Some wounds, like mine, run much, much deeper than sometimes one might expect. My injured head does not bleed, but it struggles now to rebuild its world after unwittingly watching it burn for so long. Nobody knows quite when the fire started, but now that it’s finished in a searing blaze of glory, regrowing the scorched trees seems nigh impossible.

Such is the nature of waking up from the remnants of an abusive relationship. The aching dawn opens my eyes and I stand up in battered, bruised clarity. It took months for him to finally decide he was done me, and even more months to call everything by what it was.

Under his so-called “love,” I was taught that my trauma wasn’t trauma (it was, and it still affects me). How dare I use that label? It’s so unbelievably freeing to be able to stand up and say with confidence that I am a victim of abuse. He was my abuser. Perhaps my situation is not as dire as others, and for that I am grateful, but it does not make it any less valid and it does not take away from the fact that it is my story. My true, real story.

Eyes forward, keep moving. I don’t really have the time to weep about it anymore, and he doesn’t deserve my tears. He was scared and frightened, and I tried my very best, but I no longer have to love him or try to save him. I don’t have high hopes for him or his improvement, and I would sooner opt to place a fork in the microwave than ever see him again, much less offer him my compassion. He simply isn’t deserving of it.

I wish I’d had the wisdom to get out sooner. I hope whoever he encounters next will, at the very least. I hope his little sisters avoid the brunt of it, and I hope that his friends smell trouble before he can cause them harm. From what I gather, he’s already made some of them bleed.

I still remember having a conversation about relationships with him, and how he said he’d been working on his self-respect so he wouldn’t end up in an abusive relationship. Ironic, considering what he turned into.

Of the textbook signs of emotional abuse, he exhibited the following:

– Degrading comments/insults towards me

– Pushing aside my opinion as though it didn’t matter (and similarly my emotions and trauma)- Using sarcasm and jokes to put me down in harsh ways

– Belittling or crushing my accomplishments or goals (and similarly my emotions and trauma)- Doing things to me that he would hate if I had done to him

– Making excuses and never apologizing

– Putting the blame on me and treating it as my fault

I felt I had to bend to his every opinion. I was codependent and scared of losing him. Towards the end, he said he thought he was superior to me. Despite both of us being transmasc and him knowing I was having issues with my body image, he called me a “fatass tomboy.” When he finally dumped me, he called me obtuse and said our personalities didn’t “mesh well together anymore.”

That, dear reader, is code for “you wised up, now I can’t use you anymore.”

I could spend hours delving into it. Into how sometimes I wonder if the abuse would’ve been physical if we were in person. Into whether or not he ever even loved me. Into what happened to the other people I met who also knew him, who all blocked me or deleted their accounts or something similar. Into what he might be doing now. Into how many other people he pushed away.

I wish I could recover with them together. I hope they’re alright. I hope none of them are still around him now. I hope they’re safe now and if they aren’t, I hope they get out soon.

I don’t need him to respect me anymore. I respect me. I don’t need him to love me anymore. I love me. There are plenty of people who feel the same way about me. There are plenty of open arms waiting for me to come home from my wanders and curl up beside them.

I’m okay. I’m free now. I hope one day everyone who can relate will be, too.

I hope one day I’ll know how to feel about him.