Content Warning:
This piece includes references to mental health challenges such as suicidal thoughts, experiences of discrimination, and emotionally intense language. As this year’s theme explores transitions, some submissions engage deeply with personal and vulnerable experiences. Please take care while reading, and feel free to pause or step away if needed.
I remember that November morning when I looked out the ER window, waiting for the IV to finish. The area where he had punched me still throbbed, and the nausea was becoming unbearable. I thought to myself, “Something happened, something changed, but I don’t know what.” The pain and nausea still haunt me, as though that experience burned a mark on my soul and existence.
Fast forward to Christmas Eve. I went over, cleaned his place, ordered food and wine, and waited for him to return. The evening began as planned—food, drinks, and fun conversations. But soon, it took a turn. He tried to force himself on me—for the pure joy of watching me suffer. I screamed for him to stop, but he wouldn’t. I yelled, fought with every ounce of strength I had, and eventually crawled into a corner, crying and trying to make myself as small as possible. I don’t remember much of that night, except that the next day, I couldn’t stop crying for reasons I couldn’t grasp. He blamed my tears on being “overly emotional” and accused me of not wanting to leave. He forced me out of his place, crying and begging for comfort, because he had a Christmas party to attend.
Sometimes I wonder how I made it through that day — that dreary Christmas, cloudy and cold. I had a flight to go home that night, but every cell in my body was screaming “Something is wrong.” Panic attacks hit me one after another. I had meltdowns in the middle of the street. I cried and screamed so much at home that my neighbour knocked on my door. Never in my life had I so desperately wished for someone, some entity, or even him, to tell me what was happening and make it all go away. But that never came.
In the days that followed, he told me that I was too dramatic, needy, asking for too much, overstepping his “boundaries” and making him uncomfortable.
And I believed him. Or maybe a part of me forced myself to believe him because the truth hurt too much. I broke every resistant bone in my body, even though my heart was screaming and begging. I tore apart my soul and erased everything that makes me me to become a “thing” that he could use and destroy for his pleasure.
It wasn’t until months later that I began to understand what had happened. It wasn’t until I called my mom to say goodbye, texted a friend to apologize for missing supper, and woke up in the ER, surrounded by tubes, wires, and beeping machines. It wasn’t until my friend couldn’t even understand me on the phone, until texting became impossible because I couldn’t control my hands, and until staying somewhat conscious felt like a blessing and opening my eyes took all my strength, that I finally began to comprehend.
Even now I sometimes wonder if things would have gone differently if I had said yes to the help and resources that the doctors and nurses kept offering me that November morning. But life has no ifs.
It’s been almost a year since that Christmas Eve. Some days, I wake up feeling like I’m falling into that dark, endless hole again. But I look up and see that faint, blinking light—whether it’s real or imaginary—and beg myself to go on for just one more day.