Do you really think I give a damn, What I do after years of just hearing them talking?
…
Call him up, “Come into my bedroom”, Ended up, we fuck on the hotel floor
It’s not about havin’ someone to love me anymore, This is the experience of bein’ an American whore
…
Wondering what went wrong, I’m a princess, I’m divisive, Ask me why, why, why I’m like this
Maybe I’m just kinda like this, I don’t know, maybe I’m just like this
…
I mean look at my hair, Look at the length of it and the shape of my body, If I told you that I was raped
Do you really think that anybody would think, I didn’t ask for it? I didn’t ask for it, I won’t testify, I already fucked up my story
On top of this (Mm), so many other things you can’t believe
…
Puts the shower on while he calls me, Slips out the back door to talk to me, I’m invisible, look how you hold me
I’m invisible, I’m invisible, I’m a ghost now, look how you hold me now
It’s not about havin’ someone to love me anymore, No, this is the experience of bein’ an American whore
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My Inner Voice Tells Me Lies … Sweet Little Lies.
She whispers: “You’re doing it wrong … Do it like this … Ugh, just give it to me, little Doña … That’s not what happened … Don’t do that … How dare you … You bitch … See what you made me do“.
Ignoring Red Flags With …
The Married Man
I was once lusted after. Even though I thought myself awkward, shy, not worthy of affection or love. Inappropriately flirted with by my friend’s married brother, during the day’s surrounding their dad’s funeral. My life was changed after that moment, as we began emailing back and forth for years, especially while he was deployed. Me emailing him more because a man I admired was finally interested in me. Him telling me how busy he was where he was stationed and not able to email me back for weeks, never knowing when I’d hear from him and believing his excuses. Him telling me stories about his position on deployment. Sending him care packages. Emailing as friends first then him slowly pushing sexual advances more and more and me taking the bait, enjoying the risk of the adrenaline rush.
Pushing boundaries, /ˈbound(ə)rē/, límites, as he would tell me what he would do to me when we finally saw each other again at his sister’s house, our meeting point, with his wife and kids in tow. Sneaking off to the side of the house … the front of the house … the back of the house to have beautiful conversations under the luminescent desert stars about the struggles in our lives.
The neck adjustments he was known for giving. He could touch me, in public, in front of everyone. The sweetest touch I had ever felt. My senses inappropriately heightened. Then released with every crack and pop of my neck. To finally the release I had been waiting for, anywhere we could find the time and space alone.
His sister walked in on us together one time at his house. I just wanted time alone with him, to be close to him, for him to hold me. Lie together and just talk. He pushed for more. That was the only way he showed me physical affection now. No more neck adjustments. I wanted to talk to his sister so bad. She was such a close friend to me. She was like my big sister. He told me not to and I listened. An awkward secret between she and I.
Desperate for his attention, I drove a couple times, hours, to see him. Pushing through my anxiety. Him telling me not to but finding a way to come see me where I stayed. For me, just to talk, just to see each other, and be in each other’s presence, finding my comfort once again in the absence of emotional availability. Him not being able to control himself and me not stopping it. Later desiring the thought of him more and more as he would emotionally pull further away, telling me his religious counselor told him he needed to stay away from me, his temptress.
Then one day, I blacked out on a recliner chair in the spare bedroom after a night of drinking at his sister’s house. I woke up, in and out of consciousness to a man at the party. He took my boots off, gently picked me up, and laid me on the bed next to his young child. He laid on the other side of me, me between him and his child, and he began touching me, his child inches away from me. I remember Dora was on the TV. I woke up the next morning, changed out of my stiff clothes, and went to call the married man. Crying, telling him what happened. He told me I must have liked it because I didn’t stop it. And telling me he was done with me.
We’d argue through email. Stop emailing and pick it up again. On and off for years. I couldn’t let him go. I was addicted to him. Finding out from his sister that after his divorce he got married to someone else. Even though he and I were still emailing, he never told me. When I brought it up, he told me he didn’t love her. He was helping her out of a difficult situation. He knew my story with Mami. And just like with several loved ones, my trauma was kept small. I was overexaggerating. Oversensitive. That was my Mami, I was lucky to still have her.
