I Am In An Abusive Relationship And I Don’t Know What To Do

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I never know when I will be scratched and stabbed and choked with electrical cords, or suffocated with a plastic bag, or have my head beat against a wall. I get told that I am fat and ugly and stupid; worthless, an embarrassment, not worth living, and that things will never get better, so I should just die now. I am in an abusive relationship with my mind. I walk on eggshells, never knowing whether I will be met with idealistic love or a black sludge of hate, or which of the two I will feel toward anyone or anything; it is always one of those two, only. I’ve been isolated from my friends, not that there were many to begin with. It is like those stories of people who are drowning and don’t know which way is up, and sometimes they swim in the wrong direction, frantically and ironically climbing down into the depths toward death as fast as they can. I do not know which way is up. I don’t know when this started or why, and it comes and goes to varying degrees like a peripatetic tidal system with no predictability whatsoever, pulled by an askew moon. I see the diagnosis, the treatment options, the pills, the doctors; I see the research and the statistics, the category that I fit into.

But then the wave comes over me, when I least expect it, knocking me down and dragging me back under. I am scared when I fall, not knowing what I am going to feel or want or think. I am too afraid to kill myself, I think, or maybe just afraid of trying and failing, and the discomfort and ruckus that would ensue. If it can’t be done right, it shouldn’t be done at all, one should just carry on and not make a scene. Frankly, I am much too exhausted to withstand any of that drama. Even in spite of everything I have too much pride for a call for help. The worst part of dying is the aloneness, the thought of spending your last breath locked in your apartment, listening to the sounds of the city carrying on, as it will continue to do whether or not you are too chickenshit to go through with it. I wish that I could just slip away while lying in my mother’s arms, back into the stars from where I was plucked. Isn’t that just too romantic to stand? The modern-day little prince. I guess that leaves out the parts about fear, shitting yourself once you drift out of this world, and that big black void that we don’t understand until its too late.

The anger is bad too, where I want to punch people and yell at them, cut all ties once and for all, and maybe stab myself while I’m at it. Screams and angry texts that simply cannot wait, throwing things. The sobbing depression garners some sympathy, some stroking of hair and murmuring sounds. Not the anger. People stop calling, or get mad, which is a terrible idea because any insult can send me into a sobbing, heaving pile on the floor. Then, when the storm passes (realistically when the eye of said storm enters), I have the remorse of an alcoholic who awakens after a night of heavy drinking sick with thick sober shame and self-loathing. How can you tell people that it wasn’t you talking, when you don’t know what is?

I wish that I could spread beautiful silk wings, like in Song of Solomon, except in this case flying away into the horizon, coasting like a hawk and never looking back. I wish that I could get in my car and drive, drive, drive, never thinking about anything again. These fantasies never come with a destination. Don’t they say its the journey that counts? That sure is convenient for me. I have always loved moving, splitting town and the excitement of going somewhere, of doing something. Doesn’t matter if back home is shitty because thats gone, old news, now you are going somewhere else that will be better, intoxicated by possibility and the false sense of freedom. I wish someone would come along and save me, rescue me, take me away from all of this, and run away with me. Someone who knew what was missing (I sure don’t) and give it to me.

Every nerve is exposed, and the smallest things hurt with a radiating, electric pain throughout my whole body. I have been robbed of all of my dignity, as one would expect to have happen when your husband sees you sobbing on the bathroom floor, cutting yourself with one of his razor blades with snot dripping down your face, or when you cry at work. Friends apparently feel no accountability for being shitty and inconsiderate, because my craziness is a built in excuse to not feel bad. Working is hard, because its every day no matter how I’m feeling. How do you tell your boss that you’re too sad to work today?

I wish I could tell you when it all started. I could say when things got worse, and the more colorful events that have punctuated my arms like notches on a bedpost. Was it always in me, a seed of madness that has been slowly sprouting inside of me until it flowers and can no longer be ignored? You could look at the phone calls and e-mails and text messages, so many, to my boyfriend, probably averaging a 12:1 ratio with responses. If only he could understand that some things simply cannot wait. Was my mind stitched together with basting that is slowly, steadily unraveling against the stress of time?