or, a note to the man who emotionally abused me

[content notification: this piece describes, in detail, a concrete trigger experience – i.e. a reaction to abuse, brought up because of being confronted with someone who has caused harm in the past. it mentions self-harm, physical and emotional trauma reactions, emotional abuse and sexual assault.]
Note: I have written this with care and consideration with the intention of being both accurate and honest about this kind of experience in all its ugliness. If you’re looking to read a clean, polite, blame-free account of a trigger, using non-violent language exclusively, this isn’t what you are looking for; it would not be an accurate description.

***

It’s been a week now since you showed up without warning. I can’t blame you: it’s a public space, and I never asked you to stay away from it. I’d been told you were abroad but I should have guessed your plans could change.

My knuckles are still green, still hungry for soothing salves applied by soft fingertips – but you do not know that; you do not know these wounds.

I remember vividly that time you told me, proudly, of how you educated a friend on the use or non-use of the words ‘trigger’ and ‘trauma’ for anything that’s only mildly disturbing and has nothing to do with actual trauma.
I remember your righteous outrage at what others had done to me. I remember your sense of achievement, maybe, your pride in being there for me when I was triggered. I remember how it felt, seeing you that way. Seeing you as an ally, maybe, or wanting to.
I did not realise how much you didn’t understand. I didn’t realise you can never know my pain.
I didn’t realise that all I saw was the things that made you feel good about yourself, because the things that didn’t, you pushed away.
You were never able to look the pain you caused me in the eye.
It was always others that had caused my suffering, right? You got to feel like an ally, and I know that thinking oneself an ally feels good. I didn’t realise then that perhaps it was more about that feeling than about real allyship with me – something that in the end, you kept choosing against.
Can I blame you for this? I do not think you understand, and none of this is about blame.

You do not know my pain.
You do not know what it feels like to be triggered by you; you do not want to even see me, triggered by you.
You can never know what it feels like, my whole body contracting out of the blue as someone mentions that you just arrived, unexpected, in this place where I’d felt safe. Everything inside me dropping low, like a gigantic stone, and all my senses suddenly hyperalert, alarm mode, as my brain frantically thinks through the options of denying this, making this be Not True. There are none.

You don’t know how it feels, this switch from being myself, with whichever emotions of the day, emotions I can handle and hold, to this unworldly something that has a grip on me I cannot control; suddenly, my body is no longer mine; no body at all, just a bundle of pain and a surge of survival energy.
You do not know how it feels, the instant urge to leave and never come back – never come back to this space where you hurt me, all that time ago, and that I had now returned to – sure that you wouldn’t – to reclaim it.
You have no idea of the fierce love and the courage I have in me that enabled me to even do this, to dare to enjoy the community and leisure here rather than let past experiences keep me at a distance.
You do not know the unspeakable mental and emotional effort it takes, as I quickly move away away away, to work this rushed urge to leave and never come back down to a need to leave for a moment and put a mile or two between us, breath by intentionally slow breath.
You do not know the intensity of this full-body-high-alert-mode I am still in when I get to the far end of this place; do not know the way my brain scrambles for options for what to do, how to somehow get back to feeling safe, how to handle this, how to calm myself down, how to ground myself, how to get myself back out of the grip of this situation. You do not understand the implosion that I embody, the unfathomable, endlessly heavy black hole in my stomach that wasn’t there just a few minutes ago. That I had worked so hard on healing and replacing with the here-and-now flesh and bones and breath that is me.

In this place away from you but still too close, I breathe in what I have come to think of as ‘controlled panic mode’: decelerating the pushing out of air in a way that makes a noise, so I can hear it, hear my control over the way I breathe, reminding myself that my nervous system is re-living something of the past – Can you imagine how many complete-lack-of-control triggers from hell it took, and how much bodywork and therapy and hard-earned money spent on both it cost to learn this skill? Can you imagine what it feels like to struggle with it anyway, despite all the work I have put into learning how to handle this kind of situation? As if this situation, as if your carelessness is making fun of this entire process I have invested so much in. But this isn’t something I can think about now; I am busy just breathing and feeling the invaluable distance between me and you.

