To my abusive ex-boyfriend,

I don’t know how you did it. You’ve blocked out these memories the way a damn blocks out a flood. It’s hard for me to believe that you remember none of these things, but then again you’re a completely different person now and so am I. I will never forget the way you drowned me. With your hands around my neck, holding me underwater, when all I was trying to do was take a single breath. Almost two full years a complete blur because I have no real recollection of anything that ever happened except for you.

Here we are now, four years later and sometimes at night I wake up in a sweat, face wet with tears from a nightmare of you. The worst part about it is that it’s never actually a nightmare, just repressed memories coming forth the same way a wounded soldier comes back from battle. I’ll take a walk, listen to music and breathe deeply but when I try to fall back asleep, all I can see are your eyes staring into mine with a deep sense of hurt and hatred in them. You would never know now, but I’m still just as scared as I was and things remind me someway of something you had done.

I remember the first day we met: it wasn’t in person. We met through a mutual friend who was trying to help you and asked me if I could help instead. It didn’t take long for us to become as close as we were. I didn’t even know that I was only seeing what laid upon the surface. Time ticked on and soon I began to see all of the small things that I did not enjoy. Where had my friends gone? Why was my best friend no longer speaking to me? My wardrobe had transformed into a collection of sweatpants and sweatshirts and none of the clothes that I spent so much money on even had the price tags removed. I was isolated, I had no one to talk to but the person who was making me feel small. Every time I needed someone no one was there to turn to because of you. You lied to me over and over again and every single time you said you were sorry I believed you. You pressured me to be everything I hated about myself, yet here I was eating up every single word you said. Swallowing them whole, changing anything good about myself to please you.

I remember how defenseless I felt when fighting with you. We were two boxers in the ring and I was the only one without gloves. Every time I got angry you turned it around on me. You twisted my words to make me feel small. Over and over again I saw it in my head: you were the one I was trying to fight and yet every single day I went home to you. I was a small fish swept away in the current thrashing about, trying to get out, hitting myself on every rock I passed, the cuts and bruises were never big enough to actually leave a mark but I can feel every laceration with the salt that burned in each one.

Almost two years later I couldn’t take it anymore, I saw a single break in the current and I pushed myself out. You looked at me and said “you can’t do this to me,” and all I said was that I was. The tears lasted about two minutes and then I had never felt as free as I had been in that moment. It took years to even begin to fix the damage you had made and I’m still working on every single piece of me. Tattered and torn pieces of myself are being glued back together, bit by bit and yet I’ve never felt so whole. I saw you not too long ago, and when we tried to talk about it you apologized for what you had done but you said you don’t even remember high school all that well. In disbelief I thought to myself how someone who did something so wrong to a person could possibly forget everything just like that.

I’m here to tell you that I am strong enough now to say I forgive you but I swear to God I will never forget. You took everything I had to give and even more and it still was not enough. Never again will I give someone all of the right pieces of me if I’m unsure that they’re not even worthy enough for the wrong ones. I will never sit there while someone spits fire at me and just let myself get scorched by the embers. I will trust my mother’s instinct and believe the words my friends have to say. I will always be exactly who I am and never let someone change me because they think I’d be better off that way. You may have broken me one too many times, but I’m a better person now because of it. So I must say, thank you. All of those god awful things you put me through made me stronger, self-loving, more compassionate and much more mature. Even if you may not remember me, I’ll remember you.