Emails became less and less frequent as I began to question why he was emailing me after he made his choice. Throwing insults at each other and why it was always my fault. Him flirting with me again and me questioning it. To finally, us sending each other emails years a part. Seeing if the other would take the bait. I don’t have one picture of us together. Deep down I knew my place. I never dared to ask for one. I asked about his sister, to see if they ever talked about her walking in on us. He told me he loved me. He told her I was a fling.
The Man from High School
He slid into my Facebook DMs. I didn’t remember him even though we had classes together. He definitely grew up a handsome man, with a shiny black motorcycle.
We messaged each other for a while. He was married but separated because he walked in on his wife cheating on him.
We had a lot of fun together. He took me to so many fun places for a year or so. A Hangar full of expired bombs, motorcycle rides, casinos, boat trips. We were living a carefree life.
This was also the time when I found out I had endometriosis through a sudden surgery I had to have. He said he couldn’t make it for my surgery. He needed to save his time off for his child. He never met my family. He never met my friends.
He slowly started pulling away. I drove to see him. I didn’t learn with the married man. That was the last time I saw him as he rushed me out the next morning. I later found out that he had another child with his wife, around the same time he was pulling away from me.
My Longtime Friend, the Narcissist
He and I were like brother and sister. I could shoot the shit with him. My platonic friend who never overstepped our friendship. He had a sketchy past but who was I to judge? He had always been good to me. Until he wasn’t.
He had a way of convincing me the blue sky was neon green. With backhanded compliments and whispered tender but vile words I melted in confusion for. Challenges in my life would be met with response from him like, “my love, that’s not going to work for you”. When I told him I introduced myself to our neighbor his response was, “why did you just introduce yourself to the man? That’s weird”. The woman wasn’t around. That didn’t matter though.
It slowly got worse and with that, the memories get fuzzier. I remember him angrily demanding me to go through bank records over the phone. Demanding where my money went. I remember feeling so scared and so confused. The heavy breathlessness in my chest. I knew I did nothing wrong … right? He was looking for something that wasn’t there. This is where I learned that even someone I cared about, someone I loved, was capable of going to the lengths of blaming me for something obscure when they were the ones with something to hide.
I hesitantly broke up with him after this. And a week later I begged him to take me back. We got back together even though I knew he was going to punish me for breaking up with him. His words. Every day he would update me on new ideas on how he was going to punish me. He accused me of cheating on him during the week we weren’t together. Telling me that was the reason I broke up with him. I openly told him everything I did, spending time with my family. Anything I said backfired. Things that went wrong was my karma. Accusing my single younger family members of being whores. Demanding weekly naked pictures of me to make sure I didn’t shave. Demanding I didn’t socialize with family, or he would leave me. So, I didn’t. Agreeing with his emotionally abusive isolation and manipulation tactics. Even though he told me in detail how he planned to hurt my family for getting involved. I just knew I could show him he could trust me. I loved him. He’d see one day.
I was so confused. Who was this man? I just wanted my friend back.
I emailed the married man; I know I shouldn’t have. The married man tried to justify the narcissists actions to me. Why didn’t he want to save me like he felt so compelled to save her?
Why didn’t anyone want to save me? Why did I constantly have to prove myself to everyone.
The Doomsday Prepper
Another year, another emotionally unavailable man. Divorced. Hard worker. A quirky, quiet, deep thinker like me.
Our conversations consisted of how the world was going to end soon. We needed to be ready. My main reaction was mmmm ooooook, but always hungry for knowledge, I was learning a lot from him. We had a lot of what I considered fun hiking adventures. Yet he was scoping out caves and bunker locations to escape to when shit hit the fan.
Ever the comedian in uncomfortable situations, I made the best of it. It was fun. Until it wasn’t. Again.
There was a day we were watching a movie on the tv, mirrored from his phone and a text came up. “I had fun last night”. He said nothing. Probably praying I didn’t see it or wouldn’t say anything. But I did. I stood up for myself. Kind of. I told him, “Are we going to address that text or just ignore it?” Silence … I asked him, “should I be worried?” “No” he replied. So, I told him “Well I trust you won’t hurt me”, and that was it.
