The Need For Validation

I’m just feeling this right now, so I’m going to speak on it.

You know, the story on Dave’s side is I’m crazy and I was just pissed he broke up with me. Well, he hadn’t broken up with me, first of all.

Secondly, why would I still be going like this? Why? This fight has hurt me and caused so much damage to my life. Not his, mine.

I still cry every day. I’m not over it because here was the thing: he hurt me. So many others had before, and I thought it was normal and okay.

I had just learned I needed to say “no.” It was a conscious decision I had made three months prior. I decided I needed to use my words instead of getting hurt.

The first time I did it was that night. With people I knew. With friends for decades who had never hurt me before.

What the fuck was that?

The thing that really fucked me up was the realization I had been raped. Watching it and hearing myself scream.

I’d been through worse, but it was like a fucking movie script. “Please stop!” And he says, “Shut up, don’t be stupid,” like some nefarious character from a screenplay. It is almost comical if it weren’t so grotesque.

Seeing it. Hearing it. That was worse than living through it. I’m so traumatized I don’t even process that shit. I remember fucking everything except sex, and especially that. My brain is wired to not record that shit. It’s safer that way.

I always say if you’ve been through what I’ve been through, you would be lucky not to be in a corner rocking back and forth, screaming because it’s all you can do. I’m literally almost at that point.

And the truly awful part is that no one cares, and they question that. The longer it takes, the more people ignore it. If it were real, someone would have done something by now.

So how can I accept it if no one else sees that too? They tell me they do, those who bothered watching it. They know, but others don’t want to hear it, and they assume it is me, not him, because he would have been charged.

I don’t know if I want him punished as much as I just want validation that he did this and he shouldn’t have. That I had the right to say no. It was my body and my pain, not his.

I get to stand up sometimes and not feel pain. I’m allowed to do that. That isn’t his choice. I never agreed to it because I fucking hate being in pain.

But again, pain doesn’t last. And if it does, you get used to that shit.