It’s been seven years since I left him.
Most days he doesn’t cross my mind. I forget that he existed.
Trigger warning: This post deals with an account of intimate partner violence and may be triggering for some readers.
The things that he put me through are filed away somewhere that never gets opened. I’ve done the work of understanding what I went through, of forgiving him for the abuse, and moving on with my life.
I’ve been an intimate partner violence (IPV) awareness advocate for years now. I can name everything on the power and control wheel. I’m an expert on abuser dynamics. I know how to support a survivor of intimate partner violence and most of the time, I remain comfortably numb from the experiences being shared with me. I can hear stories of abuse and talk about the dynamics of IPV and always feel detached, like these things happen to people that aren’t me. I forget that I, myself, am a survivor of intimate partner violence. This is not hypothetical — this is my life, too.
And then, one day, something triggers a memory. Maybe it’s his name in my inbox (which would indicate that he has broken up with whatever poor girl he most recently victimized). Maybe it’s a photo on Facebook. That’s what it was this time — a photo of him and a girl I’d never seen before. My stomach flipped and dropped. I felt sick. I could hear his laugh; smell his musk. It’s like he was standing in front of me. Memories flashed through my mind in a rush. Without being able to stop myself, I clicked through photos to get a sense of how long he’d been dating this one. Long enough. Long enough that his pattern must be starting by now.