When Love Becomes Supremacy

he following text has been sent to me. The person would like to remain anonymous.

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****TRIGGER WARNING****

The following text contains hints and explicit descriptions of emotional/mental, physical and sexual violence. 

Please read on only if you are confident that you can handle it. 

Or if you had to become a victim of some form of violence yourself, you can slam this door behind you NOW and get involved with the text here.

The Rip

Prologue:

2014 was somehow not so my year. Fucking part-time job, finishing college with no prospects, debts, nothing, yuck. I had just ended a three-year relationship. We loved each other, but at some point we got to the point that this relationship was just over. We had only existed side by side. 

Rarely had I felt so liberated and free. At the same time so lonely, which is why I slipped quite quickly into another similar relationship. This was quickly marked by depression, misunderstandings and suffering. In great sadness and mental agony, we separated. It would be an understatement to write that I was only badly off. 

Looking back, I know we’ve all never been shit. We had never had it easy and both of us, felt much better later. Without each other. Until today. 

The biography of the first years of my life up to the time I would like to tell you about here should neither go unmentioned nor take up much space: the years of my childhood and youth, however, were sometimes marked by emotional abuse, mental and also physical violence, depression and self-damaging behaviour. 

After the separations my body broke down. I neglected myself, was completely wiped out but wanted to test myself after all the destruction. In other words I wanted to live again, maybe in a new way or a new direction. To find my life somehow beautiful after all this crap. 

That’s how I got to know a person. This story should really be about him. About him and about abuse, maltreatment, violence and especially about power in our scene and that they exist, probably often, probably more often than many still think. Probably to the extent that almost every person reading this text has a story to tell. I am almost certain about this.s

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Getting to know each other was a bang! A destiny! An infinite, very unexpected luck, it was hardly comprehensible. We loved each other so much. We were so open with each other, with us, with our weaknesses, our strengths. Immediately we began to be very symbiotic together and to inspire ourselves creatively into infinity. We created the greatest things together and imagined them. We also opened ourselves to each other by naming our triggerpoints. If there was something that could hurt the other person – in any way and e.g. only by the smallest gesture, or the seemingly most insignificant word, we sensitised ourselves. Because we loved each other immediately and absolutely wanted to go together into an imaginable future. 

I could write forever about these beauties. That’s what it should but unfortunately can’t be about, because the beautiful moments were much too fleeting and short. In retrospect it went quite fast. At that time it felt eternal. 

In retrospect I can sum up the following: My counterpart, the person I absolutely loved, wanted to stylise me, sell me, use me, hurt and  abuse me anyway he could. For himself, for his purposes. Sometimes Sadistic. Definitely calculated.

It’s important to mention that – and this should be clear – it is a person of the public, a person within the Arts, within the left scene, within our scene. 

So it was now the one side of this person – my ex-lover – who always tried to present me in a way that was useful for his purposes. To stylise me so that he could offer me according to his ideas like a work of art for the market and sell me like a popular picture. Just my style, my clothes, my voice. My way of dealing with people. The people I was introduced too and when, where and how I had to behave. Everything was geared towards the success of my ex-lover: I was to be a piece of jewellery. His piece of jewellery, no, his decorative piece.

I enjoyed the art that we would create together and I didn’t see through the mere self-interest. 

If I didn’t work, as it soon turned out, I should be punished for it. By exposure in public, by pressure from inside the relationship. Those were the beginnings. I co-financed my ex-lover, I was a willing patron and almost perished for it. If I refused or wanted to work on projects that were beneficial only for me, I was not only not taken seriously, but exposed for it.

At some point, we got into a fight. At some point – and that’s all in retrospect, since I could always only grasp it with a time delay or later in the present – it was violent.

My ex-lover gradually began to use my traumatic triggers more and more deliberately against me, the same triggers that were openly presented to him at the beginning of our relationship. 

Due to his own difficult past, my father was a person who often used the threatening finger against me and beat me. But even worse was his emotional abuse towards me. My childhood and my youth are tainted with never being enough, never being good enough, because I had been told that every day. 

