We were about to go to bed and, as I got up to switch off the light, I felt his eyes contemplating my body. He held his spliff to his mouth, sucked the smoke in deeply, and spoke slowly, drawing out every word like a knife over my flesh. I was devastated. I wanted to rip my breasts off of my body. I wanted to tear myself into pieces until I vanished, but I just stood there silent, looking at him. I blinked a few times. In a daze, I hit the switch, climbed into my side of the bed, and proceeded to open my legs. The only way to survive the clawing, aching feeling in my chest was to make him act against himself; to offer him my body knowing that he would not refuse, and that, despite his disgust, I would have the final word. “And, I don’t care if you don’t want me, I am yours right now.

Friday night. Two months into our relationship. People turned their heads to look at us as we arrived and, my goodness, we looked great together. It felt good to be publicly affirmed as his woman just by being seen by those who knew me, and especially those who didn’t. Later on, we glided into a club, bypassing the long lines and the bouncers. That night, he was all about the PDA life on the dancefloor, and even though it’s not my thing, I embraced it fully. For the first time in weeks, I felt that he could, and actually wanted to, see me. Knowing how many women craved to be in my position, just as I had so craved to be in my position some months back, gave me such a rush. I imagined their envy and it kept me going.

***

That was the last good night, and after being treated like a yo-yo for weeks—being ignored for days on end resulting in breaking up and then making up when he was sorry—I put an end to it. My once peaceful life had morphed into a D-grade soap opera that I could no longer recognize. Mostly I watched in horror from the sidelines thinking, What the fuck?! It wasn’t healthy. I loathed myself. I wanted him to love me so bad, but I also prayed that he would die a sudden death so I could be free of him. I also did some not-so-legal things in drunken rages that left me ashamed to be so low. I tried to break up with him over the phone one afternoon. His curt response: “You can’t leave me.” He hung up. He was right. It took months of phone calls with my friend Alex, wine, one-night stands, and poetry to finally get onto a path that would lead me away from him. I felt like damaged goods.

It devastated me to know that you could care so deeply for someone and they could treat you like shit in return—and the world would just keep turning. And because the world did not give a damn about my hurt, I had to claw myself out of that dark hole I was in. I often thought of the tattoo I had gotten on my left arm a couple of years before: “Whoever he is, he is not worth all this. And I will never unclench my teeth long enough to tell him so.” I had to fight myself whenever I felt like calling him and spilling my heart out. I had to fight myself when the voice inside told me I was undesirable and worthless. And so, even against my fear of loneliness, I decided to stay single for three years. I wanted to rebuild myself into a whole woman. I really wanted to like myself again, without the distraction of investing my feelings in anyone else.

I still struggle with body-confidence issues and, sometimes, to like myself. But what I am grateful for is the full use of my voice. I spent so long being voiceless that I no longer have the patience for silence. Even in my current relationship with an amazing, generous, compassionate man, I often feel like I am too expressive, that I might ruin things by talking too much. It’s just that I’m so scared of being back in a place of regret, knowing that I should have spoken up for myself but didn’t. I know now to put myself first: If it must burn, then let it burn, but I will not sacrifice myself for a man’s ego. I’m a daily work in progress and it feels good to know that as fallible as I am, I’m growing. I am no longer failing myself in the ways I was all those years ago. ♦