To even think we used to be close.

When I have calmed down enough to think about the here and now, I am struck by the idea that you probably don’t realise what just happened, from my perspective. You may have seen me walk away, but do you know you had this impact on me?
I have carried this by myself far too often; I want you to know.

You do not know what it takes, in the midst of still trying to help my nervous system regulate, to reach all the way beyond my self-doubt and my physical sense of Not Safe and allow myself to believe in my ability to walk back, to face you and tell you that this is happening: tell you that you showing up here is having this impact on me; that this is exactly what I was talking about when I tried, twice, to talk to you about how to avoid this kind of situation (you refused); that this is not ok.
You don’t understand what it feels like to weigh this option against the knowledge that I may not say what I mean at all, that I may not remember my thoughts, that I may not remember to leave again once I am in your presence. That I might make it all worse by following an impulse to reach out to you in any way.
You can not know the oppressive weight of all the times that confronting you did not work – that my naming harm was deflected, disregarded, denied, minimised, ridiculed.
You do not know how it feels to walk back and face you despite all this, to face this you that has been so many different things to me, and say what I need to say, quickly, so the words don’t get lost before making it out of my mouth.
The black hole in my stomach has turned into a storm.

You do not know how it feels to hear you, having let me speak, immediately ask if I want to hear your response – too quick, your question, far too quick. I know you think this is respectful – you’re asking my consent, right? – but were you even listening?
You do not know how it feels to rein in the parts of me that want to listen to you, like I’ve always done, to your justifications and your reasons and all the ways you want to make sure I know you didn’t mean to do any harm, all the ways you don’t say anything about the way you impacted me, all the ways you will not be accountable; to rein in all that and let the part of me that just wants you to know the impact of your actions say ‘no, thanks’, and leave. There is triumph in this, but there is more confusion: I’ve said No to you for what feels like the first time.
The black hole storm in my stomach has turned into an earthquake, rumbling through me in shaking waves as I walk away again; away from this softly-lit, full-of-memories place that has you in it.

You do not know what it feels like, coming out of this situation, pushing away the guilt of not having let you speak, the guilt of having taken space just to name my own experience, and letting that be. What it feels like, knowing you’re in company with mutual friends, to sit alone in the wide landscape, shivering, shaking. There is a sense of pride in managing to be alone with these earthquakes – I have come a long way. And yet this is eclipsed by the parts of me that tell me not to bother anyone with this nonsense; that say I cannot possibly expect anyone to ever hold or even witness any part of this for me; with me. You do not know the profound raw loneliness of sitting with this, shaking, so very close to what, until you came, was a place of community, of sharing, of openness. A place to be authentic in, to be my whole self.

You do not know my wild and vengeful rage, the moment I realise what the trigger was: you making a space that I was feeling safe in, unsafe. This has happened too often. You refused to see this, far too often. You denied this, denied the harm, blamed me for not feeling safer, for not trusting you more, far too often.
This rage is too vast to stay inside me; inside this body holding black hole storm earthquakes already; it doesn’t fit.
Do you know what it feels like not to be able to contain this kind of rage?
In my rage, I hate you; hate you with the fire of a thousand suns, hate you and everyone else who has harmed me for ever having made me feel this way, and for now making my body remember it all so intensely.
I am not a hateful person, and I have been told many times that hate isn’t something I should feel. Do you know the shame of feeling it anyway, the knowledge that you would look down on me for feeling it, the compelling perception that I am doing wrong wrong wrong by reacting in this way to having been harmed? Wrong for having violence in me, in reaction to the violations I have experienced?

