Changing the Script

ANONYMOUS CHANGING THE SCRIPT

CONTENT WARNING: THIS ARTICLE DISCUSSES SEXUAL ASSAULT AND ABUSE AND MAY NOT BE SUITABLE FOR ALL READERS.

How the end of my abusive relationship has helped me change my internal narrative.

Your first love is an experience that you hold with you forever, it’s a time when you explore a different side of yourself and find out who and what best compliments you. Everything is easy because everything is new and exciting. I remember being so invested in every part of his life, cheering on his every move. I loved it. I loved not being alone and finally having that consistency in my life that I always craved but never had. My parents divorced at a young age, so I was always back and forth between houses, leading different lives and acting differently to appease each household. I never really had a solid friend group, so overall I felt disconnected from everyone around me I felt like I was alone with my thoughts and with nobody who truly understood me - until he came along.

We dated from grade 11 to right before my first year of university, and then again from the summer before third year until last April, when I gave him a second chance. I have never met someone that made me laugh like he did. I don’t know how else to describe it other than feeling whole. I was missing that person that got me; he understood my imperfections along with the qualities that made me shine. I was so sheltered, and he was so bold and charming. He brought me out of my shell that I had built throughout my teens. Plus, we would finish each-other’s’ sentences, it was that kind of friendship love that everyone craves, or at least I thought it was. Every part of my day, good or bad, he was there for. I was reserved and really anxious, but when I was with him I felt more free to be myself – at least in the beginning.

I knew we had issues in high school, I knew we fought a lot and that he had a temper, but when he re-entered my life asking for a second chance, I truly believed that he had changed. It was great. I was really fragile coming out of a relationship I had during second year and he was something familiar. He was even patient with me as I worked through my emotions. I thought I did all the right things, and I was very clear with him that if he were to go back to the same toxic behaviours he demonstrated in high school,I would walk away. I set my boundaries. He followed through on that, but that didn’t stop him from expressing his temper; he just became more clever about it.

I’m only now able to see that his showers of love and affection were always followed with fits of rage, where he would feed into my deepest insecurities and the ghosts of my past. Like a steady wave of highs and lows, he opened me up, dissected me, and left me to deal with the aftermath. He got into my head and erased the small shred of existing confidence that I had. I had been so intensely criticized for everything I did that these toxic thoughts had grown out of the relationship and onto myself. I took them with me when I left him.

It has taken me ten months to get to this point. This point where I am finally able to regain control over my thoughts, and look at this situation with a semi-clear mind. I’ve been trying to write out my thoughts since the relationship ended, but I just couldn’t. I think that it’s because, in order to write about it, I have to acknowledge that I experienced a level of abuse and that what I experienced is not normal.

I had to stop acting like it was okay, and had to work on changing this negative narrative in my head that he controlled. I recently learned about the concept of scripting, when certain narratives that we have constructed in our minds can affect our current reality. There were key moments within the relationship where I was controlled, and my perception of myself was influenced. These moments impacted how I perceived myself and how I acted in situations after the relationship had ended. Ultimately, three main experiences weigh the most on me: being made to feel like an object, abusive behaviours, and infidelity.

Identifying these moments is what is helping me with my healing process. By realizing which scripts he controlled in my head, I am slowly able to rewrite them and regain my sense of self.

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CREATIVE ASSISTANT BEN EVANS-DURÁN MODEL KINDRA MACKENZIE

KINDRA

CREATIVE DIRECTOR SIMON CRÊTE PHOTOGRAPHER ERICA GIUSTINIANI MAKEUP AND HAIR ADAM OAKNINE