It's been a while, hasn't it? I haven't quite known how to write about things in my life, so I've put it off. I've put it on paper, but the words never come out quite right. Some time last winter I began my Master's degree, and it's something that I've been really proud of having began. I have a few months left in the program and couldn't be more excited to graduate and be promoted at work. I work with my female best friend, I couldn't ask for another human to hold the supervisor position until I graduate and am promoted. She's so similar to me, and I'm very thankful for her as she came to be a friend during a really dark period of my life. I think without her my depression would be a lot worse. Annnnd for the less positive elements. So, the night of the Super Bowl, Shags and I met up with my friend Lyd. He had two huge beers and was pissed off that he had to watch football with a female and that he didn't like my friend. That meant we left at the half-time show and we went to his friend's. The affection between us had been little to none prior to this, after his stay at the hospital there were nights spent mostly distant from each other and more comfortable but with no affection. At his friend's he proceeded to down another six pack or two, I really don't remember at this point but he was clearly drunk. We drove back to the apartment and he started using my data to play Pandora off my phone without asking, which pissed me off and I voiced the opinion. I also voiced that he was going to blow my speaker's and I had a really bad headache so he needed to turn the music in my car down. This turned into him being really mad, and my not knowing it. He put on a MMA interview, I remember hearing Joe Rogan's voice and I still hate it. I hate his fucking voice and it's not his fault. I used to love Coldplay-Adventure of a Lifetime and now I don't enjoy it nearly as much without thinking of how excited I was about the halftime show and it playing. Shag's had me put my head on his lap, which was customary. Except he told me if I moved he'd smack me, since I'd laid on him without asking in the first place. I itched my face, smack. Shifted position to get more comfortable, smack. It was on the rag, I had a headache, I didn't' feel good. My skin hurt, I was exhausted and in pain and had no interest in anything remotely sexual. At some point he started smacking more, the details get a little fuzzy. Then he started choking, but he wanted to choke me until I blacked out. He kept telling me that I wasn't good enough more or less because I wouldn't let him. So he started choking and didn't stop when I did the sign for it. He covered my mouth and nose while choking instead. He knew this set off flashbacks from PTSD, he knew it was a hard limit, and he laughed and did it anyway. I clawed at his hands and he just laughed. I don't remember when he grabbed a metal serving spoon, the kind with holes in them from the kitchen. I don't remember at which point he dumped water over my head and I ran in the bathroom to pee. I know he told me it was okay, but next time I had to ask, and I just agreed. I didn't actually have to pee, I wanted away from him but didn't know how to stop him or how to leave. Because this is what he'd been working toward for 8 months. Someone who didn't know how to voice up that things weren't okay. When I came back I think is when he got the spoon, because I remember my pants being taken off and the spoon against my thighs and ass. I was trying to cover as much as I could with my hands and that made him angrier. He spit in my face and spit in my eye, which just made everything worse. Mentally it was as low as I could hit, I had spit in my face and I was told not to touch it....and I didn't. I went and got him a beer like I was told to do, and as he drank yet another one he wrapped my head in a blanket. I tried not to make it obvious I was moving, because then he'd have hit more with the metal. I created a little tunnel so that I could get air, and hide that I was crying. I was angry, I hated him. I hated everything about him. I saw my ex's face, and I hate him too. I told my brain to turn off, and I was mad that it wouldn't. I couldn't dissociate and I couldn't deal with what was going on, but I didn't know how to leave. I said I liked it, it was obvious I didn't, but I was too afraid to say I didn't like it. I wanted to tell him I hated him, I wanted to tell him to eat shit and die. I wanted to ask him why. But. I didn't. At some point the blanket came off, I don't remember. And he was drunk and his aim was bad. He'd tried to hit my face and missed hitting my throat, my nose, and finally my ear. I heard a loud pop, and felt this searing pain. He started yelling that I was overreacting, that he boxed my ear and it would stop hurting eventually. 5 months later the doctor said my ear drum was damaged from trauma and still healing. Certain temperatures still hurt, hitting it still hurts. Thankfully it's not nearly as bad as it was, esp at the beginning of summer. After that he told me if I wasn't into it then to get the fuck out, so I did. And he berated me the entire way home via text. But was that enough for me? Nope! I stayed because I'm a fucking dumbass. But I didn't feel anything for him after that. I hated him, but still I stayed. About a week later I confronted him on how I felt, and he told me the story of The Scorpion and The Frog. It's not a story I was unfamiliar with, I just had never considered it to apply to my life personally. However he considered me his frog, and that it was just in his nature to beat the shit out of me. Two weeks later we went to the bar, and he drank an entire bottle of tequila rose with me. I was fine, minus the fact I should not have been operating a vehicle. He then had half a bottle of whiskey, and he was hanging out my car windows screaming. He screamed so long and so loud that I was embarrassed to be seen with him. He was screaming in the streets, and all I could think was "I'm wasting my Valentine's Day here. With you? And I hate you, you're stupid" so I left. And he texted me demanding I come back so much that I turned off my phone...for once I didn't listen. For some reason days later I took him to a doctor's appointment. I was annoyed and he was still stupid, but the good in me was still helping him. Until he called my phone at 3am until I woke up, calling me a bitch and demanding I come pick him up from a friend's house. That somehow did it for me, and I stopped speaking to him. I blocked his number, and I was done. I haven't spoken to him since. But in that time the fear that should have been there all along has set in. I dread seeing him, it gives me the worst anxiety. My stomach knots up and I panic. I have nightmares about him, or that he's found me and called me. Which leaves to me texting G in the middle of the night to calm me down. But that's another post for another day.