Hi Teak,

Thank you again for your response. I understand what you are saying now. You are right. I did not follow through and go to the police. He would always apologize and ask me not to. I wanted to believe he would change. I think it was a big mistake unmasking him in the end and trying to stand up for myself and demand the respect of being able to have a voice and receive closure. Its not like I go around psychoanalyzing all my relationships. I was just so confused and didn’t understand what was happening to me. In relationships you always can put a picture together from all the puzzle pieces of that person and you and your dynamic together and what happened in the relationship. With this relationship I have no picture, I have no understanding. Its all lies and contradictions and manipulation and gaslighting. I can never truly understand the truth and it drives me mad that i cannot yet i was vulnerable to this man and intimate with him and I take that kind of bond seriously. It makes me feel so horribly bad. When I could put my finger on what happened and finally say this is it, You are a narcissist or worse a sociopath or psychopath I at least had some understanding and logically I can know this is the truth but emotionally i just cannot understand.

I wish he could tell me he regrets hurting me and is sorry he destroyed me. I wish his family would sit me down like human to human and respect me enough to let me have a voice and say I am sorry my son did this to you and we are sorry we had to protect him as we did and we did not know how this was going to affect you. I wish they would hug me and tell me they are truly sorry for my pain and that they know what their son did was wrong and show me the love and respect humans deserve. I need all that so bad. I just cant understand how people would treat a person this way and not care about how much they suffer because of it. They could’ve driven me so suicide!

You just cannot know how bad the pain is. I feel like I am a ghost of myself. This almost killed me. I was suicidal for so long. Friends had to come over in shifts and even sleep in the bed with me to protect me from myself. I would wake up screaming in the night from nightmares. I would go whole days with panic attacks. I had to stop working. I was so depressed that I cried all day everyday. I could not get off my couch. My finances are still fucked. My house became a total wreck. I gained weight. I was in physical pain everyday. I had insomnia. I would break down and cry over and over each day sobbing and scared. I was constantly terrified. Constantly triggered constantly in emotional flashbacks. I was bullied constantly. I would have to tell myself over and over your safe your safe like a fucking mantra. I had to tell myself over and over you can do this you can do this just to get off the couch and take a shower or get a minimal amount of work done or even use the bathroom or cook some damn food! You have no idea! I would sit for an hour on the couch psyching myself up just to get up and do the smallest thing to keep me alive. My dad died also during this time. I lost so many friends. My nervous system was fried and i was always in a state of hyper vigilance and fear and terror. I ave no more trust in people and a total loss of faith in humanity. I blamed myself and thought myself worthless and unlovable and that I should die, I felt hopeless and helpless, I couldn’t regulate my emotions, i disassociated a lot, i kept reliving the traumatic events that occurred, i couldn’t stop obsessing about my abuser and wanting closure. All of these are symptoms of CPTSD and I still suffer from all of these things. My life is a nightmare. I don’t even recognize myself anymore. I don’t know how to move forward. I feel like I have made small steps in recovery but i have so much more to go. I am 42 now. He met me at 39 after i had spent years rebuilding my life and healing from my birth parents. He took away my opportunities to go out in the world and meet a real partner while i was still relatively young and healthy. I don’t know if i have the fight to heal this again and even if i do i will be so old by the time it happens and i don’t know if i will ever be able to fall in love or trust anyone ever again because of what they did. Just think about the possibilities in life that have been snuffed out because of this. How much suffering I have to endure. And I was the victim not the abuser. What if i cant heal this time? What if i never get to have love and family?  What if i can never fall in love now? He took so much from me including my innocence and even if I do get well i will never get those precious years back. I live in intense pain and feel so helpless. How could someone do this to another person and just not even care? Much more i think he WANTS to destroy me and gets pleasure from my pain. Its just so devastating.

I know I didn’t deserve the abuse. I know i need to learn to love myself again and respect myself again. I can accept that. Its just such a long and uncertain road of recovery. I know if they did the right thing, it would make healing a lot easier for me. I know it! I need that faith in humanity back. I need to have a voice so badly! I need to understand! I need the respect. Closure not a thing you can give to yourself. Closure involves both parties being on the same page. Closure is having that full picture of what happened in the relationship and being on the same page together about what happened. Apologies and forgiveness are there and both can move forward knowing how to grow from it. All I can do is give myself understanding and information and learn to heal from this and it will take so much longer and leave more wounds than if they did the right thing.

I will never have closure. I need to just work hard on healing as best I can. I can accept that. its just so hard. And it all hurts SO much. 🙁