The Comfortable Pain

I know it sounds twisted

But I think I didn't mind the abuse because after a while it was comfortable. Not the bruises, or the scrapes. Not the nights I spent hours scrubbing my own blood out of the carpet. Not the 3ams puking my guts out in the bathroom. Not the headaches I got for weeks every time my head was slammed against a wall.

The comfort came in knowing what to expect. Sure, I expected my abuser to kill me eventually, but not until I was useless. If I stopped being attractive or forgiving or giving, then my fate was sealed. But as long as I could cry and scream and apologize, I felt like a few more bruises would be sort of okay.

My mind wanders back to those times quite often. I get flashbacks of myself dangling in the air with a hand firmly gripped around my neck. I can see that person on top of me. I can feel the weight of a fist on my cheekbone, and the sting of a foot plunging into my ribcage. I remember the ache of healing bones, and the trembling of my hands as I stitched my own wounds closed.

Maybe I should have gotten help sooner. Maybe I should have run, or stood up for myself. Maybe I should not have let myself get comfortable. But I did. It happened. To this day, I am afraid of falling back into that comfort. I am afraid of letting another human being control me, hurt me, abuse me. I am afraid of the outcome, or maybe that there would be no outcome.

I am burdened by my choice to stay, but I never felt like I was making a choice. It felt like I was chained to the walls of that house. Unable to escape. Incapable of remembering that there was an entire world out there. A world with bad in it, but also so much good.

You probably don't understand how I could call that comfort. Knowing that someone would nearly kill me nearly every day. It was though. The unknown and unexpected can be terrifying. If I had been a different person then, I might have been stronger and been able to leave or fight back. I am fragile, and I have always been fragile. I look strong, sometimes I act strong, but I am very breakable. I was broken. I was tamed and put in a box. I was reminded that I was not my own with every word that was spoken and every beating I took. I was not my own. I was someone's property, someone's project.

It is a comfort now, knowing that there is so much more out there. I don't belong to anyone. I am still learning to belong to myself. I am getting better. I am adjusting to the freedoms this life has to offer. I am clean, scarred, and hopeful.

-AshleyAnne