Finally, on one of his prepper rants, as he was explaining to me how serious things were getting, he told me, “you’re so fucking stupid”. And with that, I grabbed all my things from his house and left.
He too was an alcoholic. Probably struggling to quiet his loud demons.
Me writing this so far …
The Man I Thought Was My Soulmate
The pain from my past relationships still lingers, difficult to put to paper. This one’s the freshest, the wound still raw. Blood still oozing from my pores, needing regular tending to. And still with hopes of healing and reuniting.
I loved this man for all that we had in common. For the deep conversations we could always have. And the all-out silliness that ensued in the same breath. I loved him for how good he was to me and my wounded inner child. I loved him for giving me the kind of family and friends I didn’t have in my life. I loved him for always encouraging me to do what I wanted to do and not just what he wanted to do. I loved him for affectionately caring for my wounds from the narcissist.
For the time he walked out of my bathroom and asked me when I got the matches that were neatly kept in the basket on the toilet tank. That they were from a club in Vegas, when did I go? I had nothing to hide or lie about but fear washed over me. Immediately thinking irrationally, did I go to Vegas recently? He’s going to think I’m lying or that I cheated on him. As I stumbled on my words making things worse. Never the jealous man, he nervously laughed with a kind light in his eyes. The joker he always was.
They were all jokesters. A match for my whit. I told myself.
What I didn’t love was the lack of communication we had. Or didn’t have. The inability to communicate how involved in his family his ex-wife still was, prior to me attending family gatherings. Hiding places he would go, events he would attend without me, especially events with his ex-wife and adult son.
I think because he didn’t want to deal with my feelings about it. I think, because he would never talk to me about it.
He was a great communicator throughout the week. When it came to the weekend, crickets. When asked about it, silence. Like those days never existed. Now this didn’t always happen. So, when it did, I was even more confused.
I felt adored by him. I don’t know all the times he had my back when I wasn’t around, but when it came to the mother of his child, I often felt like I was runner up. Again. Truth, my insecurities, or both?
Trying to rationalize with the capacity I had. I’m remembering it wrong, right? I’m being jealous … right? I should be more understanding? I should be the one apologizing to him for the way I reacted?
We shared a beautiful time of chasing the constant highs of our respective careers. Of our individual performances and coming down, together. Separate, but together. Escaping our demons together. Staying busy with work and distracted with the fun we brought to each other’s lives. And numbing the rest of our pain with our overindulgent addictions.
Little Doña, You Are Not Your Trauma
Although I saw myself as fiercely independent, for years I wished for someone who loved me enough to save me from my life. Why didn’t anyone want to save me? Why did I constantly have to prove myself to everyone? … But I didn’t. I chose to. I chose these men. I showed them how to treat me. I didn’t set boundaries. I didn’t value myself. I essentially bent over and offered them my back to walk all over. Then, as if that wasn’t enough, flipped myself around and offered them the doormat that was my forehead. I didn’t know any better. This was normal for me. To continue to try harder and harder and harder to be heard, accepted, and loved by anyone really. Recreating my childhood relationships of my neglected emotional needs. This was normal to me. This was my comfort zone.
With new insight and tools in my pocket, it’s up to me now to put them to use. To not feel bad for saying no. The discomfort I inadvertently feel for disappointing a man, is not mine to feel. And it’s okay for him to feel disappointed. It’s not my job to make him happy by sacrificing what I want for myself. Now I just have to believe that.
No more of this, mija. You’re better than this.
24/7, Sylvia Plath
Writing in blood on my walls
‘Cause the ink in my pen don’t work in my notepad
Don’t ask if I’m happy, you know that I’m not
But at best I can say I’m not sad
‘Cause hope is a dangerous thing
For a woman like me to have
…
But I have it
Yeah, I have it
Literature that helped me to process my traumas.
Movies that helped me process my traumas.
How far are you in your healing journey? Have you had the ah ha moment yet, of how your childhood influences your life partners?