The Plastic Surgeon, Part 2*

The plastic surgeon was a busy guy, so our second date took place couple of weeks after the first one. We lived about 45 minutes apart from each other. Since he had driven down to my neighborhood for our first date, I agreed to drive up to his place for our second date.

The plan was to meet at his apartment, then go to dinner. That was the plan. I had even bought a new dress for this occasion. I looked really pretty.

When I got to his place he was dressed casually. He had a white teeshirt on and sweat pants. His hair was wet. I had the impression that he had just gotten out of the shower and wasn’t done getting ready yet. He offered me a glass of wine, which I accepted. I thought he was going to go finish getting ready while I waited for him, but instead he also poured himself a glass of wine and sat down on the couch with me.

We talked for a bit and then started making out. He was aggressive. My dress stayed on, but he pulled my breasts out and started sucking on them. Then he put his hand under my dress and in my panties. I stopped him, “When are we going to dinner?” I asked.

“In a bit,” he said.

I got up, thinking that if I stood up and started walking towards the door, this would encourage him to follow suit. I no longer cared that I was in a nice dress and he was in sweats, I just wanted to get out of there.

He didn’t get the hint, or more likely he didn’t care. He walked me back to the couch and sat me on the armrest. He started kissing me again. Eventually he had me so that my back was lying on the couch, but my hips were up on the armrest. Despite my initial protests, he was finger banging me, and I was letting him. My dress was still on, even my panties.

Then all of the sudden he was inside me.

“No!” “Stop!” “I don’t want to do this!”

He had me pinned down, but I was fighting back. I was kicking, hitting, scratching and even biting him, at least trying to. I was telling him to stop, telling him no, trying to get him off of me. But he was so much stronger than me. Eventually I realized there was nothing I could do. I went limp and resigned myself to the situation. I stared into space and tried to go somewhere else in my mind.

A few minutes later, when I could tell he was close to cumming he asked me. “Do you want me to stop?”

Very softly I said, “no.” I don’t know why I said it, but I did. He knew that’s what I would say, too. I don’t know how he knew, but he knew. Less than a minute later he pulled out and came on my stomach.

He cleaned me off. I was freaked out. I was shaking and may have even been crying. He held me and kissed me, comforting me when his actions were the very ones I needed comforting from. Unbelievably his bullshit caretaker act had the desired effect. I was scared and emotional and he was acting sweet and soothing. This asshole knew what he was doing.

We started making out again. This time he was gentle, less aggressive. He took off my dress and underwear. We had sex again, this time consensually.  Afterwards he used a line that I’m sure he’d used a hundred times before, and a hundred times since. He told me that he had to wake up early for surgery. I got dressed and went home. We never did go to dinner.

I have so much shame about this story. I’m ashamed that I went to his house and made-out with him, thinking that we were actually going on a dinner date. I’m ashamed that I said, “no,” when he asked if I wanted him to stop. And I am most ashamed that I had sex with him a second time, after he forced himself on me.

I didn’t report him to the police. How could I have? I let him finish. Then I had consensual sex with him right after. No one would believe that he had raped me. Can I even call this rape? I said no several times. Told him to stop. Tried to fight him off. Made it clear that I was not a willing participant. But then, at the end of the act, I gave in.

I’m sure this wasn’t the first time that this piece of shit had done this to someone. Maybe if I had gone to the police, I would have found their were prior complaints. Maybe they already had a file on him. Maybe they would have listened to me, but then what? I would have been picked apart on the stand. I think about the Kobe Bryant rape trial and all the other high profile rape cases I’ve read about. The victims are vilified.

In college I had a roommate who was raped by a stranger. She did everything she was supposed to afterwards. She went to the hospital the next day. They did a rape kit. Physically it was clear she’d been raped. There was tearing, and bruising. She went to the police. She even picked the guy out in a line up. But the DA still didn’t think there was enough evidence to press charges.

