Supplemental Post: Lost

I wrote this post 8 months after leaving the relationship to try to explain what I was going through at that point. Even though I knew that I could never go back to Him, I was finding my new life without Him very hard to handle, and couldn't make sense of anything. I post this to try to explain the long-lasting effects abuse has on a victim and the conflicting feelings they have trying to move forward.

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Sometimes I feel so lost that I fear I will never find my way ever again.

It’s not like being lost on the road, where there are signs and passers-by. People to ask for directions, to check in with again to find out if you’re on the right track. To exchange a smile and a wave and a nod. Because generally when you’re on the road, you have some idea of where you’re going. Your destination is clear, even if you have several possible routes. And somehow you know that if you point yourself in the general direction, you’ll get there eventually. You might take a longer road, or one with a poor surface that slows you down, but you’ll get there.

The way I feel is quite different to that. It’s like being lost in the middle of a jungle. Where there are no tracks, or identifying landmarks. Like I’m buried in the undergrowth and every direction looks the same. I’m there alone. I have to decide how to get out, or whether to stay. But it’s dark, and it scares me.

I don’t really understand how I got there. When I look back, I question whether it was actually me that led him by the hand, our eyes wild, glinting in the half-light. Maybe I thought that it was going to be exciting in there, exotic, unknown. Perhaps I realized that I was getting myself, and him, deeper and deeper into the wilderness but somehow it didn’t seem to matter because I always had him as my point of reference. Or maybe I only took us in so far, to the edges of the forest, where light was still coming through. A place where I still knew how to get out. And then he led me in the rest of the way, told me that knowing how to get out again was cheating, not giving enough of myself, not committing.

Whichever it was, I went right to the heart of that forest. And even though sometimes he was scarier than the snakes hanging off the trees, I felt safer with him there. But now he’s not with me anymore and I’m still in there.

I know that I chose it. I thought that it would be less frightening, that I had a real chance of getting out. I also realize that there are people waiting around the edges, reaching towards me, ready to help, even if I can’t see them from where I am. But I have to take the first steps into the darkness on my own, and have faith that I am walking towards them, and sometimes I can’t bring myself to do it.

Because on some days, I don’t want their help. They’ve never been to the heart of the darkness. Only he has been there, and I still want it to be him that I find. Even though I know it’s not good or right, it just hurts too much being apart from him. Then I have to grit my teeth, bear the darkness, step towards the edge and wait for the sun to rise.