A Letter to the Narcissist – No. 63

Whore.

Slut.

Suck.

These were words I’m all too familiar with these days. They spin in my mind like and endless groundhog day, over and over and over. The slapping, the spitting, the choking. Sex play you used to call it. If I knew what men wanted and did what they wanted in the bedroom then maybe I’d be married with a family by now you used to say.

I’m educated, tall, beautiful, and used to be successful. I used to care. I used to feel. I used to have hope, an outlook. Now, if I can get out of bed and make it to the back porch to smoke a pack of cigarettes for the day and make it to the store to buy food without having an anxiety attack around humans I consider myself lucky. Mostly, though, I’m afraid to leave my bedroom. You are everywhere. Memories, I see your car everywhere, your name, you laugh, your smile, I still feel you, I can still hear you breath, the way your lips moved when you talked, I miss you. You are everywhere. So I’m afraid to go anywhere. I once drove to your side of town for dinner with friends and had to leave because I was afraid I may see you. I know me doing this gives you all the power but I just don’t have the energy. Everything is exhausting. All my light, my love, my tenacity, my excitement…gone. I keep waiting to feel empowered again, feel alive.

It’s been over a year since I’ve seen you, except you coming back twice this summer for sex and I hate myself even more now. I thought about you for months and months then you appeared on my phone and I felt you loved me and had been as sad as I had been during our time apart. I was a fool.

Everything spins. It’s been so long and I can’t get back to my old self. I just sleep and try to stop the memories.

These memories…

The time you whispered in my ear on our first Valentine’s Day morning during sex, ‘you know the only reason you’re here is so I can use your three holes’. Then I started crying and you kept going and I had to put on a happy face because your friends were in town and we were going out with them. Then as punishment for my morning emotional antics you followed up the Valentine’s Day with anal sex without asking. Just grabbed the condom and I was expected to comply.

The time you told your friends the only reason you took me on a nice dates in the beginning of our relationship was because you were trying to get laid.

The times I woke up next you you and instead of smiling, or kissing, or cuddling with me you would just say suck. That word makes me sick to my stomach now.

The time you urinated on me on your rooftop right after a long talk about our future, children, moving to Florida, and how much you loved me,,, then, without asking, you just started urinating on me and explained you needed it because you suffered extreme sexual abuse as a child. Then you poured your beer on my head and pushed my head to the ground and told me to ‘smell it whore’ I acted like I liked it, I had to, because I had just gotten you back and I knew if I didn’t, you would leave. After all, you did say that men fall in love with women who do whatever they want in bed. I knew that was a bullshit comment but kept obliging because silly me thought you really did love me and really did want a future with me. After all… it had been nearly 3 years of on again off again with us and you kept coming back so I believed you did love me.

The time you made me smoke a joint on the phone so you could listen since you are a federal narcotics agent and can’t do it you wanted to hear it. So you begged and begged and begged me to smoke one so you could listen. Then, after I did, you laughed and said ‘you’re such a stupid dumb fucking whore’, you said it twice, then hung up.

All the times you made me recount the details of my sexual encounters throughout my life because that made you get off. I told you I hated story time and I didn’t like it but you always insisted. Tell me about a cock you sucked is what you’d always ask… tell me about someone who you fucked. Tell me how much you liked it.

All the times you would ask me ‘how many cocks did you suck today’… then you’d say ‘let me have my little joke where’s your sense of humor’ as if anyone would ever like being asked that question daily.

The time you came with me at the beginning of our relationship to my father’s cabin and as we fell asleep you popped an ambien, like you always did before sex, and then you whispered in my ear, ‘you’re not going to recognize yourself when I’m done with you’

You didn’t like my clothes, always said I had to show off my figure more. Then when I did, you treated me like a whore. I couldn’t win. The endless double binds. Now you’re dating a girl who looks like your sister and dresses like a man. It’s odd and I feel bad for her.

The times you always wanted to watch me have sex with someone else. I thank god daily I never allowed you to talk me into that. I thank god daily. But I still resent the incessant asking…

The time you came on my face then slammed it into the bathroom mirror and told me to ‘lick it off’… of course it was followed by ‘whore’. That was the first time I ever allowed anyone to do that. You knew it was my first time, and it was not fun. I’ve hated it ever since.

The times you would roll your eyes when I didn’t want to tell sex stories

Then you would ignore me. Say everything was fine and I was crazy and I’m not remembering anything correctly. You would always say I took everything out of context. I ‘misread everything and my regurgitating incorrect historical fantasies proves I’m nuts.’ you’d say.

All the times you would make fun of my friends. I had to spend endless amounts of time with your friends and family when they were in town but god forbid I go out with mine or that you spend time getting to know them. Funny how you never had any new friends in town and that the only people you called friends were all your friends from back home. Odd. No real friends here and never made any effort to make any either, and always said mine were idiots.

The time when you called me from a blocked number so I could listen to your new girlfriend having sex with you. I subpoenaed my phone records. I know it was you. You are sick. That poor girl. Maybe I should tell her. I have a recording of the call, maybe I should show it to her?

I’ve lived a pretty normal life. Solid upbringing, good family, good boyfriends and relationships for the most part. One that cheated but I feel everyone goes through that at some point in their dating life. Pretty normal. So part of my endless spinning is shame and guilt that I would ever allow someone to treat me or even talk to me this way. How did it slip in to a normal state of being? I don’t remember how it got to this point. It was so subtle. So discrete. And it’s all my fault. You did nothing wrong you’d say. It was all me. If I would only, if I would do this, or do that, or if I didn’t cry or get upset then…. it was always my fault.

As I recount these memories over and over and over along with many others, I keep asking myself how could you ever let anyone do that, say that!? And that’s the thing with this type of covert abuse… it’s slow, subtle, it sneaks in… and you don’t see it. It’s precluded with an onslaught of warmth, real love, excitement, joy, happiness and plans for the future. Then, slowly, one comment at a time. Crossing one boundary at a time until you wake up one day after crying in your bed for four months and realize what really was going on. Then it becomes less about the abuse and more about how you let it happen. Then the shame, guilt, embarrassment sneaks in.

I was afraid to tell my therapist last year what happened. Who would ever let someone treat them that way. But I loved you and I wanted you to be happy… you were supposed to want the same for me. Like we did in the beginning. Back when it was so perfect for so long… it used to be so good. How did it get to this point. The worst part as I write this is knowing that you’ve never given me a single second thought. We talked about marriage, a family, moving in together. YOU talked about all that. And now I’m not even a passing thought in your mind. That’s the part that hurts the most. No final discussion, no apologies, no good-bye hugs. Just a shrug of your shoulders and a shimmer of a thought about a whore you once dated. I feel so badly for your new girl. I know what’s happening to her behind closed doors. All the promises, the warmth, then the darkness. The double binds. The endless double binds and the sound of your condom drawer being opened.

I could always see how insecure you were. Most insecure guy I’ve ever dated. Maybe that’s why you need the sexual dominance and debasement. Maybe that’s why I allowed it, because I wanted you to feel like a man, it made you happy. Somehow it makes you feel finally in control of your own sexual abuse, if that ever even really happened.