Exorcism

He wanted to hit me.

I know he did.

Those intentions became clear as he stood over me, verbally berating me.

He poked and prodded, hoping to push me over the edge.

Presenting me with an invitation that he communicated to me telepathically:

Go on. Hit me.

He wanted me to physically react so that he could do the same, as a way to justify the violence.

Life was so different back then.

I was so different.

I still had all my baby fat hugging my face.

Now, as I sit here typing this, rubbing the tip of my pointer and index fingers into my sunken temples, I have what is referred to as temporal wasting.

The internet had a field day with this one. People put together side-by-sides of celebrities, comparing images of when they were twenty years old, to now in their thirties, forties, fifties and up. Theorising that this is another side-effect of Ozempic or an unfavourable by-product of another extreme cosmetic surgery. Ignoring that appearance of youth is naturally lost through aging. Netizens began ascertaining with the confidence of top cosmetic surgeons that these women that are unable to escape the public eye through their careers as actors, singers or entertainers, are victims of another Hollywood fad. People need more hobbies.

Major biological markers of aging like cellular damage and a decline in the production of collagen usually start around the age of twenty-six. The depletion of volume in my face started earlier. The atrophy of the fat pads have created a noticeable hollowed-out depression in my temples. On days where I’m sick, I resemble more closely that of a Tim Burton caricature than I do my former self. It’s as if I’ve been struck in the head on either side of my face by a golf ball flying 200 kilometres per hour. I’m exaggerating, I just wanted to see where that visualisation would take me.

Hyperbole aside, that’s exactly how my ex cosmetic nurse used to make me feel when assessing my facial symmetry, with remarks determined to shake a band or more from my pockets. I’ve had filler deposited in these concave areas twice, to level out the topography of my features, but that’s a venture I have since given up. Having been botched by my injector on multiple occasions, I’m taking an indefinite hiatus from all cosmetic procedures, including Botox, which I’ve been getting since the ripe age of twenty-one. Now, I can make faces in the expressions of my wrinkles, although whenever a comment I make goes against the grain, randoms, both men and women are quick to speculate that all the filler I’ve had has gone to my head… duh, that’s the whole point. I know they mean brain, but they don’t think to specify.

Some researchers believe Botox injections not only paralyse the muscles responsible for frowning, but also the ability to empathise based on facial feedback theories, in that emotional processing depends on a person’s ability to mimic emotion. Because the ability to understand another's situation or feelings is derived from mimicry? A reductionist mindset held by Patrick Bateman types, I’m sure.

Some researchers are profoundly dumb and have too much funding, pissing it away on theories they have been unable to prove or disprove. While there is something to be said for how changes in the feedback loops that process emotions may impact or alter the brain’s function and neurological processing, if Botox really did have as significant effect on my ability to feel for others, I think it would have saved me from most, if not all of the relationships that were detrimental to my health.

When reviewing some of the scientific journals that are open access and available to be viewed without the limitation of a paywall, it feels like research grants are given out like candy to the most ridiculous of causes. Do we really need another meta-analysis study on the effectiveness of St. John’s wort in patients with mild depression? A century has come and gone and the mechanisms in which paracetamol works as an analgesic still remains undetermined, and yet you can buy a packet of sixteen 500mg pills for four dollars.

Or how about the 2013 case-control study of the Attractiveness of women with rectovaginal endometriosis that felt more like an excuse to objectify patients and extract information on the sexual history of three-hundred women. An OB-GYN rated the attractiveness of his clients (without their informed consent) and judged women with endometriosis to be more attractive.

This was determined by their waist-to-hip ratio, breast-to-underbreast ratio and BMI, with a summary chart that included data on sexual history, grouping women into two categories; those who had coitarche (first sexual intercourse) before the age of eighteen, and those who had their first encounter after. The authors concluded that women with endometriosis had their first sexual encounters at a significantly lower age, hypothesising that “this finding could be explained by higher attractiveness and, hence, higher male sexual demand”. They are referring to the attractiveness of children by the way.

With more quotes like “the biological significance of beauty has generally been interpreted in terms of sexual selection” it feels more like a self-admission, rather than anything that could be seen as having any value in scientific literature.

