Yellow

    I went to church and fell in love with the devil. He wasn’t my type but somehow charmed me into abuse. If only I knew the adult acne was an outward reflection of a tortured soul. I never saw myself as a weak woman and I always inwardly judged women who kept running back to abusive relationships. I didn’t understand. Little did I know the process to control is slow and steady. The problem with emotional abuse is that there isn’t any physical evidence which means people don’t take it as seriously. The scars are twice as deep because no one intervenes. I had to save myself. 

    At first it started with a walk to the bus stop after a late night church service. I’d seen him around here and there but not enough to know much about him. The texts started out friendly but aggressive. He would text me all times throughout the day and then call me at night. My gut told me that this wasn’t normal, but I’d been out of the dating game so long that I thought I may have been overreacting. I was in a career and emotional slump, then he came along and made me smile. 

    I wish I could place all the blame on him for what happened to me, but I played my part too. I should have seen the signs. He didn’t know that much about me to be so invested. Even after the first date something felt off but I couldn’t quite put my finger on it. I told him that we should be just friends. I prayed and asked God if it was okay to date him. I didn’t get a response. Between his persistence and my season of confusion I gave in and decided to get to know more about him. 

    The initial love bombing stage felt like a fairytale. I thought he was the man of my dreams. Although I was floating through love I couldn’t help but wonder why the air balloon felt like it couldn’t quite get off the ground. The constant questioning made me uncomfortable. I was being studied. He wanted to know everything about me; my biggest fears, the history of past relationships, my best friends, what I wanted in a boyfriend, when did I feel the most loved and even the intensity of my anxiety attacks. These seem like normal dating questions, for someone with pure intentions. I was smothered with compliments, love, and attention. He said he admired me for all I’d accomplished. He’d googled my work and wanted to be my biggest fan. He even asked if I would teach him how to write. I declined.

    I talked myself out of being hesitant because everything was moving so fast. My mother warned me not to let him rush me. I didn’t listen. Within a month he asked me to be in a relationship and the month after that he gave me the passcode to his cellphone and a key to his apartment. We were planning a future together. Again, my mother told me to slow down. I was conflicted because how could the beauty of what I was feeling be wrong? He told me about his abusive and controlling ex-girlfriend and I hated her. He said she didn’t want him to have a life outside of her and that she fought him, often. The way she degraded and belittled a good man made me want to show him the beauty of real love. No one should be treated that way. Why would anyone want to take advantage of the most gentle man I’d ever met? Later on I learned of the cycle with all his past relationships. The breaking up and getting back together cycle that would last as long as he wanted. I wrote it off as the naivety of youth but it foreshadowed the fool’s gold at the end of the rainbow. 

    Ten minutes after the New Year he uttered the words I love you. Actually, they were more like I do love you. We’d been almost inseparable and I already felt like I knew him. I decided to write off my hesitation as fear and put my all into our relationship. I helped him set up goals and even edited emails for job applications. Within weeks he was hired for two jobs he’d spent years applying. He was making the most money he’d ever made. 

    Slowly the compliments dissipated into small verbal daggers. Everything I did annoyed him and every argument was my fault. I remember shopping at Zara and I picked up a beautiful yellow dress. He told me that I should put it back because I’d look like a banana wearing yellow with my blonde hair. I stopped wearing yellow. His comments were weighted with the kind of tone that made me uneasy. They seeped beneath my skin and forced me to adjust myself. The more distant he became the harder I fought to please him to get things back to how they were in the beginning. Before I knew it I was taking care of him. I would fold his laundry just the way he liked it and tried to build friendships with people he approved. 

    He managed to discredit mutual friends and my perception of them. People I’d started building friendships with he told me how much they wanted him in the past and that I couldn’t trust them. I stopped talking to them. He was getting farther away from me and I couldn't reach him. I noticed he started texting multiple women from his past. When I questioned him about it he said I was projecting my insecurities onto him. He brought up past heartbreaks that I’d confided in him and used it against me. The more intense the arguments the more drained I became. I always walked away with my head spinning and questioning myself. I couldn’t breathe. 

