Why I Am Writing About Narcissistic Abuse
The book launch brings up memories I wanted to bury
Hi!
I wrote another piece about my life — a dark part of it. A difficult period, full of fear and pain. I came a long way ever since. I even wrote a book about it — as you know. Writing a book was part of the healing. But there are things that will never go away, no matter how much I want to forget about them.
I didn’t want to write a memoir, I’m not sure I will be ever ready to revisit that part of my life. But I do write about bits and pieces of it, the tip of the iceberg gets written down.
This is one:
I want to remember more than just the things I want to forget. I want to be able to sift through my memories and sort them into good ones and bad ones, deliberately polishing the nice moments, framing them in gold and cherish them until my last breath, without the rest haunting me and making me want to scream and cry my eyes out.
I want to remember how it felt when we first kissed, how giddy I was whenever we were to meet, how much my heart was filled with love, right up to the brim, overflowing with every word I said. I want to recall the stupid grin that spread on my face when I saw him. I want my skin to remember his touch. I want my body to still reverberate the humming of his voice, whispering into my neck, making my knees weak. I want to remember how my eyes were shining from that warmth that his smile gave me.
But I forgot.
The mind is fickle, the body is forgetful, the memories blur together, the sounds fade away, the bruises disappear. And the heart, no matter how shattered, it keeps on beating, staying alive until the love dies and fades into oblivion.
I threw out so many things, I got rid of so many useless memories. Boring mornings, unimportant days, the sweet repetition of mechanical motions of life — with promises, jokes and laughter. Photos deleted. Edited out of the stream of events that are no longer meaning anything.
But there are things that I wanted to keep, to remember.
There are the boarding passes from our trip to Italy, and the bus ticket from the airport to our Airbnb, reminding me how we stood there astonished to see that the cheeky Italian airport workers stole the cigarettes from inside our bags.
A piece of paper, a love confession with my name on it, crumpled, stained. It’s from the kitchen notepad that we used to note the things for grocery shopping. “I will always love you.” A lie. I know it, now. But still, the promise of it lingers above the smeared ink and I wonder if his fingerprints would be visible if I had the means to see it.
There is a grocery list I kept. I don’t even know why; probably to see how our life used to be when we were in pretend love and we thought we had a future. On the back, there is a date, and a menacing note: the last shopping list.
I wonder if I should have thrown it all away, to burn it with the rest of my feelings, the hate, the hurt, the pain, the tears. I’m not sure why these survived the purge.
I threw out so many things. I forgot so many.
But there are things that I cannot forget. I don’t remember because I don’t need to remember them; they became one with me, etched on my ribs, tattooed on my heart, squeezed under the deeper layers of my skin, right where it would be already bleeding if I tried to get it out.
My pain became me and I became my pain.
When he walked out and left me to deal with the mess of a life he created, I had nothing but pain and memories and hurt. I couldn’t sleep and couldn’t breathe. All I could do was ache, and that I did. I was hurting and it consumed me and devoured me.
I needed to put it away, seal it, file it, archive it. I couldn’t live on carrying its weight around. It was shackling my soul to an illusion of a life that was gone, leaving a phantom pain. It hurt because it wasn’t there anymore. How can you feel something that doesn’t exist?
When I think about all the things I want to forget, I always remember those that hurt the most. The ruined Christmases. Him deliberately not showing up at the hospital when I was giving birth. The threats, that were worse than the blows. And a goodbye that was so carefully crafted to be evil that I would have to applaud him if it wasn’t for hurting me to my core.
He had told me he would get me something great for my birthday and it would be a big surprise, something I wouldn’t expect. He was telling me about it for weeks before my birthday. He told me happy and he told me angrily. I should have known. He was not much of a planner and not too big on birthdays either. He didn’t believe to celebrate anyone else, but him.
We just came back from a nightmare of a holiday. Seven days together, in a picturesque seaside town, with an apartment on the seashore, lazy mornings and hot afternoons laced with threats, panic and silently shrieking terror stuck in my throat…
Thank you for all your support regarding my book launch, all of you who bought it or shared it. If you could write a review (whether you bought it or not) that would be amazing, as it helps to establish the credibility of it.
In case you haven’t yet checked it out, please find it here. It is available both in Kindle (ebook) and paperback format already.
Thank you for following me and for all your support.
Love,
Zita
I am SO proud of you, my dear friend. <3