#NerdsUnite: Confessions of a ginger (i can haz abusive relationship?)

<editorsnote> Nerds, meet my buddy Layne. I forget how we first started talking ... I think it was on twitter, and then we totes became besties on Facebook, and then we started reading each other's blogs and like commenting and like and like and like ... this chick is RAD annndd she's a ginger. No, seriously. Welcome to the world of Layne and the thoughts that are inside of her head. HIT IT GIRL! </editorsnote>

#TalkNerdyToMeLover's @redheadintexas

First off, I would like to apologize to the entire TNTML community for being MIA over the last week. I started off my second work week by being informed that I would be working some overtime, so we needed to get an approval over to accounting so that my paycheck wouldn't get screwed up. There were several fires to be put out and some are still burning… 

Ah, such is the life of a legal assistant!

I am still adjusting to the schedule… and the commute. I still haven't had a chance to work out in the building's gym (partly due to waiting for my access card to be set up to allow me to get INTO the gym!), so I am a bit disappointed about that. Anyway… let's change the subject… my new job has my head in a complete vice and I would much rather talk about something else until the dust settles. 

What I really want to talk about this week is something I have debated talking about online, or rather-- putting it out there for the whole world to read. Actually, let me be honest and say a huge part of me does not want to talk about it, at all. It's more like I have to.. like it's now or never. I was inspired by some of the other writers here who have written about their own stories of toxic relationships, betrayal, abuse, mental illness, and low self-esteem. From Julie's incredibly painful experience to MegCorb's battle with anxiety… Kenny's life-long struggle with weight and body image, and Jessica's survival story of getting out of an abusive, controlling relationship. The biggest catalyst was Jen's story about the shame she had been carrying since childhood. 

Shame is something I can deeply identify with.

My story is different, yet it still has similarities to all of theirs, and I'm sure, in many ways, some of yours. It's incredibly difficult to share it, especially in a non-anonymous way. But I believe it's time to shed some of my own shame, because the universe knows that I have kept much of these events to myself, due to the shame I felt because I was the girl who let someone lay their hands on me in anger, and didn't leave the first time. 

When I was 20, I met and started dating a guy we'll call Luke. Luke was a musician. He played guitar and also had a presence in the local music scene as a DJ. We met at a Halloween party, I was dressed as Nancy Vicious… of Sid and Nancy fame. I had the full regalia, right down to the padlock choker. I had ripped up the front of my tank top (revealing a vinyl bikini top) and splattered myself with fake blood, as though I had recently been assaulted. I typically go for the gore around Halloween, rather than the humorous, or various iterations of sexy nurse, or sexy cop, or sexy Mad Hatter. Oh, you didn't know there was such a thing as a sexy Mad Hatter costume? Well, there is, because for some reason costume makers believe all little girls who grow up watching Disney movies will someday feel more sexually relevant by parading around in an x-rated version of a cartoon character. (If you haven't figured it out already, humor is one of my defense mechanisms.)

I suppose I should have known that the energy I was creating with that costume might attract the wrong person into my life, but I was 20-- naive, inexperienced, a blank slate just awaiting corruption. Luke and I hit it off immediately. After only knowing each other for two hours, I was telling him everything about myself. He made me laugh. He was child-like and silly. He had this swagger and self-confidence (or what I now know to be self-loathing parading as self-confidence) that pulled me to him like a moth to flame. He was trouble.

There were plenty of red flags at the beginning. Little outbursts he would have, frustration bubbling into anger, that caused his tongue to sharpen and his words to cut like knives. He had moments, but in youth, you think everything is about passion. All the extremes you're in-- life is either heaven or hell. You're constantly pushing the boundaries within yourself, and the world around you. I thought his emotional roller coaster ride was "normal." We got along so well, and laughed so hard together… I thought I had finally found someone who "got" me. 

When his anger crossed the line to violence the first time, I was so caught off guard, it was as if I was two minds stuck in one body. Half of me wanted to run for the hills, the other half wanted to believe that it was a mistake. Luke picked me up from my house and we went to dinner, then back to his place to watch a movie and listen to some records. Things took their natural progression, and he was doing his thing, which for him always meant pleasing me first. For whatever reason, things just weren't happening for me that night. I couldn't tell you why, other than to surmise that there might have just been a chill in the air that only my subconscious was aware of, but when I tried to let him know (in the nicest way possible) that I didn't think I was going to get up the proverbial mountain, he became frustrated and lashed out at me by biting the inside of my thigh. Hard. Like, not in the sexy way… in the "if I can't give you pleasure, then I will give you pain" way. 

I was shocked. I remember scrambling away from him, pushing the covers between my own body and his, to protect myself from his fury. He immediately changed demeanor-- everything from the tone of his voice to his body language. One moment, he was pissed off as all get out, the next he almost seemed frightened. He kept saying sorry, apologizing over and over, saying how he didn't realize he had bit me so hard, he hadn't meant to, he just got caught in the moment, etc. I should have ran out of his house and never looked back, but I couldn't. After I calmed down a bit, I asked him to take me home. He wasn't happy about that, either, but I could tell he didn't want to push me any further away than he had. We rode back to my house in silence, and I can't even begin to remember what was going through my mind. I was conflicted, hurt, in pain, horrified, disappointed, and scared. 

After that, we took a break. For a week or so, I ignored his calls and texts and voicemails. I didn't tell ANYONE what had happened at that point. I was completely at a loss for what to do. I knew that kind of behavior was unacceptable, but I was in too deep. I had no sense of self-preservation… and I now realize I had paper-thin self-esteem. Soon enough, I would allow him back in… and of course, he would cross the line again, on a day that is supposed to be about celebrating love and romance: Valentine's Day. 

#nerdsunite

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