I am no stranger to getting into situationships or being in relationships with people I have no business letting that close to me. Unfortunately for and unbeknownst to me, a side effect of not processing my trauma was constantly seeking out situations that resembled my trauma.
It took me until my 30s to recognize that I was replaying the same scenarios in my relationships, just with different men, each becoming worse than the last. If I had been honest with myself from the beginning of these situations, they would never have progressed. However, being honest with myself required a degree of accountability and awareness I did not yet possess.
In one particular situation, I met someone who, on the first date, was forthcoming about not having a license due to a DUI. Having grown up with addict parents, I was under the false assumption that dealing with an alcoholic would be vastly different than dealing with drug addicts. Spoiler alert: it was not!
It started fine. First date aside, every subsequent date or get-together involved some alcohol. I should’ve seen it when my best friends brought to my attention the excessive drinking I was engaging in. But he was sweet and caring when he was drunk, and quite frankly, I enjoyed the attention he provided, so I kept on.
Although it didn’t take long for the dynamic to change, it did happen gradually. At first, we were simply laughing at drunken antics, but then those antics turned into arguing, and the attention he had once provided was so far gone it felt like it never existed.
Eventually, he became an angry, hateful drunk who would look right through me, and I began to feel like I never existed. Except for when I swore I could see the devil in his eyes, and he spewed venom at me. In those times, it was almost as though his eyes were fixated on me like I was a target whose demise he was after. And little by little, he did what he could to break my spirit and diminish the light inside me.
I should’ve left the first time we argued about race and politics, and he became so angry with me that he began to belittle me. Refusing to learn what white privilege meant, he took it for face value, yelling at me in a way I never knew he could, that he never grew up privileged.
My bad for trying to debate with a drunk person; I was also drinking and felt passionate about the racial inequality still evident today. He didn’t want to hear me; he couldn’t hear me over his anger and alcohol, so he proceeded to express his deep hatred for my views before telling me of his hope that I would find myself on the receiving end of a bullet.
Not so eloquently, he looked me straight in the eyes and flat-out told me, “I hope you get shot and die.”
I can still recall how devastated I was as I gasped for air, feeling like the life had already been taken from me. I couldn’t understand how someone claiming they love me could look me in the eyes with such hatred and spew such venom. And he wouldn’t stop. He followed me around the house, saying the most hurtful things he could think of until he literally drove me out.
I found myself seeking refuge on the football field at the high school across the street from the house we shared. I could barely make out my words as I called my best friend in despair. She reminded me that even though he and I had just bought the house together, I was not stuck with him and could and should leave. Though it didn’t feel that way, I held onto her words in the depths of my soul.
After this incident, I knew for sure that I couldn’t risk bringing children into the world with him, and quickly went on birth control. If nothing else, this should’ve been more than enough of a red flag, but I felt stuck and powerless, and so I stayed. And it only got worse.
He started smashing glass when drunk, seemingly for fun and reaction, but because I dealt with emotional outbursts at work by individuals bigger than I, I was desensitized, and it didn’t phase me.
I never reacted when he screamed at me, calling me names while trying to break a beer bottle on the passenger window as I drove us home from a party. Instead, I got him home and in bed safely.
I never reacted when he upped his ante, telling me I was undeserving of love and destroying the house, throwing glass plates and full soda bottles across the room, flipping tables, and ripping down lights. Instead, I locked myself in the upstairs bedroom and forced myself to sleep, a skill I had learned in childhood.
Over time, his words had hit deep, and what once had been an insecurity of mine had become a belief: I was incapable of being loved. After all, the common denominator in all my relationships was me.
Towards the end of our relationship, all the drinking I had been doing made me sick, causing me to spend my favorite “drinking” holiday, sober. Complete dread took over me as I realized I would have to be sober in a social situation, and it alarmed me enough for me to finally realize there was a problem, that I had a problem outside of my partner.
That sober journey opened up my eyes to the reality of the life I was living. I couldn’t recognize who I had become. I had once been so full of life and happy and loving but had turned into someone who was purely miserable. I hated people, and I hated myself; I desperately needed change.
I thank God for my best friends, who were so essential in reminding me who I was and speaking life into me during that time. The number of unanswered questions and the tears I cried were met with so much love and support from them. In a time when I felt incapable of being loved and undeserving of love, they did everything in their power to prove to me otherwise.
Along with love and support, they provided me with a safe space to process and grow. In the end, they helped me realize that though he could diminish my inner light, it could never be fully extinguished, and slowly but surely, as I worked on healing, that light started to come back.
It’s hard to reflect on this situation and remember the emotional abuse I endured. But as I write this I recognize that the story isn’t so much about the abuse endured, but more so about the friends who loved me unconditionally through it all.