If there wasn’t enough evidence in that case, which seemed so clear cut to me, then why would I even bother? It would have been my word against his.

The plastic surgeon knew what he was doing. He chose his mark well. This wasn’t the first time I had been sexually assaulted. He could smell the “victim” on me, smell the low-selfworth, and lack of boundaries. He knew that he could get away with it.

I did a fifth step around this resentment the other day with my sponsor. I cried. Not just cried, but bawled like a baby. Believe it or not that was the first time I ever cried about this. Normally after I do a fifth step around a resentment I feel lighter, like I have released it, but not in this case.

I feel like I am just now getting in touch with this anger. And I am so angry. Not just for me, but for the other women he has doubtlessly done this too. And I am mad at all the other lowlifes out there like him who know how to pick and manipulate their victims, too.

Someday I will release this resentment. Not for him, but for me. Someday, but not today.

 

* This is a continuation of an earlier post, which can be found here.

Nobody Loves You

“Nobody loves you,” “No one wants you,” “You are worthless,” “You don’t matter to anyone,” “You don’t deserve love, protection, happiness, success or anything else that’s good,” “You are shit!” This is what my addiction says to me. This voice formed long ago, probably before my conscious memory. It could have been formed by something as uneventful as belong left to cry a little too long as an infant. Who knows how it originally formed.

In my later childhood this voice was fortified by abandonment, death, and abuse. It lodged deep in my subconscious, then grew with each subsequent trauma. Every unfortunate event in my life gave it more fuel. I deserved it when my boyfriend hit me. Had it coming when I was raped. I believed this voice so much that I sought out further evidence to prove it right. Choose men that would beat me. Asked them for it. Choose men who were unavailable and would therefore eventually abandon me. Became addicted to those men.

This voice is somewhat quelled by the sexual act. In those short moments I know that I am intensely wanted, desired, valued, maybe even loved. I am validated by the focus and the attention. Then it’s over, and all I want is to feel that validation again, and again, and again.

Nowadays I know that this voice is a liar. I am loved, valued, and worthy of all good things. My friends love me, my family members love me, my sponsor and my fellows love me, and most importantly, I am loved by myself and my Higher Power.

That voice is quieter now, but it’s still there. And sometimes it kicks up a fuss that is difficult to ignore.

How Love Addiction Ruined my College Experience

In college I had one boyfriend. One fuckheaded, asshole, piece-of-shit boyfriend the whole five years.

I sometimes wish I could do college over again. If I could go back, I would have joined a sorority, gone to lots of parties, fucked lots of guys, aaand maybe studied some. Because even though I didn’t go to many parties or have much of a social life it wasn’t due to spending time in the library. Most of my time was spent off campus. About 35 miles off campus, to be exact, in my boyfriend’s dorm room at another university.

Without traffic, it would take me about 45 minutes to get to Peter’s school, but there was always traffic so the trip usually took about an hour. That’s a long way to travel for a busy college student, but not for a love addicted one. I would have taken a cross-country trip every weekend for this asshole. Of course, he didn’t have a car so I was always the one making the trip.

My addiction to Peter took up the vast majority of my time, but I somehow managed to be involved with one campus group throughout college. Every year they threw a big, end of year party. The first year I went, I was really excited to introduce Peter to this group of friends. Actually, a more truthful statement would be that I didn’t want to go to this party alone. So I drove down to his campus, picked him up, and drove him back to my campus — a two hour round trip. Nowadays this seems like insanity to me. I bitch and moan and try to get out of even driving across town. But back then, I would have driven three states over to pick him up.

When we got to the party he was his usual self, meaning he was awful. He was rude, antisocial, and disparaging the whole time. Then, in the middle of the party, he wanted to go home. Even though I was in no shape to be driving, I drove him. Then I drove back to the party, which thankfully was still going on. So in one night, I drove 140 fucking miles out of my way for this fucktard. I also got a ticket for speeding. I should have gotten a DUI, since I was only 19 and even one drink would have put me over the legal limit, but I lucked out there.

