NOTE: I’m not just talking about romantic relationships here. I’m also talking about friendships in general.

I want to tell you what it is like to live in a cycle of abuse, moving from a child, to an adult.  How seamless the transition is.  I am experienced: One family, countless unhealthy friendships.  Like beads on a toxic chain.  Decade after decade.  Over and over and over. 

This is just one.  Just one of the toxic chain people. 

My friend.

Child abuse and unhealthy adult relationships.

From one to another.

My life.

This person is uncannily like your father.  This friendship is a hologram of your past.  It all blurs together.  Father-Friend.  Child You-Adult You.  The present abuser superimposed over the childhood abuser.  It is a seamless shift.  You don’t even notice.  You are 6, you are 16 and you are 36. 

You have moved from Father to Friend. 

Wait, Explosion, Kindness, Wait 

You are the waiter – waiting to serve them.  Whatever they order. 

This is a place you have been for a lifetime.  You know it well. 

Sunshine and roses?  You can barely see the sun, smell the roses because you are hyperalert.  You are watching, waiting for the explosion – when and in what form will it come? 

Not if. 

You try not to rock the boat with your friend, but you goaded your father because you couldn’t stand that waiting.  Living with someone is harder.  You wanted him to kill you.  You wanted out.  Dissociation made the pain brief. 

You don’t goad your friend because you need a friend, someone on your side and so you listen for that edge to the voice, and then you dissociate and wait. 

You don’t notice that your hands shake.

The world explodes 

Violent hands, cutting words.  Shrapnel.

Even the Child-You recognises that there is no reason.  It is random, unpredictable. 

It is convenience. 

They hurt you simply because you are there, conveniently curled up inside yourself. 

And you don’t fight back because you need them, and you don’t want to hurt them - you know what it feels like to be crushed. 

You are small, damaged and not to be trusted nor believed.  You feel smaller and smaller.  Child sized, Adult sized – flashing between the two.  They are right, you are wrong. 

You watch, listen, and you are astonished.  

They win anyone over in minutes, best buddies in an hour.  But they don’t hide their dislike of you even in public. 

Father-Friend.  Their words are so similar, and the tone is the same. 

It is easy, satisfying to smash something already cracked. 

You are easy to break.

Kindness

Gifts.  Loving words.  Random.  And you become cynical.  You realise that “darling” is seven letters chained together, and that gifts make you cry. 

You learn that princesses stay trapped in castles, adults are monsters, and that this story has no end. 

They drink and you drink with them, and they treat you so lovingly when you drink.  That 6, 16, 36-year-old, lovable only when you drink. 

Liquid love.  It stops the ache. 

The bruises on your body fade, the tears in your heart pulse.  

You wait, watch, listen. 

And you stay and stay and stay. 

Why don’t you just leave?  Just leave.  Leave.

There are layers of fear – an onion-peel hierarchy.  You are afraid of being unloved more than you are afraid of their fists or words.  In some way they love you. 

You think. 

So, you love them back knowing that they want to hurt you.  Who would be your father, your friend if they are not? 

You are stuck.

Even you need love.

What Happens Inside You?  The Cycle Inside the Cycle

You think

These things drip, drip, drip into your already beaten up heart.  That’s what happens.  And you find it is true that water erodes whatever it touches. 

Even thoughts. 

It does your head in. 

You second guess yourself.  You deserve it.  The fault is yours.  

It has to be. 

Outside you look at the stars, reaching for elsewhere.

You are confused. 

And so tired.

You question

You wonder what it’s like in other families, other friendships because you don’t really know.  

What is normal?  

Maybe it is worse out there in a world where people don’t hit.

You look at the poster on the side of the bus – “signs of domestic violence”.  It is not domestic violence but still, the Adult-You ticks off each of the little cartoonish signs.  Just quietly, to yourself and then you turn away and try to forget that poster. 

The Child-You had no poster on the bus.  Just a knowledge that you hurt.  And a fear of people. 

You have questions but don’t ask.  Because you can’t tell anyone.

So, you stay, because this is all you have known. 

And it is all they have known too.  They are passing their pain to you. 

You’re scared of them, but your heart aches for you all.

You realise

You thought that it all ended when you left home, but it didn’t end.  Father-Friend-Father. 

You never really left. 

You curl up tighter inside yourself.   

It all goes around and around in your head:  Think, question, realise.

Alcohol Eventually Unravels it All

Your friend’s hand cradles the wine glass in the same way the sherry glass sat in your father’s hand.  You look at your own hand, the splash where you have clumsily spilt your own wine.  They laugh, the sound echoing over 30 years.  You flinch. 

And it suddenly clicks:  Father-Friend. 

It is uncanny how alike they are.

Your body has aged.  Child to adult.  You realise that you left your father.  You can leave your friend. 

You will leave. 

You will not stay.

You grieve in private for your friend, with your father you knew not to cry. 

You walk away, the Adult-You and the Child-You, hand in hand out of the castle. 

The stars are beautiful. 

Originally written April, 2019; modified April, 2020