(Graphic warning for mentions of sex and harm later in the chapter).
There's a part of me that agrees, but there's a bigger part that is just done with all of it. We were on the phone, and I realized while talking to her that the way I was thinking, and still am thinking, is unhealthy but it's what I feel. I feel like I'm suffocating in this relationship and I'm not sure there's much that could change that. It's probably wrong for me to break up with her without talking to her and seeing what can be changed, but I don't want change. I want to be done. I want to be removed from her and be my own person again. I got to experience that some this week and I missed it, and now she's back and I'm scared. I'm not as angry as before, but I'm scared. She's back one day and already wants to get dinner together and hang out and I don't want to fall back into that pattern. I can't just give up my freedom to do whatever I want just because she does. I did it before and, well, read everything! You can see what it did to me!
Is it really so bad to just ask her to leave me alone sometimes? I don't want her! I don't! I want myself back, I want to be me again, not a piece of her. It's like she's dug her fingers into my brain and the only thing I can do to separate myself is to pry her out, one finger at a time. It's getting bloody up there, and I have to stop it… I need to stop it. I can't get her out of my head and it's not in the lovely, romantic, "I'm obsessed with her" way. It's in the "I've had a nightmare and it will never leave my brain, and I can see it when I'm awake" way. Everything I used to love about her has soured, and everything I thought I knew about her has changed so fundamentally that I can't go back.
My best friend told me that people can be manipulative without meaning to. I think that's her. I don't think there was any intention to put me in this position, but it's where I've ended up anyways, and this is why I don't like relationships. They can twist so suddenly into something gnarled and ugly.
I don't want to go to dinner tonight, and we might not be able to because of her schedule this weekend, but I think we need to. We need to talk. I'm breaking up with her, not trying to talk things out. If I try to talk everything is going to spill out, and then what? I'll confirm all of her greatest fears? That she's too much to handle? That she's manipulative and horrid? I love her and yet this has been the worst relationship of my life (and I've had a rough one before). All it took was a week of separation for me to realize how she was everywhere, and I was nowhere.
Do I need to tell her this? That I felt there was no room for me? I feel like I do, but I also don't know how she would react to that. She'd cry, I know that. But what else would she do? Would she rebuke me, call me a liar? Would she agree, that she knew she was all over me like stray hairs? What if it's worse than that and she doesn't care, but thinks that's normal? And what if it is normal? What if I'm the weird one for wanting less instead of more. What if I'm the one in the wrong because I'm meant to be alone, and she isn't?
God I feel like a failure now. I'm not, logically I know that, but I've failed her and myself. Her, because she wants someone to love her as much as she loves them, and myself because I've allowed myself to get this low over someone who doesn't mean as much to me as I thought they did. Mixed in there is some guilt, regret, and shame.
At least we never had sex. I don't think she could handle the kind of sex I'd like. This is getting a little too personal, but we had a discussion about what we'd like and it was pretty similar, but I don't think she fully grasps what I'd like. I want it to hurt. I want to be bruised and bitten and sore, not just a couple hickies and bites here and there. I want someone else to hurt me… but I also want to hurt them. I want to leave my own marks on their body as proof that I did something to them that can't be erased for a while. I want them to hurt. Pleasure is part of it, somewhat, but I'm more interested in the pain mixed in with the pleasure. I don't think she could handle that. Like, literally her body might not be able to take it, and worse? I'd scare her. I know I would. I don't want that gentle, loving shit. I don't want to be an object either, but I don't want it to be sweet and vanilla, and she in some ways does. She said she's into pain, but I don't think she's into my kind of pain. The things I like… I'm ashamed of it, yes, but I'm also not good at that gentle crap and I feel like a liar when I try it. (I'd once tried it with a male partner, but eventually we both came to the conclusion that we liked to hurt, so it was better, and honestly, the sex was great after that).
I'm starting to think I'm just not good for her, because she's good. I'm not, I know what kind of monster I am, and I'm pretty okay with it. I revel in it, even. Is that wrong? Yes, it is, I know that. I'm not oblivious to my horrid tendencies or my morbid fascinations. But I can't subject her to that anymore than I can lock it away and pretend to be the good person she thinks I am. I'm like a psychopath who actually cares about people, and that's terrifying. Maybe I'm like my friend, who is apathetic to everything, has no true strong emotions…No, that can't be right. I do have strong emotions, but not the good ones. When I'm happy, that's all. When I feel lucky, that's all. But when I'm sad? When I'm angry? I'm hopeless and I'm rageful. It's like all of those bad emotions are the ones that get amplified, not the good ones.