In my first two years of college, I made that trip multiple times a week. After that, Peter flunked out of school and moved back in with his parents, who lived a lot closer. We ended up spending even more time together — fighting, breaking up, getting back together. It was a non-stop drama cycle. I’m not sure how I managed to graduate, but I eventually did. We broke up for good a few months after my graduation.

My Drugs

I’ve been getting a lot of new readers, so I thought I would create a handy reference for those who don’t know where to begin.

This is a list of many of the men I have written about on this blog. Since I don’t want to get sued I’m such a nice person, I’ve given them all pseudonyms.

HC is a married man I was seeing right before I came into program. You can read about him here and here.

Joe Turner is some shady idiot.

Ethan is a sociopath I was hooked on for a long time.

Peter was my first (and probably worst) boyfriend.

Jonathan is a liar and a cheater.

Mr. Fat Cock, Fat Wallet has the distinction of actually being a nice guy… well, as nice as one can be while regularly cheating on his wife.

Creepy Daddy is, well, just that.

Jane was a little girl who I was in love with even though she was mean to me.

Leigh is the worst casual encounter I have had the displeasure of encountering.

Carson is the last guy I acted out with. I actually wrote about him while I was seeing him. You can read about him here, here, and here.

Anthony is the closest I’ve ever coming to being in love. I wrote about him here, here, and here.

Of course not all of my posts are about men. Most of them are about my recovery and what I’ve found out about myself along the way. But I know the acting out stories are usually the ones that are the most “fun” to read. If you are new to my blog, I invite you to click around and find out more about me.

Family of Origin

I spent Christmas in the city my mother grew up. “Springfield” is a smaller city a few hours southeast of here. When my mom lived there, the population was around 40,000. Now it’s at least eight times that size. Even though Springfield doesn’t exactly qualify as a small town anymore, it still feels kind of backwoodsy to me.

My mom was the third of four children born to hardcore Catholics. She has an older brother and sister, and a younger brother. My mom left Springfield when she went off to college. I want to make her seem cooler than she was and say she moved to the big city and never looked back, but I don’t think she had any hard feelings towards the place. Growing up, we spent a lot of weekends and holidays there at my grandparents’ house. Her younger brother, Ned, also left Springfield after high school. Uncle Ned and his family move around every few years for his job, but they currently live on the other side of the country.

Christmas was with my Uncle Michael and Aunt Liz, my mom’s older siblings. They both still live in Springfield. Looking at these two, it’s evident that my addictions/issues/compulsions/whatever they are weren’t born in a vacuum. I don’t know if it’s genetic or environmental, but these two have the same thing as me.

My Uncle Michael married his high school sweetheart right after he graduated from college. He went on to have a successful career in a esteemed field. He was married to my Aunt Beverly for 25 years, but they never had kids. One day he came home from work and she was gone. According to my uncle, in preparation for this departure, she had charged up all their credit cards, and drained all of their bank accounts. She then moved in with a boyfriend she had secretly had for several months. This happened when I was in high school. I was close to my Aunt Beverly before this happened and I’d like to think my uncle’s account was exaggerated, but I have no way of knowing for sure. After she left my uncle, I never saw or heard from Aunt Beverly again.

Less than a year later Uncle Michael was already in a serious relationship with this woman named Lauren. They’ve been together ever since. I don’t even know where to begin with this bitch. My uncle is one of the most respected men in Springfield, not to mention highly educated and professionally successful, and she treats him like he’s some idiot schlub who spends all day lounging around on the couch in his boxer shorts, scratching his balls. She is emotionally and verbally abusive and he just takes it. They never married (he’s proposed and been rejected several times), but he bankrolls her entire existence. They own a couple of different houses. While I’m sure she didn’t put a cent into any of these properties, her name is on all the deeds. I don’t even think they live together the majority of the time, and I wouldn’t be surprised if she also has a boyfriend. He has also completely adopted her family (she has two grown kids and four grandkids). He financially supports them as well. While he makes a good living, Lauren and her family are draining him dry. He is really close to her grandkids and considers them his grandchilden. And they are sweet kids. It’s not their fault their grandma’s a cunt.

