Violent Fantasies
It’s been almost nine months since I publicly released a journal.
In that time, I lost my domain; the address of my website. If you clicked on the link below my Instagram bio looking for my writings, you would have been redirected to a landing page with two sites embedded: one where you could purchase a domain of your own, and one to view feet pics.
I wish this journal could be lighthearted. Delving into stories like the times I sold pictures of my freshly pedicured feet to strangers on the internet, or how a man once paid me a weekly allowance of $150 to $300 to see what my stomach looked like after each meal. But the timing isn’t right.
I became afraid of indulging in what others described as ruminating. That the stories were too personal to share and should be kept private. That my work would be interpreted as trauma porn. But that goes against the heart of why I created this. It was always a way for me to connect with myself, no matter how analytical or emotional it may be perceived. To process uncomfortable events. To work through them and release what isn’t mine to carry anymore. I will not allow the opinions of others to adulterate that.
Sometime in January...
I’ve completed both my Pilates and yoga routines. Incense smoke is filling the house and escaping through the windows. My coffee machine is running while I shower and once I jump out, I’ll moisturise my entire body from head to toe.
Less than 12 hours ago I was mentally mapping out a plan that would have left me bruised and bloodied. Over the past few days, I’ve been experiencing stress-induced cramps. Last night, it progressed into the sensation of a fist reaching inside my body and pushing up against the bottom of my right rib cage. A solid mass that seemed to grow with each breath. Lying flat on my stomach seemed to be the only position that lessened the pain.
My anxious state makes me emotional; like there’s something wrong with me. The reality of my body ‘malfunctioning’ is a reminder that I will always be incomplete. It’s a feeling that consumes any light from within. It weighs so heavily that I feel nothing will ever get better. The ability to control the way my body responds to stimuli is something I feel should be within my grasp, but it’s driven further from me, every time I reach for it.
At this stage, it's beyond the help of the grounding technique:
Five things I can see, four things I can feel, three sounds I can hear, two things I can touch, and one thing I can taste.
My last resort is my prescription. I have an inhaler that delivers a metered dose of THC vapour into my lungs. It’s effective but takes a few minutes for the therapeutics to kick in.
The package deal of fragility and physical discomfort subside. At bay now, I know it lies in wait for the next episode. A moment that would revisit me later that evening, shy of thirty minutes into a screening of a movie my boyfriend had taken me to. This time I didn’t have the aid of my inhaler to break my fall.
I had whispered a comment to him, leaning over to relay an observation I had made about a character. No reply or acknowledgement, a lack of response I assumed meant he didn’t hear me. I whispered to him again, repeating myself word for word. His response was a thumb’s up and a glance that translated annoyance. I quickly shot my attention back to the screen and decided to not speak another word for the remainder of the session. To keep any thoughts or insights to myself.
In other interactions, I’ve felt that I should adopt this method of silence with anything that rustles within the walls of my mind. Dismissal fills me with a sense of insignificance, A neglect for the thoughts I have to say, keeps me quiet.
Early in the relationship, he told me he couldn’t wait to learn everything about me. Somewhere along the line that changed. Now, when I share something I’ve found interesting, the reaction I can expect is a nod or a comment that brushes me off, as if to say I’ve wasted my energy in opening my mouth.
At times I feel he takes pleasure in my misery. He prods at me with verbal inconsistencies. I ignore and ignore until I can’t anymore. I over-intellectualise my response, carefully structuring my arguments to point out patterns of behaviours. I’m met with someone who is surprised that their lawn is dead despite them never having watered it.
Death by a thousand cuts was a form of torture and execution implemented in China from the tenth to the twentieth century. Depending on the executioner's preference, a sharp blade would be used to slice the victim’s skin or to remove portions of the subject’s flesh. Starting at the limbs and progressing towards vital areas like the abdomen, chest and neck. Each cut was methodically performed with the goal of inflicting pain. With every incision, there would be blood loss, prolonging the victim’s suffering as much as possible, before the body would succumb to death.
Today, “death by a thousand cuts” is used as an idiom. A way to describe small or seemingly insignificant issues that gradually build and, in the accumulation, lead to significant harm. Each betrayal, emotional wound, and hurt can be likened to a cut; inflicted through criticism, belittling, broken promises, passive-aggression, dishonesty, infidelity, lack of support, disrespect, unresolved conflicts, or taking a partner for granted.
My fears have changed shape over the years, but I realise now it has always sprung from the same root. I used to tell myself that what I feared most was becoming the woman I once saw in a video. An elderly couple sat across from each other at a café. The husband’s back faced the camera, with his phone in hand and screen activity in plain view. He scrolled Instagram with his feed filled with attractive women, young enough to be his granddaughters. He proceeded to like every single picture he swiped past, while his wife unknowingly sat opposite.
To fall in love with a man who lusts over women is a mistake I wish not to repeat. A deep-seated fear stemming from childhood. Secrets uncovered by my brother and I that shattered the idealistic image our parents projected. I was young when I found my father’s porn stash, though ‘extensive collection’ may be a more accurate categorisation. It was a finding that left me confused. Too young to fully understand the purpose of the material but aware enough for a thought to imprint—my father had a thirst that could not be satiated by just one woman.
