Thursday, January 09, 2020

Why I can't go back...

A couple years ago one afternoon Brad called me and asked if I was going to be home for dinner. I told him I would and I couldn't wait to see him. After I hung up I had the strangest feeling that he was using again. I couldn't tell you why I had this feeling, I just knew in that moment that he was using again and my whole world started to fall apart. I tore the house up looking for drugs. Of course I didn't find anything, he's always been very good at hiding things from me. By the time Brad got home I was so furious with him I couldn't even form sentences as I started screaming at him. I remember screaming "Where are the drugs!?" and every time he tried to speak I'd scream it again because I just knew he was about to lie to me.

I don't know how long I yelled at him, but it was longer than is acceptable. He finally broke down in tears and admitted that he'd used right after he spoke with me but he didn't have anything on him currently. And for a second I was relieved because for a while there I honestly felt like I'd gone crazy. Then I was angry again. SO angry. I ran up to Brad and I punched him so hard he flew backward and landed on his back. I got on top of him and pinned his arms with my legs and I hit him over and over again. I remember him crying and screaming and telling me how sorry he was as he begged me to stop. I didn't stop immediately. When I finally did get off of him he hugged me and he cried and he kept apologizing to me. I ran into the bathroom and I vomited. I flushed the toilet thought about what I'd done and I vomited again and again. After I was finally able to pull myself together, I found Brad in the kitchen cleaning himself up. It was bad. He looked horrible. What I'd done to him was awful.

I remember looking down at my hands and finally noticing both of them were bleeding and that's it. The next thing I remember is lying in bed with Brad hugging my waste with my bandaged hands resting on his head and back. I was crying. I don't know if I'd just started or if I'd never stopped. I untangled myself from Brad. I couldn't find my cellphone or car keys so I put my shoes on and ran 12 miles south along the beach to Tyler's house. I don't remember what time it was when I got there, but it was still dark and for some reason waking him up felt like too much of an imposition. So I hopped his 4 foot fence and accidentally broke a large pot and scared him awake.

The second I saw Tyler I felt the fog lift and I felt clarity for the first time that night. We talked until the sun came up. Then I took a shower and he drove me home where I made Brad breakfast in bed and told him I was moving out. He cried and begged me to stay. He told me he knew what happened the night before was all his fault and he was going to change and this time was going to be different. He checked into rehab that afternoon and in the 2 and a half years since, he hasn't ever relapsed.

A week later I moved 300 miles away and I started therapy. For my entire life I have been a survivor of abuse. My earliest memories are watching my step father abuse my mother and then abuse me when she couldn't take it anymore. Then I remember my step mother abusing me until she was too tired to lift her arms. I was always scared of turning into them. And then I became a violent abuser just like them just like I always knew I would.

When we were signing the divorce papers, for the millionth time he asked me why I just couldn't forgive him. No matter how many times I explain it he just doesn't seem to understand that it's me I can't forgive. I violently attacked the man I love the most in this world. If it happened once, it's very likely to happen again. I'd rather die.

I've kind of danced around this point over the last handful of posts I've written over these last few years. I've basically withdrawn from everybody I love in my life. I'll hook up with a guy or girl or whatever when I'm lonely (read every other night) but besides the "straight" guy I occasionally fuck, I don't form any lasting bonds. I'm not happy, but I do feel safe in the fact that I can't hurt anybody I love if I'm not physically there to hurt them. It's super unhealthy and my therapist side eye judges me like nobody's business, but it's the only way I can survive right now.

Everybody (including my therapist) tells me I need to cut myself some slack. I was living in an extreme situation for a very long time. Everybody has a breaking point. But not everybody violently assaults their partners in a fit of rage. Only the shitty garbage assholes do that. I think about that night a lot. I think about what I did. I think about how I felt. And I think about how much I hurt Brad both physically and mentally. And I know that being alone is the only option for me.

3 comments:

Mike said...

how can you be so intelligent, creative, powerful, full of life, yet so fuck up? haha jk. you’re doing well imo. you’re learning, you’re living, you’re in therapy… “Don't search for the answers, which could not be given to you now, because you would not be able to live them. And the point is, to live everything. Live the questions now. Perhaps then, someday far in the future, you will gradually, without even noticing it, live your way into the answer.” ~RMR

Anonymous said...

Resume posting please. I really enjoy reading your,posts. - asian guy here.

Anonymous said...

Where are you.....please come back.