[This is from the sexual assault series of blog posts.]
Woo, I hardly even know what to say, or how to say it… (I’m always a rambler, but I feel like I become even more of a rambler when it comes to stuff along this subject, because I just… I have no idea how to talk about all of this. (And I’m sorry, because I think I’ve said that before… Hence the rambling, I suppose.))
Anyway… So, I was in a very messy DV (domestic abuse) relationship…
It seemed like there was no amount of awful he could treat me that could get me to try to leave him…
Seemingly, no matter what he’d do, I’d end up apologizing to him, trying to keep him happy, and just staying involved… I always thought that if somehow I could better, then he would be better too me…
I’m not happy with how I handled everything around being sexually assaulted and abused by him… In fact, I’m embarrassed (as I’ve probably mentioned before).
One thing he would sort of rely on and go back to is how he must not be all that bad. If he was that bad, would I have stuck around? Would I have sent him nice text messages and gifts and things? Would I have been so good to him? Surely, if he were so bad, evidence of my niceness toward him would not exist… [Of course, that’s not true. That’s not how abusive relationships exist… But if you looked at it with no nuance or context or anything, I could see a world in which I could potentially see his point.]
And there will be people (and there have been people) who feel the same way he does, and say things like, “You’re only crying out rape because you’re upset that the relationship is over!”
And that’s not true.
Yet, I can’t argue that I didn’t try to make the relationship work, because I obviously did.
I can’t argue that I never flirted with him, or quite honestly had overtly sexual exchanges (in text, person, or email) after he assaulted me. Because I did.
And that sucks, because it feels like it dilutes my experience.
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow!