Fixing Her

Part XIII

"My love, leave yourself behind. Beat inside me, I'll be with you..." Sia - My love

Part XIII

Johanna

It really was true. Time did heal all wounds. Though it's never really certain how much time is needed to completely heal, one thing remained absolute, and that is in time it does get better.

I hated what I had to do. I hated that I had to leave Damian. I realised the day I left, if I didn't go, I was not only going to lose myself, but I was going to lose him too. It was probably one of the hardest choices I ever had to make in my entire life, but if I wanted to get better from all the mess Jim caused inside of me, I knew I needed to do it all on my own. And I'm glad to say that I did it. I mean, you can never fully heal from such a deep cut but I did get better. 

It has been over a year since I had last spoken to Damian and it has been both good and bad without him. I had missed him sorely. I missed how everything fell into place whenever I was with him. I missed his rare smiles and unprecedented charms. But above all, I missed his love. Though he had never proclaimed it to me, I had no doubt in my  mind and heart that he loved me, I could only hope he still felt the same way...

Having enrolled in a treatment facility for...people like me, eight hours drive out of town and out of Damian's reach, I was able to make sense of what little sense there was to what Jim did to me. 

It was not about how much it hurt and how long I had allowed it to break me apart without fighting, because I thought it was a battle I could never win, but it became evident as time went by, Jim never loved me and that evidence alone brought out the fighter in me and I was able to battle it all out. 

I think for all the years that it had gone on-  the molesting, I felt like I couldn't do anything about it. That it was my fault because I agreed to live with him when mom died. I didn't want to deal with it because all along it was my fault and Jim had a way of constantly reminding me of that until I believed it. It was not my fault that there was no towel in the bathroom, or that his girlfriend left him or that he had a tough day at the office. But he made it seem like it was and as a child I believed him. 

It was difficult to relive those moments when he would screw up his relationships and months later, I knew he would be blaming it on me. 'If you weren't around, Kristin would have never left' or 'You drove Molly away because she doesn't like kids'. It was all my fault in his mind. I hated myself for so long for letting him make me believe his lies. I couldn't even allow Damian to touch me because I felt disgusting and shameful. 

Those last six months with him were the hardest. I hated seeing him worry about me, letting life pass him by, sacrificing his work for me. I could not live with myself knowing that I may never make him happy. 

Oh there were good times when he would try to cheer me up but even in those moments, I was never really present. There were funny moments too, when I would be naked with him around and I could see just how much he wanted to get intimate. I just couldn't. How could I when I felt so dirty and hateful toward myself? 

I wanted to end it. To put it all to rest and never recall any of it. Perhaps there was some sort of a permanent escape I could take. Overdose on pills, cut my wrist and bleed to death or just hang myself?

 I would be lying if I said I didn't think about it and perhaps that's a good thing, but looking back, I have now accepted that I was just a child and it was Jim's responsibility to shield me from such malice. It was his failure, not mine. I did not fail to fight for myself and even though it sucked to be where I am, it was okay because the future had never looked this wonderful.