I came across a song I had long ago forgotten. Its called Face Down by The Red Jumpsuit Apparatus. While I love the song, its a harsh reminder of where I came from. As a teenager I dated a couple of abusive men. The longest (and possibly worst) of those relationships was with Mike. We were together three years. I thought I loved Mike until we were three months into our relationship. That was when he raped me the first time. I remember telling him to stop, that his eyes were unfamiliar, that I was afraid of the stranger in his eyes, and the room was dimly lit by the glow of the fish tank.
After a while I wouldn't look at him or respond. He had me pinned down, thrusting into my dry vagina while telling me he knew I wanted it as bad as he did. He sounded so much like a bad movie that it might have been funny in other circumstances. Since I couldn't get away, I checked out of my body. It was like swimming as I reached for a beautiful meadow. The grass and trees were a pale yellow green and the flowers were surprisingly vivid. When he had finished and realized that I was unresponsive to him, I came rushing back into my mind. Almost as if I was thrown back. He asked what was wrong and I told him to leave me alone, to not even talk to me. I can remember walking past his parents as I headed to the porch to smoke. That night I went through half a pack of cigarettes in five minutes. With every puff I blocked out the memory, telling myself that he would never do something like that; that he loves me and would never hurt me. Later on I slept by his side with my back to the wall.
My time with Mike was painful in ways I wasn't ready to face. Behind the bedroom door he would beat me until I cried. Sometimes it was with his hands, at others he would use a hair brush or a leather dog leash. My friend Meghan lived in the basement with her boyfriend and  would listen to the crack of the leash and the sound of my weeping. Every once in a while we would talk about it but it didn't hurt bad enough for me to walk away. During that time I kept myself heavly drugged with pot. Half an ounce a day wasn't unusual. I hated it when he touched me, when he talked. Hell, I outright hated him. By the end of out first year, I started planning how to kill him. Thankfully, I kept myself so high that I didn't have the energy to go through with it. Didn't stop me from writing something close to a novels worth of murder plots.
Its taken many years for me to look past his abuse and see my own. The harsh reality is I fed the cycle of hate between us. I allowed it to be okay that I publicly humiliated him on a daily basis. I reasoned that if he could hit and rape me then I could tell everyone he was a lousy lay, treat him like a child, hit and belittle him in front of his friends. Instead of walking away, calling the cops, filing a restraining order... I chose to stay and attempt to publicly rip him apart. By the end of our hellish three years we were abusing each other and calling it love.