Part of me is a little jealous of Lauren’s family. Uncle Michael and I were never particularly close. When I was a kid, my mom told me that Uncle Michael doesn’t like children, basically telling me not to take it personally that he always ignored me. He loves Lauren’s grandkids, though. Now that I am an adult, we are closer, but he’s much closer to Lauren’s adult children. I think one reason he doesn’t end things with Lauren is that he is so attached to her family. The bigger reason, though, is that he is terrified of being alone.

My Aunt Liz has been married for close to 40 years. No one in my family likes my Uncle Kevin (including me), just like no one likes that bitch Lauren. They  never had children. My Aunt Liz is the kindest, most generous woman I have ever known and her husband is the most misanthropic, curmudgeonly man I have ever known. Like my Uncle Michael does for Lauren, Aunt Liz completely bankrolls Kevin’s existence; although on a much smaller scale, since Liz makes a modest income. Kevin has rarely worked since they have been married. Even though Aunt Liz is the sole breadwinner in the family, Kevin wears the pants. He verbally abuses my aunt to the point that she has next to no self-esteem. He routinely calls her fat, and cheats on her; at least he used to when he was younger, doubt he has much prospects or even the ability to get it up these days (he’s older than her, and has got to be closing in on 70).

I’ve always been pretty close to my Aunt Liz. She’ll call me up and tell me about some shit that Kevin did to her. Nothing makes me angrier than my loved ones being mistreated. “Throw! That! Bitch! Out!” I want to scream into the phone, but I usually manage to be a bit more polite. I tell her that she deserves better and that she doesn’t have to put up with this. The next day, she’ll call me up and tell me she was just having a bad day. “We don’t always get along perfectly, but I really love your Uncle Kevin. He’s my soulmate.” I don’t believe in the idea of a soulmate. I think there are potentially thousands, if not millions of people one could connect, fall in love and live happily ever after with. But if I did believe in this silly notion, there is no way that that asshole Kevin is my sweet Aunt Liz’s soulmate.

I stayed with Uncle Michael over Christmas. Aunt Liz was supposed to join us, but she ended up getting pretty sick. On Christmas Eve, I dropped off some cookies I had made for Aunt Liz and, by default Uncle Kevin (would never make that twat cookies on his own). I called her up Christmas morning to see if she was feeling any better. She said that she had had a rough night, that Kevin had been mean to her. She was about to eat one of the cookies I had made and he said to her, “why don’t you go take a look in the mirror before you eat that.” That bitch! When I was over there he stuffed no fewer than one third of the cookies that I had lovingly made for MY AUNT into his gaping maw, and she didn’t touch any because she wasn’t feeling well. Then she goes to have her first one and he has the balls to shame her for it. On Christmas Eve! Who the fuck does he think he is?

Then she said to me, sounding more depressed than I have ever heard her sound, “single people might think they are lonely, but the pain of being alone in no way compares to the loneliness and pain someone can feel being in a relationship.” Merry fucking Christmas! Later that day, I told my Uncle Michael what she had said (the people in my family are far too polite to criticize Lauren and Kevin to their faces, but have no trouble throwing shade behind their backs) and he agreed with her statement so emphatically that it became clear he was no longer talking about Aunt Liz and Uncle Kevin. Merry fucking Christmas, again.

I was depressed as fuck after these conversations. It’s one thing if someone just wants to park him or herself in a shitty relationship and just deal with it for the rest of his or her lives, but I can see that the stresses of these relationships are killing my aunt and uncle. Uncle Michael and Aunt Liz are both compulsive overeaters (as am I) and severely overweight, to the point that they are having major health complications (don’t judge me for the cookies, I really didn’t give them very many). My Aunt Liz can barely walk half a block and my Uncle Michael would react by visibly stuffing food in his mouth every time Lauren would berate him. They also both self-medicate (as do I), one with pills and alcohol, and the other with pills and marijuana. Also, they both seem so fucking sad.

