As I've noted before, my friendships were rocky during this time. He told me that Tara, Grace, and Bree all hated me. He fed lies that made my stomach ache with anxiety and fear that nobody truly cared about me. It wasn't true. Three years later and I'm still trying to realize that people do love me. Although Tara and I had a falling out, he was wrong about the others. They show their love to me every day and I don't even have to ask for it. I'm truly blessed to have the people that went through that disgusting time today.
He made me believe that everyone was against everyone, especially me. I deserved to be alone. I was lucky to have him and only him. He was, in fact, the only one who actually loved me. Looking back, I'm so mad that I believed him. I hate how I fell down this rabbit hole of anger and lies. Manipulation is the strangest thing. You know deep down that it's wrong and that anyone who feeds you these things don't really care, but I was stuck. Whenever I tried to leave him, he'd either cry and threaten suicide or start yelling at me profanities and words that deeply scarred me. I didn't want him to die because I actually somehow loved him and I didn't want to be the target of his arrow shaped hate.
"How can you STILL be with him?!"
"Why do you let him treat you like this?"
A girl I rode the band bus asked me these things. I'd like to talk to her now and thank her for asking me these things because it opened my eyes to what I was blind to. Anyway, my only response to her was that I loved him.
"So? This isn't love. He doesn't treat you the way you treat him."
I didn't say anything after that. I just kept to myself and cried while I could hear him in the back talking loud enough so I could hear how awful I was.
I started wearing more makeup, thinking it could cure my lack of beauty. I covered my body in hoodies and jeans so he wouldn't get disgusted by the rolls of my body. The words he'd carved into my brain deepened until I thought of myself as the ugliest and stupidest person alive. My eyes were too far apart. My eyebrows were terrible(which wasn't exactly false. Middle school Hayley decided to basically shave them off.). My nose was too small. My boobs were too small. My waist and thighs and stomach and calves and face were too plumpy. I started believing that I really WAS lucky to have him because he put up with my nasty body and terrible personality.
Three years later and I still can't look in the mirror the same. Some days are great and I feel pretty cute, but others are rough and I just want to hide in my oversized sweatshirts and jeans. He warped my mind into believing that I was nothing, a nobody who doesn't deserve love and deserves nothing. I was his charity work. He loved me because nobody else would. I was his cross to bare, a burden that he couldn't get rid of. I was useless, someone he regretted being with.
I didn't just assume these things. He was the one who drilled it into my head and my soul. I will always remember the way he made me feel. That's another reason for me to tell my story. Maybe it'll lift this crushing weight off of my chest and wash out of my thoughts. I'm ready to stop grieving who I use to be. I'm ready to be me again.
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