*Trigger Warning*
Once upon a time, I used to trust the people in my life. Once upon a time, I used to be an open book. And then I got abused and shit changed. Today, I accidentally came across something I wrote a loooong time ago; it was about how I used to like the fact that people could always tell when I was lying and what I was feeling just by looking at my face. I wrote about how the wrong person used this against me, and how I changed myself and perfected an outward mask – so that no one could really tell what I was thinking – unless I really wanted them to. I don’t really remember who I was writing about specifically, because there are a few people in my life whom I would have hated to know everything I felt. The easiest answer is Tushar (my ex-boyfriend).
Once upon a time, I used to be proud of the fact that I was idealistic about my friendships; that I wouldn’t let the bullying and the meanness of kids make me bitter and closed off. Once upon a time, I was proud of having friends who knew everything about me, and who could see through all my bullshit, with whom I didn’t often feel the need to bullshit. And then I spent four years in a constant state of terror, and a few more years after that with the memory of the terror which refused to leave my brain.
It isn’t easy to be a survivor and want to talk about the brutality we’ve faced. People aren’t comfortable with it, and people tend to focus a lot more on their discomfort than our trauma. People get lost in their own reactions and don’t realize how much they inadvertently force us into caretaking positions when we’re recounting traumas which arguably killed us many times over. And of course, there are those people who just don’t believe us. There are the people who find ways to blame us, even if it is just for not doing enough to get out of that abusive situation. There are those who get so angry for us, that they talk about elaborate ways they’d like to torture or murder those who abused us. There are those who cry for our pain. And absolutely none of these responses are helpful. Anger on our behalf sounds great until the moment you realize that the response to a tale of violence is more violence. Crying for our pain sounds empathetic, except, suddenly their pain is more visible, and we feel like we caused it, and so it becomes our responsibility to make it better. And there’s no space left for our pain.
So, I stopped talking. I accepted that if I wanted to make myself the priority, then it would be harder, sometimes too hard, if I started talking to people about what I’d gone through. I stopped talking, and eventually, I started taking great pride in not needing to. The thing with having too many conversations with yourself is that it’s far too easy to avoid things which are too hard to think about.
Recently, I realized that there are four aspects of my abuse, and I only ever talk or even write about one. And I also barely let myself venture into the other three. So, the four aspects – there’s the obvious: everything they did to me; all the beatings, the things they shoved inside different parts of my body, the sexual acts, the things they said while they did them, the bruises, the cuts, the twisting of my fingers, the stepping on body parts, the kicks. That’s what most people think is the be all and end all of the abuse. Weirdly enough, that’s the aspect I can think about more, write about more, and talk about slightly more.
What’s perhaps is the hardest for me to think about is – how I used to be. That’s what’s hardest for me to swallow in the nightmares I have which transport me back to those moments. It’s hard for me to hear myself begging, crying, screaming. There was so much screaming. Even through the gags, he’d eventually be forced to put on me… there was a lot of screaming. And even more crying and begging I think.
It’s almost impossible for me to picture myself like that now. When I stopped talking and stopped thinking, I distanced myself so completely from who I used to be, that I can’t imagine myself as her anymore. Now there’s something more which is even harder. Crying, screaming, begging… these are all expected, these are all somewhat easier to forgive myself for. But I did more. I seduced him to stop him from hitting me so that I could give my bruises and cuts enough time to heal and go to the doctor for other injuries. I cut myself because he told me to, and I was scared. I danced for them, I listed down reasons why I deserved everything that was happening to me, because he wanted me to, and I believed most of the reasons.
I learnt to manipulate him into suffocating me at the right moment when the pain was high enough that I knew I’d faint easily. I learnt to manipulate him into other things, which I’m not ready to think of. I dreamed of dying, I begged him to kill me. I don’t know how to think of myself like that anymore. I feel disgust, pity, and fear with a strong dose of panic when I think of myself that way, so I just don’t. There’s so much even in this which I’m just not ready for.
Tushar wasn’t always physically present, and his lackeys weren’t allowed near me without him. But not being physically around me didn’t really mean he gave up control. That’s the third aspect. His control over me from a continent away, and me succumbing to it. The pictures he demanded, the cuts he never let me escape. He’d make me tell him everything I did, everything I felt and thought. He’d literally make me write essays on why I was a horrible person and deserved to be penalized for my behaviour. He’d email my friends and manipulate them into giving him more information about me and use that against me.
Eventually, I learnt and started lying to them, so they’d lie to him and suddenly I’d have a tiny bit more power. He’d use the fact that he was in touch with my friends to make me believe that he could hurt them if I didn’t comply with every single thing he told me to do. And I believed him. I cut myself. I didn’t beg my friends to stop emailing him or telling them how much I knew of their correspondence, because he said he’d hurt them if I did. And I believed him. I was bleeding and would dig into it if he told me. I wrote essays. I apologized when I didn’t perform well enough. I apologized if he was angry. I apologized if I wasn’t broken enough. I think I rarely stopped apologizing for those four years, and anytime I did, there were consequences which got me right back on track. How do I talk about the control he had over me, that I let him have over me when I wasn’t even in any physical threat at that moment? How do I explain that to someone else? How do I start explaining that to myself? So, I just don’t.
The last is in some ways easier to mention, but not really to go into detail about. The last is all about me. It’s about everything I did to ensure my family didn’t know about what was happening. All the lies I told, all the ways I twisted my life around to make sure he could assault me at his pleasure, all the hurt I never hid. I got closer to ending up in a wheelchair because of my determination to not have my family know anything. I walked without limping the time he twisted a toe, and my vagina bled like early periods hit. I learnt to sleep on my stomach because my back had bruises from his rope. I stole money from my mom’s wallet to buy bandages and cream. Sometimes, I had to beg the man who hurt me to patch me up so that my clothes didn’t have bloodstains. I learnt to clean off the bloodstains or hide them under darker stains whenever I failed.
I learnt to cry silently, or not cry at all. I learnt to walk very quietly and make my bed look like I was in it when I wasn’t. I learnt to lie, lie, and lie some more. Technically speaking, I don’t know if this counts as part of my abuse, but it was to me. It’s hard for me to think about everything I did to hide the abuse from my family, because it doesn’t make sense that I managed to do it. It doesn’t make sense that any 15-19-year-old woman living at home would manage to do it, and yet thousands of us manage every single day. It doesn’t make sense that I did such a good job that my parents never once questioned whether something more than adolescence and puberty was going on. I don’t think about it because I start feeling emotions towards them I’d like not to feel. So, I don’t.
Once upon a time, I would never have more secrets than I do honesty with the people I love. Once upon a time, I would never have spent so much time avoiding so many things. Once upon a time, I wouldn’t have blinked twice before sharing my life story with a new friend. And today, I’m not sure I can share it with myself, and I’m the one who lived it. But I think I’m ready to try, and this was my first step.