Dear sensitive otaku, reader, supporter,

Welcome to the unraveling. This is where just as i call it, i unravel before you. these letters, one of many, are my thoughts, reflections as i write, create and make sense of the contradictions, the pull and push, and ultimately, the space of stillness. very rarely do we get a moment to pause, breathe, take inventory of ourselves--our inner clock and rhythm. Or even the space to space out. to float and not be rooted for a while.

I had my last therapy session this past week. Though it is not a final goodbye, there was something different about this session. Maybe it was the night before, listening to Faouzia's "UNETHICAL" intently. The lyrics so vivid descriptive and explicit on what it feels like being in a harmful relationship. How I wished this song existed when I was 19. I had no words for the trauma bond relationship I was in--the undoing, the breaking, the splitting open--the gleeful delight he felt at breaking me, taking me down a peg. Eroding my sense of self, desire, pleasure, any rootedness in reality.

The song has been on repeat. Am I masochist? Not necessarily. I'm someone who's endured decades of trauma and violence, where I've come to a point where the reason for cruelty doesn't provide closure--for me, it sent my brain a signal of danger. Red level. It brought my body back to the experience of being with someone cruel. Where tears, pleads to let me go were unheard. Where attempts to leave restarted the cycle: it was a misunderstanding. I miss you. We don't have to do anything you don't want to. I just want to see you.

"Have I not given you enough?" I think 11 years is enough.

When I see people make content or even shows on "moving past trauma"--violence, torture, manipulation and everything that encompasses harm, it's not that simple. The understanding around trauma in mainstream barely scratches the surface: it is why you have life coaches and therapists with violent pasts servicing the most vulnerable for 125-500 an hour. It's why care has been outsourced from community infrastructure to individual responsibility--it's why it's entrenched in the politics of deservingness.

I know he doesn't care. I know he can stand to watch. The brokenness of my spirit, the bruises of my heart, the tears i've cried--none of it mattered. For me, he had no heart. No care. Did he hate me? He'll say no. Maybe you don't need hate when you're a cruel person.

I got a sorry. it didn't matter. it was in the same breath where the gaslighting of violence was met with if he meant it, i'd been in the hospital. does that sound like someone who's sorry? someone with regret?

"I thought you'd feel a little shame." He felt none. It didn't matter.

The scars are on my body, my spirit, my heart, my mind. There's nothing to reconcile other than when there was space, i took the space to escape. cold turkey. physical space, time space. cold turkey. my mind 10 years later, is still trying to make sense of it all--with trauma dreams.

To have a space in therapy where you can revisit themes and it's not looked at regression but more as the common way of processing and releasing--mourning my young selves. how i wish i never met him. i wish i never loved him. if i was manipulated from the beginning, is it love? did she ever have a chance? she accomplished a lot during that time--but at what cost?

as i enter a new decade of my life that i never thought i would see, there's no time limit on grieving for the teens and 20s me. i'm present with the love in my life now, and simultaneously, dig into the sadness within me. if that means revisiting it in therapy, playing a sad song on repeat, or choosing sadness by watching a sad as fuck anime, then that's what i'll do.

because i'll never not cry for her. every iteration of her. for she deserves tears for all the brokenness she suffered.

Take the space--physical, time, mental, rhythms within--to tap into what is needed for every iteration of you.