I am a firm believer that all the hard times and obstacles that we come in contact with are lesions that we must learn in this life. This memoir is the telling of one of the most difficult trials that I have had to face, how it changed me, and the lessons it taught me. I will now issue a trigger warning, this is a story about sexual and mental abuse, learning my own resilience, and how to start the life long journey of healing.
I have never liked the word "abusive," at least not when it was in context with me. I use to hate saying "I was in an abusive relationship;" the words felt heavy and oily making me want to shudder in disgust. These words felt like a brand pressed into my skin and rendering me weak and scarred. For a long time I felt that others could smell the seared flesh of my heart and mind and that's why I seemed to draw out the worst in people. It made me easy to manipulate and when I spoke those words out loud it filled me with an overwhelming feeling of weakness and shame. I was ashamed at letting it happen in the first place, ashamed of how long it took me to leave. It wasn't until I finally confided in my mother years later that she made me realize that what I went through didn't make me weak, that my brain was lying to me.
"You are a survivor. You got out of that situation and I'm proud of you." It took me even longer before I believed her words to be true. A survivor did not enter that relationship, an innocent girl with an open heart and mind did. A survivor is who coldly walked away and never once doubted herself for it. "Survivor" was a word with just as much weight as "abuse," only instead of being a rock that held me at the bottom of an ocean of shame, it was a mountain that lifted me above the waves as long as I had the strength to climb.
If you had asked me what an abusive relationship was when I was younger I would have told you of broken bones and bruises pooling beneath torn skin. I would never have thought to describe laughter and smiles in the light of day, but tears and silent screams in the night. I thought I knew what abuse was, screaming and degradation followed by flying fists. Emotional manipulation and sexual coercion were foreign concepts to my young mind. Abuse victims were supposed to be quiet and withdrawn, easy to see and help, they didn't go out with their oppressors and put on displays of happiness all the while hiding misery beneath laughter born from denial. Perhaps that was why I didn't know I was being abused. My inexperience leaving me helpless and ignorant to the fact that what I was experiencing was not normal.
It all started with her. For the sake of her privacy I will name her... Camilla, after the character of a show we would watch together, moments when things were normal and there were no expectations. Even now all I want to do is see the best in her, but like the lesbian vampire Camilla, the very thought of her seems to suck the life right out of me.
I first met Camilla when I was working in a grocery store. She was kind of quiet and was in obvious need of friends. After getting to know her, I found out that she was a traveler, a rolling stone who sought excitement and adventure wherever she went. Her energy was light and fiery and I was instantly swept away in the very existence of her. She seemed to like how sweet and innocent I was, having only been in my first serious relationship for little more than a month or so. It wasn't long before she made it known that she had set her hungry eyes on me and she began to pursue me. Up to that point, sex had been a neither-here-nor-there factor for me; as a yet to be identified asexual it was never very high on my priority list. However Camilla put in the effort to seduce me and made me aware of the world of slow seduction and sensuality.
I never cheated, and in fact I even tried to put distance between us, although I was insanely curious to what she could teach me. Nevertheless, after being honest and transparent with my girlfriend of Camilla's advances, she became intimidated and broke up with me. Barley even a week later Camilla made her move. I wasn't interested in her romantically, but i was curious what she could show me, having been so new to the world of sex. I thought it would be a friends with benefits situation - she on the other hand made it clear she wanted a committed relationship. She wanted me to be totally hers, flattered and easily swayed, I figured "Why not?" even though my gut old me something was wrong.
In the beginning things were fine, exciting, and intoxicating. I found that I got extreme pleasure from sensuality and seduction, foreplay was fun and felt ... nice. However I completely lost interest after that point. I had no sex drive and nor was I actually sexually attracted to anyone. At first Camilla seemed unbothered by this, I believe she choked it up to my inexperience. She told me that together we would work through it, but I came to learn that she meant to "fix me". She believed that if she could just make me orgasm then I would come to live sex as much as she did and i would have a whole new outlook on the subject.
Once I came out as Asexual, having found a label and a community that made me feel less broken, everything changed. Camilla became less patient and less inclined to listen to my boundaries in the bedroom. When I didn't want her to do things to me she accused me of not trusting her. She seemed determined to go past my limit growing angry and frustrated whenever I couldn't take any more and make her stop. She began pressuring me into sex or telling me how sexually frustrated she was until I finally relented and let her have her way with me. This lead me to disassociate a lot during that point in my life. As soon as things went past my comfort zone I would cease to be, and my alternate self - Fiona - would take over until our body literally could take no more. I felt like I could not tell Camilla no and whenever I tried to explain how it all made me feel she would scoff and brush it off, making me seem like I was overreacting and our fights were my fault given how accommodating she tried to be with my "weird body".
Everything came to a head one night, the night I call "the incident". Camilla bought me a "present" and had been pressuring me for days to let her use it on me. She figured that oral sex alone didn't do it for me and was so sure that penetrative sex would be the key to making me climax. Finally I relented and agreed. But as soon as she left my side to grab the dildo, I changed my mind. When she pushed the issue I was so scared that I froze and dissociated. Fiona took control, told Camilla "no" and shot down her arguments, dressed us, and got us home. After that i refused to let Camilla touch me and we broke up about a week later. I was 19 and she was somewhere between 23-25, I can't remember.
After that I went into complete denial about what happened that night and was able to remain friends with her until she moved away to her next adventure. It took me longer than I'd care to admit to block and delete her on all social media.
I never thought to describe our relationship as abusive and even when it came to my attention that what we had was far from normal and healthy I hesitated to agree. I felt to call Camilla an abuser was unfair, I do not think she ever intended to hurt me or cause me distress. She was domineering and wanted total control when it came to sex, but her underlying goal was, in her mind, to help me. She found a younger and mold able partner, but I wouldn't mold the way she wanted so she became more forceful. I hope her intent was genuinely good, Fiona vehemently disagrees. As far as Fiona is concerned Camilla was a predatory woman who grew angry when she couldn't groom me into her perfect lover, she was a gas lighter who wanted control.
Fiona grew more and more active when I was with Camilla, she remained active even after we had broken up. After finally coming to terms with the fact that I even had an alter, I began my relationship with my "head-mate." At first when I realized that she was a completely different version of me, a far less compassionate and far more logical version, I felt scared of her. She was always ready for a fight and would feel no remorse if she hurt someone. However, as time went on and I began to understand her I realized that she was a survivor. She was what made me strong - or so I thought at the time. She was my sword and my shield to life, taking the brunt of the trauma that happened and burring it deep, very deep, into the back of my subconscious. This worked for two years, until I had my first trigger and everything came rushing back at me all at once.
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