I wish I didn’t have a body
In my childhood and young adulthood, I had no control over who had access to my body. Then I met my now-husband and I thought I was saved from that. I’ve always felt so safe with him and once we started dating, I enjoyed my first multi-year period of safety. I think I thought that my relationship with him was protection somehow.
Then last year it happened again. And now for the past two-ish months I’ve found myself in a situation where I keep returning to someone who is being inappropriate with me. It’s difficult to explain, but suffice it to say I didn’t fully realize that what he does was wrong until it had happened 3 times. I did know I was uncomfortable but I kept returning because…idk, trauma reenactment or something. It makes sense when my therapist explains it. But now I sit there every couple of weeks with this man touching my breasts, wishing I were dead, counting tiles on the floor just like I counted links in a fence last year or slats in a shed roof as a little girl.
I want to crawl out of my skin. I wish I didn’t have a body. It’s never respected, it’s never given privacy, it’s been used against me over and over again. Clearly I’m doing a bad job managing it. I just wish I didn’t have a body.