That whole power dynamic thing was insane. For nearly 3 years my ex would throw me out, call me back, sit up in the bed and say, “I just don’t love you anymore.” I’d go stay at my mom’s, cry myself to sleep, get a random message a few weeks later, “We can work it out. Come home. No sex or anything, we’ll just watch tv shows and spend time together.” Oh, seems to be going alright, BAM, “I don’t love you anymore. Leave.”

I told her one time, “you’re going to make me leave, I’m going to randomly bump into a woman who is going through the same shit I am, we’ll bond, and I won’t come home when you ask me to. You keep playing these games, eventually you’ll lose.”

Well, I met someone else. She lost her fucking mind. Instantly, all of the power she had over me jumped into my hands like a bolt of lightning. I didn’t want it. I just wanted the chaos to end. I wanted to move on with my life and try to rebuild it.

She nearly drove me insane. She did everything she could to run my girlfriend off. She texted her mother, told her all this crazy shit. She texted her friends, said I was an abusive monster and she was just concerned. She told me she’d kill herself if I didn’t come right away in the middle of the night. I was afraid she’d do it, she had already pulled so much of her hair out that she was nearly bald. She seriously lost her shit. The look on her face when she held that power, I had never seen it on her before. She knew she had it, and she used every ounce of it on a whim to see me squirm I think. The second she lost it she was reduced to an infant.

Humans are insane. That time in my life taught me lessons I wish I hadn’t learned, but I am glad I did. I believe I would handle it all better if it ever happened again.