    His family told me how good I was for him and that they could tell his head was in a better place. Everyone complained about the ex and in some twisted way it validated me as being superior. He would ask me to stay at his apartment for weeks at a time. Subconsciously I was becoming addicted to him and feeding his ego was becoming a job. I had no logical reasoning for my actions. It was like I was living in a fog. I had become an outline of myself with a diminishing soul. Nothing I did, said, or bought could make him return the love. He started requesting things like a new gaming system and shoes. I declined but didn’t leave.

    As time went on his mask slipped even further revealing a person I didn’t know at all. The gas lighting became the worse part. It taught me not to trust my own judgement and instincts. At first it didn’t bother me that he didn’t post us on social media, but his suspicious actions made me question if he was hiding me. I found out he was controlling visibility so there were many comments from women that I couldn’t see and who couldn’t see mine. He even logged into my Instagram, checked my DM’s and changed my lovey dovey comments under his pictures. I started realizing that names from men that I hadn’t spoken to in months were searched in my phone. When I confronted him about it, again he’d spun it make me out to be the crazy one. He told me that I had to know that he wasn’t insecure and that nothing I could do would make him jealous. Then he started to text me during random times of the day asking for my location. 

    I lost my appetite and my drive to put words on the page. The weaker I became the stronger he got and the worse the insults grew. He would snatch away from me in public when I would try to hold his hand and casually mention women he “wanted to get to know”. The silent treatments when I said and did things he didn’t like reignited my abandonment issues. He started to need “time alone” and days he wouldn’t speak to me at all. His annoyance was obvious anytime someone complimented me while we were out. I didn’t know what I was doing wrong. My relationship had somehow become a poorly written Lifetime movie. I couldn’t think straight. I kept thinking how did I get here? My panic attacks had become as frequent as twice a day, the nightmares were constant, and my stomach pains were unexplainable. I couldn’t breathe. My body had started to reject his presence. My family was worried and my mother demanded I come home to visit. 

    Here’s the thing about love. Real love casts out any forms of darkness and is a true reflection of one’s soul. My family snapped me out of it. My cousin told me not only to break up with him, but to run and don’t look back. I was being abused. During a rare FaceTime during my trip, because since I’d boarded the plane he’d somehow become too busy to talk to me, he mentioned that the ex-girlfriends he’d been texting didn’t know that he was in a relationship. Previously he told me they had. It wasn’t one woman, or two, or even three. As the number of them multiplied, my esteem divided into a version of me I could no longer recognize.

It was the last straw. I sent the text message to break up with him. I knew that if we talked it out he would somehow rationalize his actions and make me out to be the bad person. I didn’t have one panic attack while I was away. 

    When I returned I blocked his number completely. It didn’t take long before his constant phone calls became too much. He was strategic enough never leave a trace of evidence of disrespect. That’s why I was hesitant to tell anyone. He was good at controlling the narrative. He was never mean to me in front of anyone, only during the times while we were alone.  Anytime we were out with friends or in public he treated people with the respect and admiration I longed for behind closed doors. I was the only one who saw behind the mask. After he realized he was blocked, then came the emails. Next his friends and family members reached out to me pleading his case. It was clear that he had given them his account of what happened. He was the best liar I’d ever known. No one asked me my side of the story. He was in control. 

    He pleaded to talk to me and found ways to get the message to me. No matter what I stood behind my decision. I knew that the abuse would only progress and would eventually become physical. I was willing to break my own heart then in order for him not to kill my spirit forever. After the breakup I felt like I’d been hit by a truck. I tortured myself with the details of our relationship and all the times I should have walked away but I didn’t. I was hesitant to tell anyone about the abuse because I didn’t think they would believe me. No one saw that side of him but me. I often felt like a walking zombie. 