He wrote my mother love letters, filled with sentiments of devotion. Words I believed to be true. I’d read any I could get my idle hands on. In a quest to read one that was out of reach, I encountered a different kind of realisation. One that was not divine in nature or delivered through an external source, but the kind that is experienced first-hand.
My family doesn’t believe in wall brackets—the kind that secure heavy furniture to prevent tipping. I learned this the day I tried to climb a bookshelf to gain access to one of my father's letters. The entire unit came crashing down on top of me, leaving the room in a state that resembled crime scene photos of a ransacked property. I escaped uninjured, put the contents of the shelves back in order as best I could remember, then I read the letter—it would be the last one I ever found.
My brother made discoveries of his own. Upon getting ahold of my father’s camcorder he saw footage of the man that had cut our umbilical cords, engaged in extramarital acts; intimate events with women that were not our mother.
The fear of ending up with someone like my father was eventually replaced by a different one—of ending up with a man who simply doesn’t like me. A reality far too common. Reflected in the rudimentary humour of comics who peddle “I hate my wife” jokes. The same breed of men who find comfort in other women, while blaming their partner for their unhappiness but refuse to leave.
Every interaction that is met with disinterest or comments of an antagonist, is confirmation that my fears will become my reality. Sat next to a man who professes words of adoration while acting in ways that makes my body instinctively recoil. My eyes are glued to the screen but there is a complete disconnect with taking in any visual information. Instead, I start to picture what I want my next steps to be.
My boyfriend drove us to the cinema. I would have to uber home. I also didn’t have my house keys with me. My mind works quickly to fill the gap in my plans. I’d have to break a window and enter through it. I visualise with ease, scenes of climbing through the window next to my front door. Dragging my body over the broken glass fragments that point up at the base of the frame.
I’m weak. Easily thrown off balance. Destabilised when events unfold that are contradictory to the words I’m sold. My expectations of all the ways I was promised to be cherished are shattered when reality rears its ugly head.
The circumstance of my partner ignoring my commentary is trivial compared to past experiences, yet it awakens the same feelings. The last time I felt this detached from myself was when I was being fed Clonazepam; a Benzodiazepine sedative. But I wasn’t being administered a drug that influenced my mind and body state. I was experiencing episodes of dissociation so frequently that it felt like I was a back-seat driver in my own life.
Sometimes I felt like he saw me as someone that existed purely for his entertainment. To interact with the same way a small child plays with an animal. Careless in the way they overextend limbs. Treating the animal as if it were an inanimate object. Posing them in a prop like manner, unaware or simply just unconcerned for the discomfort it may cause.
In writing the first few paragraphs, I was so absent from body that I didn’t realise there was a bunched-up pair of underwear stuffed down the leg of my pants. It had been pressing up against the side of my knee, unnoticed for five hours. It must have gotten trapped when I put it through the washing machine. It would have taken me longer to acknowledge had there not been moment of confusion when I looked down from my desk to see a lump of fabric bulging from my leg.
This detachment shows up in other ways, when emotions run high. When anger overcomes my brain, I am reminded of the blood that runs through me. My mother who once intimidated my dad, tapping the blade of a knife against the wood of his locked study door, to create a knock-knock rhythm. My dad, a man whose reactivity incentivised him to commit actions that ultimately cost him the custody of his children.
There are moments where I’ve seen the actions of my parents in my reflection, but I can recognise those patterns. Though I have inherited their traits, I’ve equipped myself with the tools to regulate what they couldn’t.
Still, the bad thoughts posing as good present themselves. The ones that climb up my spine and whisper to my body, trying to persuade.
In this relationship I have faced one of the worst versions of myself.
Four months in, a woman who was once involved with my boyfriend sent him an explicit message. A message I found on my own accord. Reading her words put a pit in my stomach. My thoughts turned to violence. I imagined grabbing this woman by the back of her head, cracking her orbital by putting my knee through her face. Beating her to the ground and stomping on her chest until my shoes were splattered with blood. I could hear the popping and crunching of her ribs underneath the heel of my foot, as the twelve paired bones broke away from the thoracic cage and penetrated her lungs.
Vocalising the way her advances made me fantasise about physical harm, excited him. He encouraged it. Uttered the sentiment that he would love to see me get into a fight with her, to witness me strike her upside the face. This expression of jealousy was flattery to him. But I don’t resort to violence. I’ve been punched square in the face before, and my body would not allow me to retaliate.
He assured me that this was something I’d never have to worry about again. But he’d made promises before —ones not kept in good faith.
He told me he hated how things like this upset me, yet continued to expose me to them through new disturbances or information coming to light. My anger was directed to third parties, whom my mind was primed to see as threats. But even after interactions with people he painted out to be the devil, he kept the door open to them through friendly conversation, reframing it as him simply being “civil”.
The threats to our relationship were never other people.
It was always him.