Still Here

“The cops said you gave multiple stories and they all differed. Also, most domestic violence cases involving women as the victim do not win the case.”

As he was having a conversation with one of his best friends, after I had forgiven him, moved back in with him, and agreed to cooperate so he could keep his license, he said, “I didn’t even hit her.”

The statement was so casual, so effortless, that it took me a moment to process it.

“Yes, you did,” I replied firmly.

“No. I never touched you.”

“Yes, you did.”

He immediately deflected, doubling down on the lie. Yet I still saw good in him—or at least I wanted to believe there was a part of him that was good.

I knew I had relapsed into depression. “You’re not depressed,” he insisted every time I told him I was not feeling like myself. But I knew I was. I was in a state of confusion, letting the man who hit my face and caused cuts all over my hands and fingers write a letter on my behalf saying I was mentally unstable and “made everything up” just so he could keep his medical license. He was about to start working at a children’s hospital as an anesthesia assistant and had already passed the background check. He didn’t want a misdemeanor on his record, for obvious reasons. 

Part of our tradition was going on nightly thirty minute walks. After the incident, I had a no contact order, which he violated multiple times, but I kept it to myself instead of contacting the law enforcement. A part of me still wanted to hear from him. Trauma bond. The last attempt was successful, getting me to listen to him after his best friend persuaded me to “hear him out” on Snapchat (Snapchat did not keep logs of calls or messages). He called me from Germany, where he was staying with his parents for two weeks. The judge declared he was a no flight risk, and flew to see them shortly after he got discharged from jail. His sister bailed him out. He was an excellent manipulator. He knew my weaknesses and used them to create a series of coated lies that would lead me to forgive him. 

“I will stop taking kratom. I will go to AA meetings for porn addiction, and I will quit for good. I will go to therapy, and pay for therapy for you as well. We will go to couples’ therapy and I will pay for it. I will never be unfaithful to you again,” he said in a piteously, imploringly manner. 

And I fell for it. 

“The allegations did not occur. The allegations did not occur. The allegations did not occur. Repeat after me,” he drilled into me as we walked on the streets in the middle of the night. “You have to get your story together. There can’t be any gaps. You have to say the same thing and not change anything about it, otherwise they will notice the contradictions and not believe you. 

I obliged. 

My attorney would call me, and I would mute him so my boyfriend could tell me what to say. He hushed “The allegations did not occur.” I unmuted my attorney and said exactly that. “Is he there with you? Is he telling you what to say? Did he threaten you?” 

“No. The allegations did not occur. I have nothing else to say. Goodbye.”

My boyfriend smiled. His eyes shone with a triumphant malice. 

He was cold. Distant. Avoidant. He was supposed to be tapering off kratom, but I noticed him taking the same dose as the previous days. My hypervigilance, honed by months of unpredictability, registered the discrepancy before I consciously did.

“You’re taking the same dose. You’re fucking with my head again.”

“I’m sorry! I forgot, okay? I’ll take a lesser dose tomorrow. I promise.”

Something I learned from his addiction to porn, kratom, and nicotine was that he had rehearsed dishonesty so thoroughly it appeared effortless. The inflection, the posture, the carefully chosen words—nothing felt accidental. It was his most effective form of gaslighting. He rarely needed to argue. He only needed to sound certain. I knew he had physically and psychologically abused me, yet there was always a pause in my mind after he spoke—a brief, disorienting silence where certainty gave way to doubt. For a moment, I found myself wondering whether my memory was flawed, whether I had misunderstood what I had seen, whether reality was as he described it rather than as I had lived it.

On Thursday, October 21st, 2021, my boyfriend assaulted me after I called multiple women he had been texting while we were out on a date. He had just admitted to sleeping with seven other women while he was with me.

After realizing he was cornered, he allowed me to go through his phone without a fight.

I called the first woman. She answered with an easy, intimate familiarity, as though she expected the voice on the other end to belong to someone she had recently shared a bed with.

“Did you use a condom?”

“Of course I did!” he snapped.

I kept my voice steady. I explained that I was his girlfriend and asked her whether he had used a condom when they slept together.

“No, he never did.”

Years of deciphering his half-truths and omissions had taught me to listen for what wasn't being said. He hadn't answered my question with the calm certainty of someone telling the truth. He had reacted to being caught. In that instant, I understood what he was trying to conceal. If he had slept with her only once, there would have been only one encounter to remember. Her answer, and his defensiveness, told a different story.

I told her to go get tested for STDs as I would have to do the same, as well as the other women he was involved with.

I called the second woman he had been texting during our date. No answer. I left a voicemail.

I called the third woman, and it was clear he didn't want me to continue.

"Okay, that's enough."

"No. They need to know the truth. And they need to get tested."

He was 6'5". I was 5'0".

What happened next still haunts me. He lunged for the phone. We struggled over it. Then his elbow caught me in the right cheekbone.

A sharp pain shot through my face. When I looked down, my hands were bleeding. The edges of his phone case had sliced my skin during the struggle.

I ran to the bathroom. When I saw my face, I collapsed into tears. Fear, anger, betrayal, confusion, and grief surged through me all at once. The feelings arrived so fast they blurred together, becoming one overwhelming wave of pain. Time seemed to distort. Those few seconds felt both endless and impossibly far away, like a memory forming even as I was still living it.

I dialed 911. Years earlier, I had been physically attacked by another person I was living with. In that moment, I was not only reliving that memory, but also acquiring a new one I wished I would never have to carry.

