When I start a session with a new therapist,
Or when I get serious with someone new,
Or when I drink too much,
Or, or, or,
I tend to start here:
I was in a bad relationship.
Because I was in a bad relationship.
I was 18, and it was with my college professor.
I was emotionally abused, manipulated, gaslit.
I was taken advantage of by a person in power.
Even when I started this project, I started it with this:
In my Sophomore year of college, I walked into a relationship that deconstructed my sense of self and burdened some of the most formative years of my life. At the time, I didn’t have the language or the emotional maturity to ask for help, or to look for ways out. Instead, I just recalibrated my expectations and buckled myself in.
Every start, every new possibility, is anchored by it. By something that happened to me when I was 18.
So I start with that. With: “I was in a bad relationship.” And then I explain what I think that means or why I think it matters to the situation I’m in:
That’s why I don’t trust anyone.
That’s why I’m almost 30 and single.
That’s why I lost friends.
That’s why I cheated.
That’s why I’m crazy.
That’s why I get jealous.
That’s why I have attachment issues.
That’s why I feel like everyone is going to leave me.
That’s why I stay in relationships that are unhealthy.
That’s why I’m unhealthy.
That’s why, that’s why, that’s why, that’s why.
When I read it back, I think of a phrase my Dad used all the time when I was growing up:
“Excuses are for losers.”
When I sit down to write about this I have no fucking idea where to start. I should empathize with all of you, you who haven’t sent your books back yet, who send them back empty, who say “I just can’t” or “I don’t know how.”
When I sit down to write about this, I can only think one thing, because the feelings and the real guts of it have dissolved over time:
I was in a bad relationship.
I’ve used it and pathologized it so much it has lost its meaning, and I have lost my capacity to understand it. To feel what it felt like to be in it. I know it was bad. I know I lost big giant chunks of myself. I know I spent years angry, sad, hurt, uncomfortable, scared, depressed, anxious, lost, confused. I know that every minute and every emotion was heightened beyond reason. I know there were times when I wanted to hurt the person I was with and times when I wanted to hurt myself. I know there were times I was incapacitated by what was happening to me. I know it is the reason I started taking antidepressants.
I know it was bad. I know it was a bad relationship.
So when did the details get so hazy? I try to summon the feelings but they only come in glimpses and they are not attached to any real emotion. They are rational and they are void of everything I know I felt.
So here are the bits that stick out:
I remember that I was 18. I was a Sophomore in college, but I was young for my grade. I was living on Broome Street and it was the Fall of 2011. I was taking an introductory writing class. I don’t even remember what it was called. My professor was an MFA student in NYU’s graduate creative writing program. His name is Matthew. He goes by “Eugene Harrogate'' on social media. I can’t remember why. The point is that he doesn’t deserve anonymity.
I remember I had a crush on some guy in my class, and that’s what I paid most attention to. That and the work. I fucking loved creative writing. I still do. It was actually one of the few things that pulled me out of the general malaise of being 18. The class excited and invigorated me and I was proud of what I created within it. Matthew read my work aloud to the class. He said he loved it, that he’d never read anything like it.
I remember that I didn’t think much of Matthew other than that he was nice and he was funny and that he’d probably be a really fun person to hang out with. I never thought about his level of attractiveness or anything even remotely in that territory, because he was my professor. There was an inherent distance between us. I didn’t know how old he was, what he did in his free time, who he dated or what his hobbies were, where he was from or what his parents were like, if he had siblings or pets, what neighborhood he lived in, how he commuted to class. Because I didn’t care.
For our final project, we didn’t have to write anything. We just had to read a book and go to the writer’s house and talk to him about it. I read Sula. I cheated because it was supposed to be a book we’d never read but I’d read it like 300 times. But I was busy and I didn’t have time to read a new book. I don’t remember what we talked about but I remember him asking me if I was Jewish. I said no because I was afraid I was going to get quizzed on the history of Judaism or something and I panicked. I am totally Jewish.
The following summer, Matthew emailed me. He said he’d read a book of poems that reminded him of me and my writing. I still didn’t think much of it. I was living on Long Island, home for the summer between semesters, and if I know myself, I was probably still pining over some guy from high school.
But then, in a subsequent email, he said something along the lines of: If you’re ever in the city, shoot me a text. He wanted to meet up. He made up some reason why.
It changed absolutely everything.
I did text him the next time I was in the city, but he was busy. We started to text. He commented on my Instagram photo “You’re beautiful!” and I felt dizzy and confused. Instagram was a new thing.
I used to remember every detail of our first date, but I can’t anymore. It was hot. I had just finished a shift at Baked By Melissa and I was wearing a gray tank top that was tight and revealing.
I think we walked around the city. I was too young to get into a bar. I think we laid in the grass in Washington Square Park. Maybe we did sneak into a bar called Treehouse in the Village, where all of the MFA students hung out. Maybe that was the second date. I got a bad feeling and a good one. A feeling like “I shouldn’t do this” but also “I really want to.” I remember I texted my best friend, “I’m in trouble. This guy is no good.” He asked me to come back to his apartment, where he didn’t have a bed, but a yoga mat. He said he had a roommate. It was his girlfriend.