These researchers (if you can even call them that) are probably the same seedy patrons at strip clubs who ask performers what age they lost their virginity, hoping to hear about teenaged sex.

So with that, I think we should be more worried about the empathy of men who misuse medical funding than that of the women who get a little Botox here and there.

But I’m not done on my coverage of that yet. Botox doesn’t carry the same risks as the dermal filler I was having injected into my temples. Just a little to the left or right and an injection into a major blood vessel could have caused a vascular occlusion, stopping blood flow which prevents oxygen from reaching tissues. This can lead to necrosis (tissue death), and permanent blindness. These complications are rare but I was wise enough to let go of my trust with my injector after receiving filler in my lips so superficially, that I now have a permanent nodule of blue that reflects in the light (Tyndall effect).

After having all my filler dissolved previously, I don’t care enough to subject myself to the pain of having a thick gel injected, that feels like a corrosive liquid is eating away at the flesh of my lips. The physical stimulation is so severe that it disrupts the derealisation I experience that allows me to float through most of the day forgetting I even have a body. The enzyme that’s injected to dissolve the filler is jammed into an area containing over a million nerve endings. In that moment I’m made aware of the composition of my body, and every individual one of the seven octillion atoms. Not even the lidocaine can lessen the blow of what feels like a Chernobyl scale catastrophe happening inside of me. I have a flair for the dramatic, but none of this description is in my experience overstated.

With every day that passes, I grow more comfortable with the concept of aging, and also dying alone. In fact I welcome both with open arms.

I resist the narrative “all men are the same” until I exhaust myself, reflecting on the similarities of the men I have caught cheating. The events mirror each other so closely that it becomes impossible to deny the pattern: They get caught, I confront them, they’re sorry, then all of a sudden it’s my fault, then they’re sorry again, then what follows is a number of empty promises that carry the same amount of weight and believability as the threats to end their own life.

My earliest encounter with this behaviour that’s as predictable as a movie trope, was when I still lived under a parent’s roof. That relationship was filled with moments that felt like they were written by Venus herself. A simple picnic in a dead forrest with a bog was given life the moment he pressed his lips to mine. Sheltered from the rain underneath an umbrella he held in one hand while he embraced me with the other. I can still hear the rain hitting the fabric and the sensation of the cold that clung to my bare legs when I close my eyes.

After it ended, he grovelled and got down on his knees at the base of a tree stump from which I was sat. Begging for me to take him back. Mustering up tears, which I knew were insincere. This little act only lasted a couple of minutes until his phone sang to the tune of a custom message notification. His phone lit up simultaneously, revealing the contact name of “Girl I met at” alongside the name of venue that I can’t place. This moment acted as the catalyst that changed him like alchemy, only it wasn’t transmuting him like an elemental state of lead to gold. In an instant his well of tears dried up and his demeanour towards me changed, as he began to revel in the details of this new romantic interest. It was like his brain was a radio and God had changed the station from one that was playing “(I Just) Died in Your Arms” to another that was halfway through “I Will Survive”.

All these years later and I still don’t understand why men think that mate competition makes them more desirable. While it may inflate their fragile sense of self that seems to be in constant need of feeding by the attention of women, all it does is deprive any flame I felt towards them of oxygen.

Their manipulation tactics become just as boring and repetitive, but turn a blind eye to one and you’ll find yourself swept out into a rip current, only it takes more than just swimming parallel to the shore to escape it.

The story I used as an introduction to this journal involves a man that I opened my home and bed to. He had an unconventional childhood, although, that’s been a common overarching theme with most of my ex partners. His early childhood is a particularly unique case due to his father's obsession with the occult. As a child he was a victim of spiritual psychosis, a defenceless subject of both physical and psychological abuse at the hands of his father, and a group he belonged to. Exorcisms were conducted on him due to beliefs that he was possessed. I don’t know the extent of these events but there is an alarming rise in child abuse cases linked to faith including Witchcraft. I mention this because his father claimed to have been a witch.

The most recent publicised case of a fatal exorcism in Western media was of a three-year-old that was found dead in a “church” on private property in California. Arely Doe died by the hands of her mother, uncle and grandfather who all assaulted her for twenty-hours until she eventually succumbed to internal bleeding and injuries caused by brute force.