Clearly, like their niece, these two are love addicts. They also abuse food, alcohol, drugs, and have issues with depression. Looking at both of them, I see how my life could go, and that scares me, because neither one of them seems to be leading a particularly pleasant existence. It also pains me seeing two of the people I love in such pain. I don’t have many parent figures left in my life, and I fear that if they don’t find healthier ways of dealing with their issues they won’t be here for too much longer.

One thing that separates me from my aunt and uncle is that I don’t get trapped in toxic long term relationships. I have had exactly one long term relationship in my life (you can read about Peter here) and the experience was so traumatic that I haven’t been able to commit to anyone since. I don’t know that bouncing from one toxic four month relationship to another toxic four month relationship is necessarily any better than staying in one awful relationship for years and years; but it feels a lot less lonely, just like my aunt said.

When I was driving home from Springfield, I noticed something. Despite the depressing time I had in Springfield, I felt okay. Not great, not awful, but okay. When I was constantly dating and acting out with men, I only ever felt elation or agony. I would feel elation at the beginning of a new romance or sexual relationship. This feeling of ecstasy was usually short lived and quickly replaced by intense agony. Agony that he didn’t seem to be as into me as he was at first, agony that he wasn’t responding to my calls/texts quickly enough, and agony at realizing that he had lied to me and he wasn’t who I thought he was. I will take feeling “just okay”, to feeling agony, any day.

As I pull myself back on track after all the slipping I did this past couple of weeks, I need to remember this.

The Worst One Here

Most days, there is this voice that shows up in my head. It’s not a very nice voice. It tells me a lot of things, but mostly it tells me I suck. Not just that I suck, but that I suck harder than anyone has ever sucked before.

I went to a meeting today. It was a good meeting, but I had a hard time paying attention because I was distracted by the voice.

“You don’t belong here,” it said. “Most of the women here are obsessing over exes. Ex-boyfriends or husbands that actually loved them. People that they were actually in a relationship with. You’re obsessing over guys you used to have sex with. None of them ever loved you or even liked you. No one has ever wanted to be in a relationship with you and why would they?”

“The men here are obsessing over women far more beautiful and successful than you. No one would ever get obsessed with you or even be attracted to you. The men that you used to be involved with were only interested in you because they were sex addicts themselves and they would have slept with anyone. Everyone in this room has a better job and a much better life than you. You are, by far, the worst one here.”

I’m not positive where this voice came from, but I have some theories. I remember at a very young age my mom, who died in my early teens, would say to me, “You’re so selfish! You just think the world revolves around you, don’t you?” I was probably four or five. I know my mom who worked full-time in a demanding job was overwhelmed by the stresses of working, paying the bills, and motherhood. She also had some serious health issues around that time and was also dealing with depression. If she knew that this statement is what would stick in my head twenty-something years later, louder and clearer than anything else she ever said, I’m sure she never would have said it.

She did say it though. Maybe she said it several times, maybe she only said it once and immediately regretted it. I don’t know, but it still plays in my head like a loop, “You just think the world revolves around you, don’t you?” Don’t you know that your needs don’t matter? You’re a burden and need to stop bothering me.

My mom also said kind, encouraging things to me. She told me I was smart and that I was beautiful, but those memories are foggy. “You’re so selfish! You just think the world revolves around you, don’t you?” is as clear as if she said it an hour ago.

After my mom died (my dad had died a couple of years earlier), I went to live with my Aunt Buffy. She was verbally abusive and made it clear that my presence was a major burden for her. Almost everyday she reminded me that she wished I would just go away. I tried hard to be the perfect kid and win her over, but she could find fault in anything. One time she went into a verbal tirade and ripped me to shreds because I had closed the refrigerator door “wrong.” I had gently bumped it shut with my hip instead of closing it with my hand like a “normal” person. I’m sure the voice was already in place when I moved in with her, but she reinforced it and made it louder and stronger.

