“It’s not me.” And other lies.
Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.
Two competing timelines occupy your mind, like perfect bookends. At the center, cataclysmic bloodshed on your psyche, heart, and spirit. Your thoughts swirl in a flurry of memories from day one: walking in downtown Palm Springs hand in hand, each of you pulsing with those initial romantic butterflies you have when you’re falling for someone. In stark contrast, against the backdrop of this moment, the memories of those last few days with him: rejection, gaslighting, blame-shifting, verbal putdowns and attacks on your personality and character, and the god-awful freeway chase. You oscillate from anger to sadness all day, bouncing between how could he? and how dare he!
In the first 90 days after the abusive relationship ended, the exhaustion felt heavy. Your nervous system, in a constant state of hyper-vigilance for months on end, literally drained you. Adrenaline still pumped through your veins, getting you through the early months of the breakup. Now what? With the dust settling and the fog lifting, shouldn’t you feel better? According to trauma recovery experts, month four after an abusive relationship is when the heavy lifting really begins. And, what’s more, a second wave of grief arrives as the withdrawal from this person, and the cycle of abuse wears off. Heavy lifting. If this part is the heavy lifting, what was it before? What is that agony called?
It’s called “cognitive dissonance.” There is a battle in your mind trying to make sense of the two versions of him you experienced: the one who held your hand and stole kisses on the first Palm Springs night, and the one who is the source of your greatest hurt and betrayal. Who is he? Which one is real? Which one do you believe? The pain is accepting that this is one person, that the good does not exist without the evil, and the good that you desperately miss and ache for cannot be experienced without suffering. The version of him from those first few days, that sweet Palm Springs stroll, was a lure to the villainous, manipulative side of him. They are two pieces of the same whole.
I wanted to apologize. A message pops up from him in your Spotify days after your last text exchange with him, which was hostile, angry, and mean. It was the end. It was bitter. And it was cruel. He gaslit you, blamed you for your feelings and reactions to his words and coldness, and weaponized your biggest insecurities and vulnerabilities. Leave me alone, you told him. He didn’t. In my heart, I really care about you, and I regret all of the ugliness. That’s not me. Heart? Care? That’s not you!? Rage ignites within you in seconds. Tears bubble up in your eyes. His words feel like whiplash. Ok. Thanks. You respond. Please leave me alone. You didn’t think there was anything left of your heart to break, and yet it rips even more, pain searing from your chest to your limbs. A dull ache that is now a permanent resident in you.
What is the real impact of “apologies and regret” in an abusive dynamic? What do we call this? Sincerity? No. Blatant disregard? Ignorance? Lack of accountability? Stupidity? Blindness? It’s fucked up! You think to yourself. What do you mean that’s not you?! Who else could it be? Was it not you who treated me that way when I begged you to stop, when I told you how much you hurt me? Was it not you who spoke to me with pure hate and evil? Was it not you who chased me on the freeway and tore into me as you screamed putdowns over the phone? Was it not you who disrespected the ‘love of your life’? Was it not you who manipulated me? Was it not you who said, ‘What do you know about relationships when you couldn’t even make your own marriage work?’ He sure looked like you, and sounded like you. If it wasn’t you, then who was it?
If he did it, then that is who he is. Period. How someone does something is how they do anything. If he conducted himself like an abusive monster when the moment counted, repeatedly, for days, weeks, and months on end, then he is an abusive monster. Empty apologies and false regret don’t change that. In fact, they make it worse, and they are further proof of his abusive behavior. The attempted remorse is another sign of his manipulation to draw you back in, to blind you into believing he is the version you fell in love with. And more importantly, apologies and regret aren’t actually out of care for you. They are a selfish endeavor meant to preserve his image, his ego, and his false identity as a “good guy.” He wants to end on a note to show, See. Look how loving and kind I was to her, and look how cold she was to me. Classic narcissistic bully-victim behavior. But the thing he forgets, you practically have a Phd in this kind of abuse now. He’s testing you yet again. And like the good student that you are, you’ve studied every nook and cranny of his abusive behavior. You’re well-prepared to ace this test.
Reading his words tastes like vile in the back of your throat, bitter and sour. You shudder, gag, and fight the urge not to vomit all over his lies and attempted manipulation one more time. Every word he utters, every memory of him now feels like poison in your heart and mind. As if allergic to his efforts now, your body literally rejects him and all that he is. Good luck, buddy. Your tricks don’t work here anymore. I finally see you for exactly what you are: an abusive piece of shit.
This is both the pain and the beauty of being in month four versus month one of your healing journey. By now, you are settling in with the fact that there weren’t two different versions of him. There weren’t two different men showing up in your relationship. This was one destructive, evil, abusive person. And this fact is both clarifying and devastating. The man who gently held your hand and kissed you in the shadows outside a Palm Springs restaurant on your first weekend together is the same man who shattered your heart, trust, mind, and spirit. You used to tell him he’s like Jekyll and Hyde. But, it turns out it was just one man; it was just him.
You remember he once told you about the abuse he experienced as a child from men in his life. What stands out more than that is what he said next: he never wanted to be like them and never wanted to do what they did.
Hearing those words, you feel the blood drain from your face and your vision narrow. Really? You think. Well, you failed. Because that’s exactly who you are.