I can’t begin to imagine the life-long implications of having a primary caregiver subject me to ritualistic abuse, but I do know what it’s like to face child endangerment due to the selfish nature of an addict, and be put in harm’s way on account of the irresponsible decisions made by unfit parents.

That’s where my empathy lies.

That’s how I connected to his unfortunate set of circumstances. A pattern I’ve come to understand to be my greatest detriment. Becoming so invested in understanding a partner’s pain that I excuse and learn to tolerate grossly inappropriate behaviour directed at me.

I could intellectualise until the end of time why someone is the way that they are. Much of my own development has wired me that way, in witnessing the cycle of familiar abuse, but still, that doesn’t warrant it.

Nevertheless, the man I fell in love with (or most likely lust) was callous and cold, but that’s not how he presented himself to be at first. They only drop the facade once they’ve sunk their teeth into you and have released enough venom to paralyse your logical brain.

If I squint while looking at “The Fallen Angel” by Alexandre Cabanel, I can almost see him. Beauty was a feature he was well endowed with, looking back it may be the only thing he didn’t lack. I used to think his treatment of me was punishment for being drawn to him out of my own shallow nature. Although, that theory is hollowed out when I compare other dating experiences and realise I’ve encountered almost identical events with men who pulled the short end of the stick when it comes to aesthetics.

One of my friends even joked that they only liked and approved of him as my partner, because they wanted him for themselves. I laughed about it with him then and I still do now (my friend, not the man who resembles the dreamy and most famous depiction of Lucifer).

The relationship ended as most of mine do. Death by a thousand paper cuts. Though, it’s visually closer to enduring emotional abuse and outbursts as if I were holding onto the relationship the way you would grasp for something after falling off a cliff’s edge. Grabbing for anything within your reach as your body hits and is torn up by the rocks, dirt and broken branches. Finally, stopping your descent into nothingness with a hand placement that feels like safety at first. Your hands firm around a rock that juts out from the side of the cliff. It’s surface is serrated like a knife but you still hold tight because your life depends on it.

Warm rivers of crimson begins to flow down your hands and into the pit of black below, but what alternative is there other than holding on? The adrenaline wears off and soon your body connects the pain of the wounds on your palms and fingers. Only letting go when your body is forced to, nearing unconsciousness from blood loss.

To me, that’s a much more appropriate description to use over the bureaucratic pun that was birthed from an archaic execution method.

In that relationship he projected his trauma onto me, and like a sponge, I absorbed it.

He resented that I enjoyed my own time and would attempt to sabotage me, wherever possible. Disguising care as control, he put me on a strict diet, where I was eating a surplus of calories to the point my body would try to reject it. Accompanying this was a workout routine curated off professional personal trainers’ own exercise regimens. Only he would add additional weight, sets and reps to mine, overloading me even in my first week of being at the gym.

He chose what I wore to the gym and in other areas of my life, buying me clothes and telling me it was an “investment”. He wanted to mould me into a fitness influencer and dictated what I was and wasn’t allowed to eat, a behaviour that naturally trickled into other areas of my life. In the beginning, he would praise me for “pushing myself”. Then, when I didn’t perform to a standard he deemed appropriate, he would make me feel guilty for it.

One day after the gym I complained to him about how badly my legs were hurting and he told me that he had once trained so hard that he needed to go to the hospital. When I expressed to him that level of physical exertion was unhealthy, he became frustrated with me, and began preaching that I should be pushing myself to that extent too. That I was “wrong” and “unmotivated”. We would have conversations like this frequently, and it only ever ended one way; with him storming off and giving me the silent treatment for however long until he desired my attention again.

I began doing things just to appease him. “You should do this” was a phrase I would hear at least three times a day, and it wasn’t a suggestion, it was an assignment. It got to the point where I wasn’t allowed to do anything until I had completed tasks that he had set for me. He would constantly complain about his job which was mostly spent stacking produce and at check-out. “I can’t wait until I don’t have to work” became a mantra formed on his belief that he could make me a cash-cow, the sole breadwinner and his own commodity to benefit from. I would address my concerns and the amount of pressure he placed on me but every time I did, he’d make it about himself. He’d claim he was hurt by me not wanting to listen to his “ideas”. No wasn’t an acceptable answer to him, and so he became more like a master than a partner.

