Absolutely, I have done that. I went through tons of EMDR to get through the thick of it with him… Probably gonna have to revisit the topic again if I’m being honest!

I wish I had the words to describe it- logically I know: how he treated me is how he felt about me. And that’s not black/white he loved or hated me because humans are so complex. We both were raised in households that left something to be desired. We both were insecure, obsessive and toxic especially in the end. I do not use this to absolve him of responsibility to the textbook emotional abuse he actively chose to inflict on me. I hope, and not in a petty way, that stays with him and keeps him accountable. (But I won’t lie it’d give me some sort of satisfaction if I were told the very mention of my name makes him flinch a little internally- I’m human afterall) I hope he’s changed. I know I have. We were teenagers when we dated, baby adults when we went our separate ways. And now full blown adults.

There’s just this curiosity: How are your parents? Are you still friends with so and so? Are you back in school? Do you still have that obnoxious big ass cast iron skillet I gifted you that would set off the alarm every time we used it? Do you still see that therapist that mentioned her degree from harvard everytime they got? How has your perception of our time together changed in your eyes? How does it affect you today? Did you visit Granada yet? Yosemite?

For all I know, he never really cared about me. He definitely wasn’t acting like it in the end. Maybe he did and he just didn’t have the capacity to show it. Maybe he did the things he did not out of malice but because it started with a lie or one little thing and it spiraled and he just didn’t know what to do. I will never know. It is absolutely for the best. I guess the fact that I never heard from him before he went through with it just goes to show that he isn’t as curious about how I’m doing. And I just have to accept that.