Through Fire

PDF.Let this serve as a content warning for this project: I discuss in detail the emotional and sexual abuse I experienced in previous intimate relationships. I am not the first person to write about intimate partner violence and consent and I won’t be the last, but that is why it is important to continue the conversation. This piece could have a broad audience, but those raised as female may feel a greater connection to the material as it relates to societal expectations for our relationships with others. From the time we are merely months old, individuals who are assigned female at birth (AFAB) are taught to ignore their needs and perform in certain ways to gain approval and validation from external sources. We are taught our value comes from serving and caring for others. While this does not necessarily mean that everyone who is AFAB will be in a controlling or abusive relationship, many will recognize the powerlessness to claim our “no” in relationships. I chose to incorporate poetry throughout this piece to serve as emotional and narrative checkpoints. When I began processing my trauma, poetry was often the safest way for me to address what I was feeling or remembering about those experiences. Initially addressing the trauma through poetry allowed me to feel comfortable enough to write the essays included in this piece. My hope is that you will find themes addressed in the poems explored in more detail through the essays. The first two essays focus on two different abusive relationships with two years dividing the end of first and the start of second. Both essays follow a primarily chronological order of events to demonstrate the evolution of the relationships. In the third essay, I examine some of the thought patterns that kept me in unhappy situations and the ways I’ve reorganized my thoughts to begin undoing the people-pleasing habits I’ve practiced throughout my life. As I’m merely months into this practice, this essay is not an exhaustive examination of unlearning these habits, though I do believe this third essay could lead to a larger project dedicated to extensive exploration of the ways women learn what makes them valuable members of society and how to unlearn those prescriptive life goals and search for our real, individual value. I’ve chosen to change or exclude many of the names in this project. Not only did I want to maintain privacy for myself and my friends, but I did not want to feel that I had to contact my abusers and notify them of their presence in this project