We stayed together for many years. We were not actually really “together” for all of them, and when we were, he was cheating on me. There were always girls. A college girl he met on Instagram. She was 17, and by this point he was nearing 30. A girl who lived in California who I think was maybe also his girlfriend somehow. Another 17 year old in Kentucky whose vagina I had the privilege of seeing in his Facebook messages. A transgender woman from OKCupid. A tattooed woman he’d met in New Orleans. A coworker. Looking back, I think some of his male friends were in the mix, too. Which is all good and fine, when you’re not cheating. There was a male bartender at his local bar in Fort Greene that stands out in my mind, because there is a polaroid of them kissing somewhere on the internet. He once told me, “I am gay, but it would just make my life too hard.”
He was addicted to adderall, and would stay up all night doing bizarre things like researching small and insignificant pieces of history or cropping the borders off of photos of art he’d found on the internet. We’d go to the diner around the corner every morning, him still awake from the night before. He’d pop out every few minutes to smoke. He was a chainsmoker, which he said wasn’t a problem because he “could quit any time.”
I’m not going to dignify the burning question of why I stayed, because if you’ve ever been in an abusive relationship, you already know. If you don’t, I hope you never find out.
There were good times. I loved him. He lit up my mind. He read to me, we watched movies, we stayed in bed all day, we ate bad food, we drank whiskey and pickle backs until we threw up, then we drank more. He was funny. He made me laugh so hard I would cry. The attraction was palpable. I thought about him all the time. He thought I was beautiful. I did not think I was beautiful. He loved my nose. I did not.
When he shined a light on you it was transcendent, but he made sure the light only came in glimpses and that when you didn’t have it you’d spend the rest of your time chasing it. He made sure you never felt secure or too loved or too comfortable with him. He made sure you knew you were one of many. He made sure you felt like you couldn’t leave, even when he left. He made sure you begged for it all back, that you always missed it.
He was a narcissist. I am an empath. There are dozens of articles you can read on this dynamic, but those two people always find each other and it is volatile and destructive and damaging to them both. He hated himself. It is sad. I felt bad for him, a lot of the time. I wanted to nurture him back to health. I wanted a purpose and a partner. We talked about moving in together, about getting married and having kids. He came to see me in Italy, where I was studying abroad. I was cheating on him and he found out and almost left in the middle of the night.
Every moment was like this. Up and down. Romantic and poetic. Toxic and gutting and shameful. I loved him but I can’t remember why. There are glimpses of his smile somewhere deep in my brain. In my dreams he laughs at me, and laughs and laughs, and I am humiliated.
I lied a lot about seeing him. Everyone knew it was bad. I said I was studying, that I was meeting up with other friends, that I was at the movies. I was tucked away in Fort Greene, crying in the bathroom after sex, unable to understand why I couldn’t get away from something that was so obviously bad for me. The shame buried me. My relationship with my mom became fractured. He said, “She doesn’t have to know everything.” They met for dinner once. She hated him but she tried to love him for me.
He asked my best friend on a date. To the movies to see Argo. She said she was strapped for money and he said he’d obviously cover it. He wanted to go to dinner too. She didn’t tell me until she was in my dorm room saying “I’m actually supposed to be meeting up with Matthew right now.” He didn’t understand why I was mad. He said it was supposed to be a surprise for me. He was going to take me out, and she was going to be there. But he’d never invited me.
He was such a fucking good liar. He stole money from the parents of the kid he babysat for. He could barely afford to eat and I bought him food, even though I was in college and he was a fucking adult with a full time job.
One time I asked him who his hall pass would be, like how my mom’s is Kid Rock. He said his ex-girlfriend Julia. He went to her wedding and said she looked sad. He read her first novel and said it was all about him. I read it too. It wasn’t.
When we called it quits for good I spent years hoping he’d change. But I saw on Instagram that he had a girlfriend and then saw him on a dating app the next day. I confronted him about it and he said they’d broken up. I ran into her at a Death Cab for Cutie concert and told her you are dating a bad person. She knew. We met up and drank whiskey and swapped stories, and they were all the same, he was still the same. She got away and I’m so proud she did. It felt like it was all worth it. I’d go through it all again knowing I could save her because of it.
The relationship upended everything I thought I knew about who I was. But “I was in a bad relationship” props up sorry excuses for unhealthy behaviors and there is no other option left but to change something. That was then and this is now and if I don’t let go of that fucking sentence and that fucking excuse it will eat me alive. I was in a bad relationship, I am not a bad relationship. I was 18. I didn’t know. I am far away and safe and better now and I understand what love is and if I don’t, I at least know a little better what it should look like and I know it isn’t that. I know it isn’t that. I know it isn’t that.
