The Elephant in the Room

Okay, here goes.

I wrote an entire book about it without ever really talking about it. I don't know how to talk about it, honestly. There are small bursts, but I think when I start talking, people stop listening because they can't believe I'm not over it yet. I can't believe I'm not over it yet.

I've been writing this post for days. Going back and forth on whether this was actually worth pushing into the world. But I figure inane rambles deserve a spot in the internet void, too. I figure I need this to exist in a place outside of myself.

The girl. She sucked. Truly, genuinely sucked. I don't think I can ever talk about all the things she did. There are things I have never told people that she did. I don't think I can ever tell people. At first, I thought it was because I was scared people wouldn't believe me. But honestly, it's because I don't want people to know that I stayed despite all those things. That even though she made miserable, even though she hurt me in ways I don't have words for, she was the one who broke up with me. I feel pathetic about that. I don't know how to not be pathetic.

I know she could have done worse things. I know it's stupid that sometimes I'm more scared of people not understanding than I am of the things she did. I don't know where to go from here. I don't know how to recover. How to fill myself with stuffing again when it has all been ripped out. I go places but nothing carries the type of stuffingn I used to have. The stuffing that was mine. I mean, mine is still under my bed in a dusty little heap. But it had her hands on it. She pulled it all out and touched it and promised to be gentle and fit it back in just how it was.

There was never anything gentle about her.

I could say I was just a kid (technicaly, I was), but people hold me to higher standards. Maybe that's why no one understands why I can't just get over it aready. My friend told me that I'm so mixed up because for the first time, I'm processing something at human speed rather than Sunni speed. I think that's probably true, but I'm allowing myself to be in denial until I finish writing this. I need to sit feeling like garbage for 10-20 more minutes.

I try to move on. There are days when I don't think about her. I guess I don't really think about her at all. I think about the things she did. I think about the people who were happy to be around her in spite of all of it.

I have nightmares. I try not to talk about it, because it sounds pathetic. A lot of them are about the things she did. About her hurting me. But there is a sizable portion about the part of this I don't want to talk about. There are dreams where she does the things she did in front of many people. Strangers, friends, family. It hurts me and I look around for help, I try to point at her and say it's wrong, but everyone gets mad at me. No one believes me, or worse still, they see what she does to me and don't care. It's not a big deal to them. Her hurting me isn't a deal-breaker. They can still be friends with her. They can laugh with her. This is truth sometimes.

There is a friend who I saw today at an event with her. This friend was one of the first people I told about the end of our relationship, who comforted me. Someone who told me her actions were unforgivable. I was under the impression that this friend was no longer in contact with her because of this. I do not know if I did the right thing, when that friend approached me later and I told them I could not continue to stay in contact with them. It is hard. So hard. I want to feel that I am worth it enough for people to dislike someone who hurt me. I want to dislike someone for liking her despite what she did to me. I do not dislike this friend (or, former friend, I guess). I want to, but I can't. I just feel sick inside. Like someone stuck their hand down my throat and kept it there. It is not a good feeling.

I want someone to tell me that she sucks. To tell me that they see how badly she destroyed me, that they can see me in bloody little chunks strewn everywhere and that I really haven't been the same since. I want someone to tell me they understand what she did to me. That they can see why I'm so paralyzed by her. Why I shake when she's at the same event as me. Why I can't breathe and everything in me just spills onto the ground.

I want someone to tell me that they'll understand if I never recover from this. I don't know if I will. I know this is the most emo sentence I'll ever write, but I don't know how to ever trust again. I spent 18 years learning how to trust one person and now that it didn't work out, I don't want to try again. Love is risk, blah blah blah, trust is hard etc. etc., but I don't want to. I can't. I don't want anyone to ever make me this way again. I'm sure in 5 years, with extra therapy, I'll be excited and ready to date again. But right now, I'd like to stew in my pessimism and hopelessness and the tiny bit of teenage angst I allow myself. Everyone had hardships with love. Everyone gets hurt and scared. I'll get over it. But that doesn't stop the dread from seeping in when I'm alone and the world is asleep and there's no one to assure me that this won't be the death of me.

I don't know how to write a poem about this. I want to put it into a few neat lines with a handful of colorful metaphors, and have it be over with. I want to get over this in the way I can anything else in life. My friends tell me I'm the strongest person they know. One told me that she couldn't imagine surviving what I have.

I don't know how to survive this. But I'm learning.

-Sunni Usagi-Koi