Events started to take place in the house that I could not explain.

At this stage of the relationship I was mentally worn down. I had slipped into a depressive episode and was growing increasingly vulnerable. One evening when we were brushing our teeth, we heard footsteps running towards us, stopping at the entrance of the bathroom from which we stood. The house was secure and there were no other occupants capable of making a sound like that. It was an old house but structurally stable with no abnormalities to account for such an occurrence. I tried to tell myself it was the animals playing, but there is a big difference in the tread a small Chihuahua and Ragdol cat make, running across solid flooring in comparison to what sounded like a hulking man.

There would be loud banging noises inside the house that were unexplainable and it scared us both to the point we began barricading ourselves and the pets in the bedroom at night.

One night, I felt something watching me. It was a feeling I couldn’t shake. I was turned on my side, facing away from the man whom I shared a bed. I didn’t move, I didn’t speak, I just stared into the corner of the room where I felt my gaze was being pulled.

The next morning my partner told me about how he watched something observing me as I slept, unprompted. He described a tall being, towering over me with dark blue to black skin and red eyes. I told him I could feel it, but I’ve never experienced something like that before or since.

Despite the rituals he was subjected to in childhood and all the times his dad would abandon him to go score drugs, he fostered a close relationship with him in adulthood. This connection granted him access to a better paying job in a Fly-In-Fly-Out position. With no experience, prior training or other references, he began working away on a two weeks on, two weeks off roster. Before this he still had to attend the interview, but on the day of he was so sure his position was secured that he made a point of speaking on the tax bracket increase. I remember it so distinctly. We were in traffic, in my car and it was silent until he said “I think I’m a bad person”. I asked him what brought him to this conclusion and he said that he’ll be earning $91,000 annually, and that he feels he shouldn’t be sitting in traffic, as if this privilege made him exempt from the tiring factors that come with travelling on roads in built-up areas.

After he started his FIFO job, my life became significantly easier. Without him home I could finally take back the reigns to my own life. I started to enjoy my world more when he was away compared to when he was at home and he hated it. He even expressed that he wanted me to be miserable when he was gone. He couldn’t fathom how I could source an ounce of happiness in his absence.

Over FaceTime he would routinely bring up the night he saw that hulking figure watching me and ask if I felt safe without him home. But when he was gone, the banging noises, feelings of a malevolent presence and any anxiety I had, went with him. For all I know I could have been under so much psychological stress that I’d believe the sky was green if he told me so. Susceptible to his influence due to my weakened emotional state.

I started becoming suspicious that he was cheating on me. I couldn’t prove it, I never went through his phone, but when he would open social media chat logs in front of me, I would see other contacts above mine with all messages deleted. The reason he worked so hard to have a co-dependent relationship with me was because he didn’t have any friends. He had cast them all to the side before moving into mine. At his mother’s house, all the group photos he had printed and tacked to the walls of his bedroom had their faces scratched clean off, making them unrecognisable. This information wasn’t given up by him, it was something I was told in passing by one of his little sisters. So, with no friends and his grip on me loosening, it was other women he sought to connect with, and that was all I needed to finally let go of the serrated rock I was clutching.

I ended things with him and packed up all of his belongings while he was at work. I did so halfway through his stint so that he would have a week to process it, away from me. When he touched down at the airport his chain smoking grandma was there as his concierge, chaperoning him from the airport to mine. After he had moved all the bags that were waiting for him from inside the front door to the boot and backseats of his grandmother’s sedan, he reentered my home to talk about why things ended. I tried to have a conversation about all the ways I was unhappy and unfulfilled in the relationship which led to him berating me, name-calling, standing over me and trying to intimidate me. Then, at six-foot-something, he became the demon that was towering over me, antagonising me, trying to make me small and violent so that he could rightfully punish me.

Any paranormal experiences ceased at the point of his eviction. There were on occasion instances where I would dream that I was either in my front or back yard and when I would wake up, I’d walk out into a section of the house that would reveal either door wide open, depending on which part of the house I had dreamt about. I don’t have a history of sleep walking but I feel I can chalk it up to my nervous system being in recovery from insurmountable levels of stress, maybe forgetting to properly shut a door and subconsciously being aware of it enough to prompt such imagery in my dreams.