what survives impact: what no one tells you about leaving abuse.

TW: This is a very heavy venting essay that many people will find triggering. Please do not read if you feel uncomfortable talking about intrusive thoughts, abuse, abandonment, self harm, or suicidal ideation / action.

I wrote this after a therapy session, and it’s raw and unedited past its’ first form. I wanted to keep it that way because I feel with abuse survivors, we edit, reword, and rework our trauma again and again for others because we ruminate on it so much.

We want to make it palatable and connectable, and we want to make this possession of our lives into something that has no rough edges, because the material itself is already so rotted. If you’re one of those survivors, I hope you take this with you into the world.

In an effort to break that pattern, I’m just throwing this into the world as a flare for others to see, and then working my way back to safety. Once again, heavy trigger warning.

I think oftentimes when we think about abusive situations and the people who leave them, we like to imagine that it’s a clean cut. Someone escalates, you leave. You’re safe. You’re done. You’ve learned from the abuse, have been given the sock of freedom, and are out on the fucking town to live with your wisdom. Congratulations on your survival, don’t try your luck again.

I wish someone told me that sometimes, especially if you’re dealing with childhood trauma, that being in an abusive relationship FEELS easier than working to remain unabated and independent.

This essay is my confessional, and I’ll detail the sins for you. When you’re abused, it creates a set of core beliefs in your head that you internalize to be able to survive your situation.

I’m not being abused, I’m just wrong. I fucked up. I wasn’t good enough. It’s my fault, therefore the abuse is under my control. And therefore, if the abuse is under my control, I can change it and make the situation safe.

I can be the flower that died for a season to rebloom the next.

When you are at fault for the abuse, there’s a sense of naivety and safety within it. You are not just randomly being abused by someone, that would be horrific! No, you’re just getting straightened out. This is just how things are. You’re the only fuck up. And you can fix you.

It’s harder to survive outside of someone than it is to die within them. It’s worth being done. But there is no Matilda adoption scene where a new person picks you up and you live the life you always deserved.

Abuse is about getting fucking kneecapped and still running the same race as everyone else, with no place to return when the race is done.

I’ll tell you a secret at this point since we’re so far in. Hold onto this secret with me, because carrying it alone is heavy. When I was younger, I associated my autistic traits with abandonment. Whenever I would be sensitive in elementary school, or start to cry or have tantrums, there was no answer for me. If you need care, it will not be dispersed. There is no resting place for you.

A siren that drives others away from helping instead of to help. And when I started to get abandoned, I realized that self harm, and attempting suicide were some of the only ways over which I could feel control over the abandonment and pain caused by others. Make your own resting place.

And so when I grew up, every single time I felt abandoned, or mocked, or felt unstable with housing or jobs, a tiny child named Amanda would just want to kill herself. Big Amanda would be tough, but tiny Amanda just cries and cries and cries. Don’t know what’s going to happen? Don’t feel secure or certain in life? You want to kill yourself.

It’s our secret now. I told you it’s heavy to carry.

I went to EMDR therapy, and mostly only remember traumatic events from my childhood (trauma can affect memory and cause memory loss). And when I processed those events, it felt no longer like I had lived my life.

It felt as though I had played a video game in which I was watching a cut scene for the first 20 years, and then I just recently was able to walk around in the world and play the game.

And when I miss those early moments, and I forget how to not remember, but live my childhood, tiny Amanda says she wishes she never left. Tiny Amanda says she wants to get into another abusive relationship so she can feel like a kid again.

What the fuck do you say to yourself in times like that? I don’t know. At least, being in an abusive situation gives you the cover of safety through changing yourself. And then you grow up and realize there’s no real way to keep yourself safe.

After fighting through everything to get safety, how do you live knowing there is no such thing? If abuse is your first keeper, you never want to meet your second.

I don’t know. I don’t have answers here for you. I don’t have my usual poetic spiel about the goodness of humanity and how trauma and pain can shift into other things. I’ll come back to live through those things, but they’re not with me tonight.

If you’ve been the victim of abuse and you relate to this, I’m sorry. I’m really sorry. I want to make a world that’s safer for the both of us. We deserved a world that’s safer for both of us. You know I see you — I hope you see me. Please get home safely. I love you.