Once Upon A Time in A Land of Doubt

Let me tell you a story.

This was me circa 2019. I’ve written many stories about my previous self. I think most know my tumultuous affairs with loving the wrong people, struggling with mental health, and writing poems about men that couldn’t love me. I was going through Google Photos and came across these old pictures I drew. I used to be an illustrator—a long time ago—but my talents were dwindled to scribbling eyes and blood that fell from them.

Since I’m pretty much immobilized, it’s a good time to talk about strength and bravery. That photo with the cuts? That was me. Don’t worry, it was old, and things are very much different now. There was a time, though, that I was coming out of an extremely abusive relationship with a man I shouldn’t have been with in the first place. He was awful, abusive, narcissistic, cold, and well…evil.

I was a bad person. I was. I made mistakes that I could have easily avoided, but my image, self-worth, and mind were shattered beyond belief…and I thought that falling into every pit would cushion my fall. With every decision I made, every bad person or thing came along to follow. It was nobody else’s fault but my own, and I knew deep down, I had to change. My obsession with wanting to die every today was at an all-time high, and the man who I thought was amazing at first, well, he became the monster everyone said he was.

You see, November 18th his birthday. And every year on that date I cringe at the thought of having his sweat fall onto my face. The taste of salt on my lips as he forcibly had sex with me in the backseat of his car made me feel so low. What could I do, honestly? I was in too deep; the pieces were in motion, and I laid there letting him push himself inside me more and more, until it was over. I wouldn’t say it was rape, because I allowed myself for him to violate me, but there were times he used to hit me so hard in the face that I lost my hearing.

I felt dirty, low, whorish, and wished I could die.

Well, 2019 being the crazy year that is was, I figured, “Fuck it; let’s die.”. I went to a friend’s house and became so intoxicated that he molested me.

It was the first time in my life that I’ve ever had a person try to rape me passed out. It was humiliating, and I drove myself home the next day with tears in my eyes at the life I had created. I couldn’t do a goddamn thing but bite my lip and ride through it.

When my abusive partner found out, he told me I deserved it. “You deserved to be raped, you slut.”

Those were the last things I remember him saying before I finally broke away from it all. It was five months of him harassing, stalking, and telling me he was going to show everyone the naked pictures of me he stashed.

(To be continued)