Dear Abusers
to the perpetrators of domestic violence
*trigger warnings*
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.
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They tried to make it work with you. They showed you deep, genuine care and love. Maybe they didn’t always live up to expectations, maybe sometimes they didn’t match your energy—they had their own internal struggles, they weren’t an extension of you, they were their own person.
You tried, and succeeded for a while, at stripping their personality away, layer by layer until they were moulding into what you wanted them to be. And when you were bored or angry, you taunted and raged at what they lacked, when they had those things before you abused their bodies and their trust.
You robbed them from their sense of personal security and became angry when they only were what you wanted. Somewhere along the way, they became your plaything, an object for you to mistreat and put aside when you were finished. You acted like you wanted a slave, not a partner, calling them coward and mocking them, taunting them for given into your madness.
You would fight no matter how they hurt you to be treated the way you wanted, you claimed. Yet you didn’t get subdued. You didn’t get hunted down and cornered, held down and whipped, punched, choked, smothered, or burned. Instead, you did those things.
Maybe once you knew what it was like to be on the receiving end, but that time was a long time ago, and your anger and hatred had grew into a repressive layer of defence of which you pushed those harsh memories to the furthest part of your mind; and hating what you went through, you were moulded and became it.
But after mocking, taunting, and terrorising someone who loves and cares for you or maybe at one point in time trusted you, they leave. Pack their things and disappear in the night, without so much as a single letter.
At first you’re angry. Time starts to pass and you begin thinking about them more and more. You realise you miss them and you realise you’re alone. You start to notice the little things they did that you glanced over before. You miss them.
You try contacting them, leaving voicemails and e-mails trying to convince them you miss them, because you do, but they aren’t contacting you at all. You’re so lonely, and now you’re ashamed of your treatment of them. You wouldn’t act that way again, if they just talked to you. You know now you were in the wrong, but next time would be different. But you’re wrong.
It won’t be different, not for them, because that’s what you told them last time. The time before that too. Time and time again, things would be different next time. You’d treat them better.
Time after time you never treated them any differently, resorting to the same patterns of behaviours, the abuse escalating more and more each time. Last time was a burn, before that, a sprained back and bruised lip, before that you whipped them; maybe next time you would choke them with a cord, punching them in the stomach the way you did once before. Maybe you’d stomp on their face like you threatened. There was always a next time.
You think it’s easy for the victim to walk away, but it’s not. When they hear your voice and hear your words, they want to believe you so desperately. They miss you when they know they should not. They trusted you once, loved you once, and put themselves through so much to make you happy, just to fail. They feel so worthless because they failed, like maybe they deserved all the hurtful things you said and did; you told them as you hit them that they would never live up to your expectations.
Of course they didn’t, because they gave up trying, and if they were just going to give up, why did they put up with it at all? Were you right to hurt them? These thoughts twist and turn in their mind and turn their stomach into knots. They are overcome with grief and they feel it in their soul. Not their heart, but in the center of their chest, a painful fluttering, at the very core of their being.
This experience is changing them on the inside, stripping them away, emptying them out. The memories and the love they still have for you, it hollows them out and they feel it, and it drives them into madness and desperation. They cry and they beg God not to allow the things you did to them to change them. Yet it already has.
It’s a hex; it’s taken root and it’s too late to undo. It’ll spread, consuming them until there’s nothing left of them. You tell them you love them, but if you loved them, then why do the things you did? That’s not love, it’s never love.
Saying you’re sorry or you miss them, if you knew just how much damage you caused them emotionally, mentally, physically—you’d be too ashamed to admit that. You feel pangs of guilt and think you can comprehend the gravity of your actions, but you can’t, and you never quite will.
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End. By Alyznn Reid, December 2019.
About the Creator
Alysn Myra Rae
I like writing about things. I have stories to share. Welcome to my world 🖤. Love, A. Myra Rae
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