I know there is another voice in my head too. It’s faint, but sometimes it comes through over the more dominant, “you suck” voice. “Good job,” it says. “I love you no matter what.” “You are doing so great. I’m proud of you.” The relationship I have with my sponsor is reinforcing this positive, nurturing voice. I know the positive voice in the real thing. It’s my higher power, my higher self, God, whatever you want to call it. The “you suck” voice is just bad memories from childhood that got lodged into my psyche.

I’m now tasked with turning my will and my life over the the care of my Higher Power, who says, “I love you no matter what.” I need to let my Higher Power run the show, but the thing inside me that tells me, “you are the worst ever,” doesn’t want to give up the reins just yet.

Let Me Count The Ways That I Abhor You

I’ve been in a contemplative mood lately, and listening to a lot of music. Not surprisingly, there are a lot of songs that relate to the topics of my blog… sex, love, addictive and dysfunctional relationships.

When I was in college, I was a huge Ani Difranco fan. I went to see her shows whenever she was in town and I played her CDs non-stop. I was also a huge fan of my shit-head, idiot boyfriend Peter. “Fan” is not the right word, exactly. Is there a word for when you simultaneously hate someone’s guts and can’t live without him or her? Because that’s what I had with Peter. Since, I was immature… and insane, Peter and I were together on-and-off for six horrible years. Over the years, I have had a lot of truly terrible relationships. My relationship with Peter was the worst of the worst.

Peter was the first person I ever had sex with — I think that was part of the reason it was so hard for me to let go of him. I didn’t realize it at the time, because I had nothing to compare him to, but he was a terrible lover. We were having sex for a full year before I had my first orgasm, and it was from the bathtub faucet, not from him. Before I started masturbating in the bathtub, he had me convinced that something was medically wrong with me, because, “every other girl I’ve been with has been able to cum, no problem.” Yeah, he was a real gentleman.

We used to get into physical fights. At one point, he got into the hobby of knife collecting (no red flags there). After one particularly bad fight about who knows what, he stormed out of my apartment and in tears, I kept calling his cell phone non-stop. Minutes later he barged through my front door brandishing one of his knives. That taught me to stop calling him (that night, at least), but amazingly I kept seeing him for years after this incident.

One semester, I choose to do a program abroad. We agreed that we would take a break while I was gone. You’d think this would be a healthy move, but I spent every night in the computer lab talking to him on yahoo messenger. One night he told me (in graphic detail) about another girl he had sex with. Looking back, it was probably a lie and an attempt to manipulate my feelings. I hadn’t yet realized what a compulsive liar he was. I was so distraught, I drank a bottle of wine by myself and ended up purposely burning my arm with a cigarette. I still have the scars.

There are many, many more stories about this sick, sick relationship. I’m sure I’ll eventually write some more of them down for your amusement/horror. You’re probably asking, why did I stay with this asshole for so long? I guess the simple answer is that my self-esteem was nonexistent back then. He had me convinced that no one else but him would ever want me. To be fair, there were some good times too… although, I can’t remember any specifically. The sad truth is that I thought I was lucky to have him.

It’s been about 10 years since I finally put an end to the relationship. Lest you think I’m a girl who doesn’t learn my lesson, being with Peter taught me a lot. I vowed to never again get trapped in a long-term relationship with someone whom I didn’t actually want to be with, and I’ve stuck to that. He was also the last guy I was with who used physical violence in a non-consensual way.

So back to Ani Difranco and “Gravel.” While I was with Peter I used to drive around with my best friend and listen to this song over and over again. The juxtaposition of abhor and adore perfectly described my feeling for him. I still think of him every time I hear this song, and every time I think, “oh man, what were you thinking?”