My ex-lover threatened me with a raised index finger. He told me that I was worth nothing. He on the other hand, was an artist. I would always remain insignificant, ‘a nothing’. He would be the shit. I would remain a nothing. One humiliation after another. He used gestures against me, that had traumatised me until I eventually snapped. I hid from him in other rooms. If that wasn’t enough, I crawled into the closet in the other rooms.When I was in puberty, I had self harmed at times. For the first time in over ten years, I did it again in my wardrobe. My ex-lover sat with a music box in front of the wardrobe door, playing the wedding march and whispering my name over and over.

I know he had tortured women psychologically before me. I know because he had gradually revealed it to me. I became increasingly afraid. Existential fear that built for various reasons. Fear of physical violence, like psychological breakdowns. Fear of me, what I did to myself, or could do to myself. Fear, because he threatened to tell everyone I was crazy, so they would have to lock me up. Calling my work to tell them I was crazy. Everything. 

He sat above me, on top of me and strangled me. I called the police. I sent them away and he came back. I made mistakes that many people make. I have been trained to help other people deal with, or at best avoid such mistakes. I was all the more ashamed of my supposed mistakes. 

In July 2016 I was on a work trip. After that I had planned an event together with my ex-lover. Due to an accident, the band had to cancel the evening. Thankfully the two DJs were ready to play the whole time. My ex-lover helped out behind the bar. For their amazing help and due to the length of their sets, I decided to pay the DJs more than previously discussed.

After the suspicions of several people involved and also certain amounts of jealousy, my ex-lover became upset. He told me to “suck the cocks of the two [DJs]”. He shoved a bottle opener between my legs from behind until it hit my vagina. It should not go unmentioned that my ex-lover knew that I was the victim of a similar sexual assault when I was 17. I had openly presented this experience to him, something I had not told anyone before.

A friend joined me later. I was already in conversation with my ex-lover and another friend due to the incident. We could not find a solution so I decided to go home. I was exhausted. I had no strength left. My friend told me later that I was clear and reflected, but at the same time obviously at the end of my physical and mental powers. My friend and I went home together. My ex-lover, whom I had already expelled from my apartment at that time, followed us. Even after several requests to leave, he continued to follow us. I was distraught and weak and even the courageous verbal intervention of my friend could not convince him to stay away from us. The situation ended in a conversation between my friend and my ex-lover and with his statement that he was “a satellite” and would always circle around me. My friend made it clear that she also wanted him to leave, but my ex-lover wanted to stay with us. My friend thankfully didn’t want me to have to be alone with him. At some point he eventually left. I accompanied my friend home. We agreed that I would walk  the rest of the short way on my own and inform her as soon as I arrived home.

I was on my way. In the hallway I met my ex-lover in front of my apartment door. I called my friend and ran towards my apartment door at the same time. Without paying any further attention I opened my door. My ex-lover then pushed me aside and entered my apartment. I informed my friend while he suddenly left the apartment hastily with a sleeping bag in his hand. It is still unclear to me how he managed to gain access to our house again and again. 

The next day I was due to meet other friends to go together to a flea market. My ex-lover suddenly showed up with a present for me, cheerfully excited and as if nothing had happened. Hesitantly and out of infatuation, I took it. We all wanted to have a nice day together. It turned out there was a peaceful demonstration planned in the city, so we went along.

My ex-lover got pretty drunk and was in an exuberant mood and at some point the group got split up. We ended up in different parts of the central park. There I learned that my ex-lover had been taken into police custody. 

We were in a steady relationship. A relationship characterised by strife, trauma and  re-traumatisation, such as emotional abuse and physical violence.

Together with my friend I made my way to the police station to inquire. I learned that he was there. I left my name and number and after some time I received a call that I and only I, could pick him up. My friend and I set off again for the police station, where he was let out. My ex-lover reported that he had wanted to take action on the street and was then prevented from doing so by the police. As he resisted, he was taken into custody. Another friend had joined the situation and reported that the policemen had roughly pinned my ex-lover against a wall and thrown her into the van also. She had not seen what had happened before. 

I want to be honest: Based on the previous experiences with my ex-lover and his sudden, unexpected and aggressive behavior, as well as the previous incidents I had experienced, I could well imagine that any violence could have come from him. 

We immediately advised him to go to a clinic to have the wounds documented and taken care of. When he said a few hours later that he wanted to sleep with me, I refused and we had no more contact.

