You Don't Know It's Not Love:

I've done things the most idiotic of fools wouldn't do. For being such a smart girl, you'd never guess what a moron I can be. I have stuck through ridiculous treatment and been told I am so many things that I'm not so often that I believe it. Being with a man that mentally abuses is worse than being with one that does so physically. Some people mistake this intensity for love. I have fallen into that trap of self-betrayal.

Why stick with a man that does that you when you know you're above it? I have the answer to that question. You may know that you're better than all the things they say, but what happens is you begin to question your worth. In a mentally abusive relationship, if you're the abused, the first question that embeds itself in you're head is "Why am I being treated this way?" The questions that follow are all the variations of that ultimate unanswerable question. It morphs from that to, "What did I do?", "What did I say?", "Am I deserving of this treatment?", and finally " Why am I not being loved?" The problem is that the abuser will never be able to answer those questions and neither will you. Even if he eventually says "I DO love you" it just confuses you more. Once you hear that, it's like a slap in the face because if he does indeed love you, we go back to the first question "Then why am I being treated this way?"

Every day becomes a constant battle between what your mind knows, what your heart feels, and what the abuser says. You don't know it's not love because he will constantly assure you he does and occasionally show it, but he always lets you down. These pathetic men are like social leeches feeding off of everyone else's real emotions and acting out from their own wretched pasts.

Even as these thoughts formulate on paper, I still am being mistreated. I feel like I will never know freedom from the Hell this man has created for me. The girl I was five years ago is not even a shadow of the woman I have grown into today. Previous passions have been substituted for this constant want of love and understanding. AC has become my only outlet. It's not as easy as everyone thinks to break free from a self destructive relationship. With or without him in my life I wonder why I'm not loved the way other women are loved, even when I haven't given another man a chance. I feel unworthy of true intimate love, but I know I'm not the only one. Society today has made eligible men so damned decrepit. On radio stations I hear nothing but music about cheating, having sex, and not caring about what women are really all about. On these days, I drown myself in Sinatra and Alicia Keys to remind myself that some people still feel. Am I so wrong for wanting to be cared for? Does anyone love as fully as I do? The hope I still have disturbs me even more. I sleep on a cold bed with a man I can barely stand, wondering still why I am not good enough for his love.