“my independence stems from trauma”

The day before I sold my iPhone 6, I opened iMessage — for the first time in two years — and took screenshots of all our texts, from the first study session to the very last ‘good morning’ the day before my finals. I didn’t even ask for any of it. You asked, and I lent you my space. My library access. My room. My floor. And then you asked for more, and I said no. I pushed your hand away. I drew boundaries. I told us to give it three months. I was as prepared as I had ever been for hurt, and you still took so much from me. For the first time ever, I was wise enough to build my defences, and still the iron gates gave way. In the silence and the self-doubt and the tumult I played your voice memos and wept. 

When I finally wrestled an explanation from you, you said you simply didn’t need it anymore. Didn’t need my library access. Didn’t need me. For many weeks after, I was terrified of being alone. I slept with the lights on. I played music in the shower. I sang to mask the horrors of the quiet. I had no one to turn to, because I had resolved to never need anyone again. Everyone I needed was a two minutes’ walk from me, but I lived in survival mode, in terror, in a self-induced shrinkwrapped bundle of protection. I was suffocating, but safe. 

I don’t think survival mode ever left me — the fire only mellowed over the coals, glowing embers ready to reignite at the hint of abandonment. It’s the reason I feel nothing in the good times, but fall apart in the bad. There is no capacity for positive feeling when your heart is caked in soot, a heap of carbon rocks lining its base. In place of love, though, there is courage, and relief, and perhaps a hint of softness. I remember the day I walked up exactly twelve steps to a friend’s room, and lay in her bed as she practised the guitar. In the gentle humming and the afternoon light there was a melting of stone into flesh.