I fell to my knees.

The panic on his face was immediate. He frantically began hiding his drugs. Then he tried to flee.

I told the 911 operator what was happening. Staying on the phone, I followed him to the elevators and stood nearby so he couldn't leave before the police arrived.

Several police officers arrived, along with EMTs. The lead officer interviewed us separately.

Neighbors cracked open their doors and watched from the hallway. I paced back and forth, unable to make sense of what had just happened. Nothing felt real. I couldn't feel my body. The voices around me sounded muffled and far away. It was as if I were observing the scene from outside myself.

My brain had switched into survival mode. While my body remained in that hallway, part of me had already disappeared somewhere else.

He was arrested and charged with battery.

I stood outside the building in the darkness while red and blue lights pulsed across the streets. He sat in the back of a police SUV as officers processed his paperwork. I don't know why it took so long.

The police asked me to wait for forensics so they could photograph my injuries. It was around 1:00 a.m. when they told me to stay. Forensics didn't arrive until nearly 4:00 a.m.

By then, I felt hollow. Exhaustion, shock, and grief had drained whatever was left of me. When the forensic photographer finally arrived, bright white flashes illuminated my face again and again. Each burst of light felt intrusive, exposing a reality I still hadn't fully accepted.

Afterward, I called a friend to drive me home. I don't remember much of the ride. I was physically present, but mentally I was gone.

“The allegations did not occur.”

His case had been dismissed. He paid his attorney ten thousand dollars to have the record expunged. Working in healthcare, he couldn't risk any trace of the incident remaining attached to his name.

I remember standing in the emergency stairwell and banging my head against the wall five times.

He never tried to stop me.

“I think something is really wrong with me,” I told him. “I think I'm really depressed.”

Dressed in green scrubs, his arms folded across his chest, he stared at me, expressionless. There was no concern. No urgency. If anything, he seemed impatient. His shift was about to start, and my breakdown appeared to be an inconvenience.

As I stood there unraveling in front of him, the only thing he seemed worried about was being late for work.

The following months exist in my memory as a collection of splintered, sticky, intrusive pieces of a life I no longer recognize. I knew I would never be the same again.

It is now Sunday, June 14, 2026.

I am still afraid of the world. I am still afraid of men getting close, even though I long for a partner. A safe partner.

I still engage in self-sabotaging behaviors. I still break down while doing ordinary things due to flashbacks—washing dishes, driving, interacting with others at work, sometimes forcing me to retreat abruptly to the most private place in the building; usually the bathroom. My internal dialogue is kind and empathetic, but beneath that compassion lies anger. Not toward myself, but toward the fact that he still has influence over my nervous system years later. I can extend grace to the version of me who survived, while simultaneously mourning and resenting the parts of myself that were altered by what happened.

I am exhausted by the effort it takes to appear unaffected. My work requires me to be a high performer—to smile, socialize, build relationships, and project confidence. Most days, I manage to do all of those things. What people do not see is the fear and anxiety running beneath the surface, or the energy it takes to conceal them. They see the polished version of me. They do not see the constant vigilance, the racing thoughts, or the moments when I am fighting to keep myself grounded while carrying on as though everything is normal.

The flashbacks are relentless. They arrive uninvited and seize control before I can stop them. My breath is cut short. My heart races. Every muscle tenses as if danger is standing right in front of me.

For a few moments, time collapses. The years disappear. I am no longer remembering what happened—I am there again.

My mind understands that the event is over. My body does not.

One thing that continues to shadow me is a conversation we had shortly before I left. He emerged from the bathroom and confessed that while looking at women on Snapchat, he had encountered images of girls who appeared very young. Panicked by the possibility of legal consequences—especially after having the battery charge dismissed—he immediately contacted another criminal defense attorney and paid a five-thousand-dollar retainer.

He insisted it had been an accident, but he was terrified and paranoid. He even bought a new phone a day later.

As I mentioned earlier, he works at a children's hospital. Prior to the incident, he had mentioned that some of his patients were sixteen years old because they preferred seeing the same pediatrician, and he had to see them naked. The thought still makes me nauseous. For a long time, I carried guilt over what I knew and what I could not prove.

I never spoke to him again. He is still practicing.

I wish those memories would disappear forever.

I needed to tell this story. I needed to release something I have carried for years. There was no justice. There was no resolution. Only silence and a secret known by very few people.

The hardest part has been trying to find myself again. To feel connected to my body. To stop pretending I have everything together. To feel safe in the world.

I do believe I am worthy of love and care, but I sometimes wonder whether I will ever be able to fully trust them when they arrive. It is profoundly exhausting to constantly perform a version of myself that appears stronger, calmer, and less afraid than I often feel. It is exhausting to smile, engage, and carry on while simultaneously trying to keep my nervous system from overwhelming me.

I worry that the depth of these wounds will be difficult for others to understand. That someone will see my fear, my hypervigilance, or my fragility and mistake them for weakness rather than the consequences of surviving what I survived. I worry that the parts of me that still need gentleness will feel like too much for someone else to hold.

And yet, despite that fear, I still hope. I still want connection. I still want to believe that there are people capable of meeting me with patience, understanding, and care. People who will not ask me to be less affected by what happened, but who will simply walk beside me as I continue learning how to feel safe again.

I am still here, though.

I do not know how I survived. In many ways, every day since has been about survival. Waking up. Getting through the day.