The Unlocked Door: Curing Myself of You
I opened my eyes to a kiss and hushed I love you, and reciprocated the words as I laid in a silent panic. He left for work and my heart sank — today is the day, my last day, and no one knows it.
I looked around our room and took a few deep breaths, then shot out of bed and ordered my dissociated body to begin packing things into boxes and bags.
The exact location of each item had been seared into my memory through the weeks following up to that moment. I played it all out in my mind many times; there was no room for error, no time to think about what I was doing.
I methodically moved about the house, to and from my car, trekking through powdery snow over and over, seemingly no ability to feel the frigid winter air pierce my skin at all.
What if he forgot something and comes back? Or if a friend drives by and sees me? A surge of worries quickened my pace until every last possession was squeezed into my tiny Elantra.
Inside the house I placed my note on the table…
Hi Dandy*, this is my “break up” because it’s really easier this way. It makes no sense to draw it out and let you try to convince me otherwise again, I know what I need. Although I’m sure it’s very confusing and shocking to you right now, you know why this has happened. By the time you get this, you’ve been blocked on everything, along with your family and friends…Please don’t try to contact me, I won’t respond…
I stared down at the words in disbelief as I read the rest and played out his arrival in my mind — he’ll come home and I’ll be gone, poof, just like that. Shit. My dissociative state was beginning to wear off; the dining room spun, my hands trembled, heart pounded at my chest. It was time to leave.
Before racing to the car I did one more sweep to remove any trace of myself and ensure nothing was missed, then closed the door, hopped in my car, and drove away.
I reentered my numbed state, only focusing on the road until I was officially out of Minneapolis. As distance grew between me and the city I once called home, emotions shot out of me in spurts of cackling, bawling, yelling — bouncing from feelings of freedom and relief, total insanity and uncertainty, to complete detachment from my feelings altogether.
A little over an hour into the drive, snow and ice began to pile on the interstate and a few terrifying slides sent me on exit 32: Hope, through the back roads of Minnesota and Iowa, which weren’t much better.
The unfortunate weather blessedly forced me to focus intensely on the road, keeping my mind off the situation, but it also made me fear that I’d wreck and die, unable to return home, like it was a bad omen for making the decision to finally leave.
The trip to Nebraska was a blur — music, snow, singing, ice, screaming, slush, laughing, crying, nothing. Forty-five minutes from home, my phone rang and the world stopped, my head buzzed.
I’d blocked his number, but not his brother’s, and my terrible call-block somehow allowed voicemails to still go through. Please don’t try to contact me. Of course he wouldn’t listen, and I knew it would be smarter to immediately delete the message, but curiosity got the best of me.
My body rattled with rage as I listened to his tearful voice message and roared back at him, “Don’t fucking contact me, you fuck! You don’t listen, did you ever fucking listen? FUUUCK!”
Focus, calm down — it’s okay, focus. Almost there. Almost home…
Driving away, looking forward to an uncertain future — December 29, 2017
I pulled into my friend’s apartment complex that night feeling exhausted and defeated from the icy drive. After helping me unpack most of my car she returned to work, so I sat in my new living space wondering what the hell to do next.
No one back home knew I was coming except for her. I’d kept a secret Facebook account to correspond with her and only used it on my computer at work, on the chance that my laptop’s browsing history was being watched or that it was key-logged.
The only other people who knew I’d be leaving were my supervisor, a coworker with mutual ties, the landlord, and one Minnesota friend who I knew wouldn’t say a word. Everyone else was a liability.
I wished I had more people who were honest with me about Dandy and their uneasy feelings about him, or more people who I felt I could lean on and ask for help in that time of need. Would I have left sooner? Unfortunately my circle outside of him was very small and limited, both by his doing and my own.
The last thing I wanted to do was reach out to friends or family members and tell them I was back home. How would I even explain my reasons for coming back? He broke up with me? I thought anything beyond that would have been met with a cold shoulder.
I left Minnesota once before — rather, I left him before — to travel and be a nomad. At least then I could skip the gory details and give the simple reason that I was saving money to explore the world. But leaving the second time was different: he was the only reason.
I felt isolated and alone, in a place I really didn’t want to be, soon to be surrounded by people who couldn’t possibly understand what I’d been through, and I doubted they’d even want to try.
When I left the first time around and arrived at my childhood home, my dad immediately stonewalled me, assuming because he wondered how I could be so selfish and leave such a winner to foolishly travel alone. My mom acted as if she supported my desire to leave and travel, but subtly shamed me for coming back.
If only they and everyone else knew the full story. Rather, they were fooled by Dandy’s innocent charms and seemingly adored him, which made leaving and having an explanation all the more difficult.
It was impossible to coherently make sense of what happened, as my memories of him were coated in intense feelings and emotions; I had few words to describe my actual experiences, so how would I have even explained to let anyone know what went on?
I let it be, tucked everything away into the depths of my being, allowing others to simply wonder what occurred during my time with him and incorrectly fill in the blanks.
I wish I could tell you that people are always as they appear on the outside, but that is far from the truth. What happens behind closed doors is almost always a mystery; one that is rarely revealed and solved. And some are solved only after it’s too late and the damage is irreversible.
Luckily an escape happened first; I was able to step beyond the threshold and close his door behind me before more damage was done.
Unfortunately the key to lock that door was forgotten, when I abruptly ran away out of fear.
And still that time in my life has remained a mystery to outsiders, sometimes to myself even. Like one gigantic puzzle of blurry, grotesque colors that seemed unsolvable, but has gradually been pieced together to reveal small, abstract portions of an overall disturbing picture.
A few pieces still remain scrambled and unplaced, but enough have been solved to finally have a story to tell…
View of Minneapolis from the Stone Arch Bridge — December 18, 2021
I’m sitting in Minneapolis for the first time in almost four years, writing in my old favorite coffee shop – one of the few places I mostly went without you. This is where I spent my time journaling my many confusions, frustrations and bitter feelings about you; about us.
It’s where I spent my time secretly reading about lie detection and listening to podcasts and videos about narcissistic abuse; where I learned to make enough sense out of how you treated me, then made the final decision to run from your twisted mind games.
So why have I returned just to walk the streets of our old neighborhood and visit some of our old spots? What better place to tell this story than the place it all happened? And why say these things now, after almost four years? I lived in fear of any potential repercussions for revealing the truth about you.
The truth isn’t always pretty, is it Dandy…especially to those who would rather live under a heavy cloak of denial.
Your thick blanket of lies must be quite cozy, but I wouldn’t know what that feels like. I’m the one who has had to face reality and the psychological aftermath of our relationship, and my guess is you went about your life acting like you were the shocked victim, while simultaneously seeking the next gal (or guy) to take this out on.
Unveiling our past means that the five years of your psychological abuse will no longer remain inside of me as a dark and torturous secret that still owns me from time to time. It means that I’ll fully break free from the loose grasp you’ve kept on my mind.
When I stepped out the door of our duplex and closed it, I thought we were officially done — that by simply leaving I’d be cured of your cancer. It didn’t occur to me that I’d carry all your insidious symptoms with me for years, going in and out of remission, the key to finding the final cure stuck somewhere in the distant future.
When you went against my request to not contact me (again) by messaging my blog page, you went on about how you wanted closure and said that you needed an actual goodbye someday or you’d endlessly wonder what you did wrong.
You told me you loved me and missed me, that it hurt so bad, that my letter was cold and you had no idea why it happened.
Well, Dandy, if you still need to know what happened, if you still need your goodbye, here it is.
And by the way, it isn’t for you. It’s for me.
Continue the story…
Dear Dandy: Locking the Door Behind Me
*Name has been changed