At the end of 2017, a friend of mine who is a member of a band gave me a surprising and frightening piece of information. The same day before he had met an old acquaintance. This acquaintance wanted to organise a benefit concert for victims of repressive violence as part of the 2017 G20 summit and wanted to know if it would be possible to book my friend’s band for this. Furthermore it turned out that a part of the donations should also go to the person of the public, my ex-lover. 
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My friend then gave a brief insight into previous incidents, distanced himself and his band from the situation and stayed with the organiser so that he could consult with me first..
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Epilogue:

For my birthday in 2016 my ex-lover gave me concert tickets. This was a few weeks after the events described above and on the day of the cancelled event. These were connected with the fact that we had to travel together. We really wanted to give our relationship another chance. Already at that time he was pleased that I wanted to try again, but not that I couldn’t get intimate with him anymore. He couldn’t understand that, blamed me for his “blue eggs”.

At the end of the month, we started our journey together. Already on the outward journey I was exposed to constant insults, reproaches and humiliations. In desperation I lay crying on the train, helpless, alone. But I stayed: I wanted to try. I had pity for him and I somehow still loved him.

One day later we went for a walk together. I remained in contact with my friend, who I have already mentioned several times. My ex-lover repeatedly asked me to put the mobile phone away but I documented the process to my friend.

As a teenager I had suffered facial scars from an accident. The incident was traumatic and has stayed with me for many reasons to this day.

My ex-lover threatened that if I didn’t put the cell phone away he would hit the scars of so hard that they would never heal again.

I continued to document to my friend

My ex-lover made obscene remarks. He had never had anal intercourse with me. He was allowed to fuck his ex-lover before me ‘hard in the ass” until her shit came out. That was much better sex than with me. 

He also heavily emotionally abused and tormented this woman  – he told me this several times at various times.

I documented further.

My ex-lover told me that if I didn’t put the cell phone away then I would ultimately only be given a memorial. For at least being a good feminist. 

I took his last statement as an acute threat of murder, or at least as an acute threat of physical violence. 

I managed quite quickly and spontaneously to hide behind a bus stop.

I contacted two friends at home and a local friend to stay with them. 

The next day I picked up my things.

We spoke again on the phone about a month later.

When I moved out of my old apartment, I was there when my new tenants painted over my red fingernail marks on the walls. They didn’t notice.

He appeared several times at the various places I was staying until I explained my situation to enough people in order to be able to protect myself.

My request for criminal charges came after about six months. I needed to take this step but although there had been a relevant change in the law in the meantime, I was still too late. On top of this if I had tried to pursue it further, I would have had to go through the last two years of violence over again. With probably only a small chance of helping my healing process. 

To this day I am afraid when my current partner makes any move towards my face with his hands, but we are working on that. 

Until a few months ago, I still had dissociative episodes due to fear that my ex-lover would turn up. 

Things that had long since been processed were re-traumatised. 

I have only spoke about it to people who have specifically spoken to me about it.

At first, hardly anyone but my closest friends could believe me.

Some blamed themselves. 

Some blamed me.

Some still think I’m an idiot.

Some have pity, or think I’m a victim or wanted to be.

I never wanted to be a victim. 

I have become one. 

Now I am not anymore.

But I am still very afraid. 

I am afraid of the publication of this text.

My friends help take away the fear, this is my safety net. Everything else still needs time. 

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My reaction:

LOVE MADNESS

Love and power. And then the fainting. I want to be loved or do I do everything out of love? What kind of love is that then? What are you doing with my love? What are you doing out of my love? And where do I stand? I have forgotten myself. I forget myself. I know, but I cannot help myself. As soon as you are there, I forget (me). Everything that has been done disappears before my eyes. It is blurry. Then you help me. You take it in your hand. Lead me. Are you manipulating me? You tell me what is good and how it is good. And then you love me. What a gift! 

I accept and tolerate. I do everything so that I do not lose you. Because if I lose you, I also lose myself. What should I do without you? Without your love I am nothing. I get into a dependency, for almost three years you strain my acceptance, my pain threshold is stretched, my tolerance is put to the test. I lose my friends. The initial lightness has changed. I constantly try to strengthen the thin thread on which our relationship hangs. I try everything so that it doesn’t tear. 

At some point I wake up, I understand. Then I could separate myself from this love. Before it was not possible. I simply could not..

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