If you’re getting notified about this, FYI, this post is old.
Picking up from yesterday –
When all of this stuff was going down, and he was hurting me and insulting me all the time, I used to keep a “compliment” notebook where I would write down nice things people would say about me on The Nightly Show, so I could try to remember “people do like me, I can be liked, it’s okay.”
Sexual assault dude’s comments matter more than every person I’ve ever met? – to the point where I have to keep a notebook every time someone says anything even sort of nice about me?
This is such a hard thing for me to really put words to because it’s a feeling unlike anything I’ve ever experienced – this sense of despair about the awful things that man would say about me…
(And the hilarious part about being so affected by it, is that it’s like I wasn’t even registering that he talked about practically everyone that way – previous women he’d been with, female friends of his… A few women somehow escaped being talked about that way, but for the most part, I think it’s possible he just hates women…)
So why – why does this sexual assault guy, who really is quite honestly just mean to a lot of people (in the way he talks about them to me)… Why is it sooooo important to me that he not be mean to me? Why would I even imagine for a second that he wouldn’t be?
And why do his words always haunt me, as though no one else on earth’s matter? Like I’m waiting for permission (in his eyes) that it’s okay to believe I’m an okay person after all?
I think there is something to the idea that stuff he said wasn’t often merely dreadfully mean. It was confusing. He would be all over the map from how I was selfless and kind, to the worst person on the planet, and back again. I could never get a read for how he actually felt.
He also seemed to try to take away the things I loved dearly. If he saw I loved or took pride in anything, that was the thing that had to be demeaned beyond recognition. So, I think that was really hard for me.
Again, I think the constant moving of goalposts was very hard for me. Even though he’s (thankfully) not in my life anymore, for some reason, it’s like I’m still trying to figure out how to please him – which would be impossible.
And this is where I’ll pick up tomorrow.
[Or you can read more in the sexual assault series.]