As the news creeps slowly into my news feeds about Gabby, I take pause before I open anything.
Trigger Warning: Physical, domestic, and every other type of abuse might be mentioned.
I put the trigger warning, because I need the trigger warning myself. Some find the words trigger warning to be those for the weak, and I have to stifle an angry laugh. I am not weak because I need a trigger warning, I survived. I survived.
For me a series of bad relationships was set off by sexual trauma. I seemed to be lost in the trauma and unable to move forward I kept picking the wrong situation. It lead to abuse from more then one person, and more then one kind.
I am not a small women, never have been, I may be short, but my weight is up there. I wouldn't say that I am easy to push around either, but I have been. I can't stand my neck being touched, because I have been picked up by the neck and held up in the air. My toes did not touch ground until I told an ex I loved him. I didn't love him, and I knew it. I said it, because he was bigger, and stronger. He was one of the few who did things to me that I thought I had earned.
He convinced me it was my fault because I wasn't good enough for him. He said he loved me so much that I should change for him. He was very convincing. It's how he got into my dorm more then once, the slick convincing words. It was how he found out what room I was in. It was how for a few months there, more then I want to remember, he convinced me I was nothing without him.
He used my sexual trauma as a way to convince me I didn't need to hold onto my virginity. He attempted more then once, even after I said no. I got lucky there, he was stopped a few times by someone else coming near the room or walking into the room.
I got away, I am not completely sure how. I don't fully remember how. I know I got permission at college to block his number because he would fill my voicemail constantly. I know bits and pieces, not all because the mind went into survival mode. At this point, he was the third relationship I fell into who was like this. He was by far the worst and looking back now, I was lucky because I survived.
I survived, but wasn't the same. Time away from him got me to see the lines he was feeding was BS. I felt broken. Long after the bruises had healed the emotional trauma was harder to unpack and deal with. I would like to tell you that I am 100% over it. However, I ran into him this summer, I saw him, he didn't see me, and I can tell you in that moment I was the 20 year old women trying to escape him once again. The emotional trauma stays. This was almost half my life ago, and it sent me spinning.
I couldn't breathe when I saw him. I felt like I did when I was standing in that driveway unable to put my toes on the ground. I was physically safe when I saw him this summer, emotionally though, I went back.
THIS is the feeling that drives people back into the arms of their abuser, we feel safe in what we know. If all we know is the chaos, if we can't see past the BS, if we can't convince ourselves we deserve better, we stay. Gabby took the blame. It was her fault. She did it. Gabby only knew to cover because in a relationship like that, that's what we are told. The lines we are feed are the lines we say. It's a truly fucked up cycle once you are in, and not everyone gets to walk away from.
Fly high Gabby. You are safe now. You can feel that love up there in the sky. Your ending will save someone else. You couldn't be saved, but you will save someone else.
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