other, an onlooker, a stranger.

And so, whilst I am aware that I have to ultimately forgive myself for letting it happen, first I need to remember what happened. To painfully step back into my body and find the words for it, so that it becomes my story that I tell from inside me, not the looming blankness that swirls, always almost out of reach.

I thought it was sweet, I thought I was falling for the sharpest, funniest, most intelligent and kindest of men. When he told me he felt vulnerable I wanted to reassure him, so that he knew he was safe in my hands, that I found his vulnerability endearing. I felt that it was a pathway to intimacy. If you can be foolish, unguarded, open then you can really connect with someone, for all their flaws and insecurities. I saw it all as a positive.

So I scroll through our story and I see, a week in, that I have a pretty good idea this man wants too much, too fast. After our kissing date, but before he took me out to dinner, the texts saying 'I Really REALLY like you' had begun to make me uneasy.

I said as much to him, that maybe he was looking for more than I had to offer right now... and his reply, as nothing much as it was, seems to have been enough for me to carry on seeing this man. Perhaps I only wanted to be reassured, not really to step back at all.

Perhaps I really did just want to have fun. But we always know, we always have a clue what this person is, or isn't. And they will tell us to the letter. Honestly, it's not a trick. There's no NLP or Derren Brown wizardry about it. Everyone you have ever been with will have told you exactly who and what they are, and you will have seen it and, in my case, ignored it.
It's not the things they say, thats far too easy, it's what they don't say, its what they do or don't do. Its the gaps in the conversations. What people tell you about first are the things that define them -
what they talk about, the words they use. Be still and listen. Be unflinching and look.

This was a heady time of diving in, of writing love songs, of being bombarded with flattery and attention. It was delicious and I didn't want it to stop. I did not want to listen or look, I wanted to fill that need in myself that I had felt so keenly for so long. I wanted to belong, to be a part of a family, a team, not on the edges as a single parent, but as part of something that I could lean into when the wind howled around me. Here came Lee, and with him so many possibilities, so much admiration and  attention.
Here was a man who did what he said he would do, who turned up on time, who took me to dinner, who respected my boundaries (I thought) and acknowledged me. 'You're an amazing mum, you're doing a great job'. How much did I need to hear that? 'You are so beautiful, talented, creative, funny, thoughtful and kind'. That kind of flattery is hard to resist, especially when you don't already know those things in your bones. If you did no one would be able to ever take them away.

Just imagine, someone pays you a compliment. They think they are giving you something; like a form of exchange.

'You are really beautiful'

You say, 'I know, right?'

If this person has no agenda other than to acknowledge this fact, they will probably be surprised, but ultimately pleased. Here is a beautiful woman and she KNOWS it. High five sister, that's awesome.

If this person has an agenda they will feel aggrieved. They've 'paid' you a compliment. Now you 'owe' them something. A debt of gratitude, a thank you for noticing or taking the time to say it (even though you never asked for it), your time... something unspoken. The balance book is out already... Your creditor wants payment... with interest. Your interest.

In a manipulative relationship like the one I found myself in this 'love bombing' phase set up a debt of gratitude. And because I didn't feel worthy of it, I knew I was incapable of repaying the debt. I was only grateful, and then fearful of it being taken away. He had 'given' me this idea that I was all the things he said I was. I owed him big time.

But the only person we owe anything to is ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to know our worth.
You don't have to be an asshole about it. Someone says you are beautiful, you say thanks, but you don't then feel like you owe them anything for acknowledging it. And then, if they suddenly turn the tables and say, well actually you're not that pretty really, you haven't lost anything at all. What you've gained is a reason to walk swiftly away.

In December Lee's 20 year old daughter came home from touring with a band. She had been the nanny to two of the band members toddler and had been on the road for months. She was tall and striking. At 15 she had been a model.
Lee, who saw the had gained a few lb's on the road referred to her as 'a massive fatty'. 'Poor girl' he mourned. But I don't think she actually cared, and I don't think he said it because he cared about her.

It struck me that here was a man who could not unconditionally defend his daughter. He wasn't loyal or trustworthy. He wasn't on her side, he was on his. He was proud of her when she was skinny, but mocked her behind her back, to someone he barely knew (me).

Lees unending stream of flattery towards me was fragile and conditional. His words sat like shiny marbles on a moving surface.
From being beautiful and near perfect, I lost my value when I put on weight before our big holiday to Cuba. Sitting on a catamaran in the blazing sunshine with a group of people heading out to paradise island (because our hotel complex wasn't paradisey enough, we'd joked) on walked a girl, the image of perfection. She had long dark brown hair in a plait, a tiny taught body and a bright red bikini. Baseball cap and ray bans and cutoffs. She was drinking a can of coke and smoking a cigarette. He leaned in to offer his lighter.
Behind his shades I saw his eyes slide to her again and again on the boat that day. It wasn't the looking at her that I minded. If Jon Snow himself strolled down my street my head would not stop itself from turning as he walked by. That much I know.

It was that he was giving me the silent treatment, pretending that there was nothing wrong.
 'You ok Lee, you're a little quiet' *Shrugs*, 'yeah, of course' *doesn't look at me, doesn't reach for me, doesn't really want to be with me at all.*
His eyed slid to her, and then to me and that pedestal I'd been on went crumbling away.