    How could I have allowed this to happen to me? How did I give someone so much control and access to me without vetting him. Why did I believe his lies so easily? I was being used and didn’t even realize it until it was too late. I trusted him. It wasn’t his ex who was controlling and abusive, it was him. He could read me with the familiarity of a Dr. Seuss book and yet I didn’t really know him at all. He wasn’t who he presented himself to be.  Being a victim of domestic abuse felt like I was screaming at the top of my lungs and no one could hear me. Slowly I started to tell close friends because it was eating away at me. I saw the eyes of friends swell up in tears from memories of their own version of my abuse. Then there were the blank faces of those who tried to rationalize his actions and didn’t care to check up on me at all. Some thought that if he didn’t put his hands on me then I was being dramatic.

    The times I could pull myself together made me regret ever leaving the house. The worse part was being around our mutual friends. The same people he’d told me stories about so that I would keep my distance from them. I’m sure in an effort to keep me from telling them about the way he treated me. Controlling the narrative meant that he was able to taint other people’s perception of me. Any chance of trying to tell the truth would only make me look crazier. They believed him. I could tell by the side eyes and sneaky grins they shared while I was around. There was no way to defend myself and tell the truth.

    I sunk deeper into a dark place and no one could help. The advice of friends and a listening ear was helpful, but I had to face myself at night. No one could save me from me. I cried my eyes shut. The hurt then grew into anger. I was angry with myself and God. How could he allow this to happen to me? Why didn’t he save me? After the pity party I got real with myself. I saw what I wanted to see. I made a bad decision and expected him to save me from the repercussions. The God I once saw as sitting on the throne and judging me slowly started to become my best friend. I could hear him telling me to get off the bathroom floor and talk me down from irrational choices. On the days I couldn’t get out of the bed, I would hear him whisper and tell me to put one leg on the ground and then the other. Step by step he walked me through my depression. He sent me angels. People who listened to me and reminded me that I wasn’t alone. 

    I couldn’t get what he did out of my mind so I started to google. I realized that Narcissistic Personality Disorder described my ex down to the details of his behavior. What I had experienced was Narcissistic Abuse. That proved that I wasn’t crazy. 

    My appetite grew. I found a job. I had good and bad days. I remember swallowing my tears on the train platform. I couldn’t stop my brain from replaying all of his insults. I closed my eyes and told God I needed a hug. The wind blew. I smiled. I got on the train and tried to control my hands from shaking. He sent a talented saxophonist to calm and serenade my train ride to work. He hadn’t forgotten about me. For the first time in a long time, I felt seen.

    It’s been three months since I walked away. Two weeks ago I put on the brightest yellow dress I could find and pranced my way through Brooklyn. I struggled with whether or not I should tell my story. I wanted to the shame to stay between me and my close circle. I didn’t write this to shame my ex or expose him. I’m sure he has moved on to the next woman and I pray for her daily. Nor am I angry with the women in his life who feed his ego and protect his actions. I sympathize with them because coddling him is redemption for the ghosts of abusers in their own lives. It is a vicious cycle. I did not deserve what happened to me. I wrote this for all of the women who have buried their experiences of abuse out of shame. There was nothing you could’ve done to change the way you were treated.

    The biggest lie told in the black family is what happens in this house stays in this house. We internalize those messages and move through life hiding wounds which eventually cause internal bleeding. What happens in your house means you should seek help if you so desire. Tell a friend, call someone and get out. Forgive yourself enough to heal. I am on this journey myself.

    I am a firm believer that our spirits meet people before our hearts and minds. That uneasy feeling should be enough to walk away. I hope my testimony helps someone to feel seen. Leaving is hard but staying is deadly. Shame and fear are a lethal combination. For the first time in my life I felt silenced. Writing this has helped me take back some of my power in my journey to forgiving myself. This experience has also taught me that self-love is truly the first act of self-care. I had childhood wounds of not feeling good enough that I didn’t take the time to heal. This new journey of focusing on myself is a daily task. Some days I take it hour by hour and even minute by minute, but I’m doing it. With every word that I type, every book that I write, I am taking back my power. I am good enough.

For the women and men who have gone through an abusive relationship or currently managing through one:

I believe you. 

You matter. 

Remember, discernment is a superpower.