I would never punch you, so I punch the earth instead, until my skin breaks and my knuckles have turned green and blue.
You do not know how good this feels: it means putting this raging pain outside of myself, onto the surface. Making it visible, this tormenting and always invisible agony that I am so so used to holding inside – never ever all of it, but enough to feel a difference; enough to continue. I wonder – would it change you if you knew this? I wish I didn’t care.
You do not know what it feels like to realise that This Is Self Harm: the sense of shame and relief and disappointment and love with which I miraculously manage to let my head take over and make myself get up and walk back to the group, back to the campfire that not long ago was just another campfire and that now is a safe haven despite your still being around.
You do not know the relentless stickiness of this mixed sense of worry and self love and deep, deep guilt, with which I move on from this moment, and with which I tend to my wounds over the next few days.

You don’t know how it feels to open up about what happened to a friend, there by the fireside, having him listen patiently as I put words on all this that won’t do my sensations justice. He cares even though he cannot understand; this, too, is loneliness. His care, helpless as it is, makes a difference, and yet it feels like I am talking of colours he has never seen; he, too, does not know my pain. He sits with me, listening, staying close as another shiver runs through me and makes it impossible to speak. His silent presence lets those other voices in me take over again: don’t be too much, don’t be a burden, don’t confuse him more than is necessary right now. I let them talk and let the shivers do their thing.
Did you think other men would do this for me, when you held me through triggers? Did you anticipate you could ever be the cause?

There is healing in the fire, in its warmth and in the murmur and music of the community around it. I am lucky this happened here (but the outrage of having to think this phrase – this should NOT have ever happened). I am grateful I managed not to leave; managed to take space in spite of you. Storm and earthquakes slowly subside as exhaustion takes over.

You do not know how deeply draining it is, physically, emotionally, mentally, to make it through this kind of trigger.
You do not know the humiliation of having to make up my mind whether or not I feel safe enough to sleep alone.
You do not know how it feels to think that I’m ok again, and then to see you, on the way back to my tent – to stop in my tracks and almost, almost watch the black hole come back as I let you pass ahead of me because I cannot handle confronting you again; it’s been a lot.
You do not know the sense of anger and disgust, almost, at the thought that you could somehow misread all this and turn it into some absurd kind of compliment or sign of love, that I feel this way upon seeing you. That even all this pain could become nourishment for your ego, as you twist reality to make yourself feel ok, to continue not to see the harm you’ve caused.
You do not know the sense of outrage at knowing that you have seen me so weak, again, that it is so very easy for you to look down on me for all this – knowing that you have no idea of the love and courage that I have in me, all the strength you still haven’t seen that it takes to hold all this, again and again, and keep moving on.

You do not know what it’s like, days later, to wince and be reminded of it all as the toddler I care for casually grabs my sore hand for support on a flight of steep stairs, trusting completely in this hand that has always held him, unaware that I clench my teeth and go into intentional breathing mode while swallowing down the acute sense of guilt for having let myself hurt myself; having let myself be less worthy of his trust than he can know. Having let someone affect me so deeply.

You do not know my pain – if you did, would you change? Could you hold it for even a second? Without despairing?
Would it change you? Would it make you think twice before coming to this place? Would it prompt you to ask how I feel about it?
Would it make you apologise for the harm you caused me? Sincerely, with accountability?
Would it make you change your ways? Would it make you do your inner work?
Or would you refuse all this, chalking the pain you’d see up to someone else who hurt me before you – again?
You do not know how much I’ve healed.

You do not know my pain – or do you?
Is that it?
Is it such a deep mirror of your own that you cannot possibly see it?
Would you cease to be able to contain it?
Would you crumble?
Would your own black hole engulf you?
You cannot know my pain because it would require looking at your own.

But if you cannot know my pain, or face yours – neither do you know the beauty of sharing it, finally, with those who understand. You do not know the deeply transformative miracle of sisterhood and community that can grow from this pain, that knows how to respond; that can hold and heal it with a love that could move mountains.
Love capable of sealing black holes, calming storms and cradling earthquakes…

You do not know this, and for this, I pity you.

***

Written late July 2019