This is the end for us

May 28 - Eight Months , Twenty-eight days

Ann has a best friend. Her name is Abby. Abby helped her when she was not able to do so herself. Abby did her final- grade project because she was too caught up with Connor.
Ann understood that she has let her down. She has let her best friend down. By looking at Abby, she sees the empty look in her eyes. The warmth, sympathy and the friendship gone. She just stares back to her as if she was nothing.

I had a best friend too. I lost her, because of him. He broke my strong friendship bond with her, just because he didn't want to share me with anyone. I was afraid to tell her what kind of person he was. She supported the relationship at the beginning and she even said he was perfect. I used to tell her everything. I even called her my ''pink diary''. I always though she knew everything better and she mostly always protected me. But when he was here she didn't. She turned her back on me. She believed everything other people said. She knew me the best. 4 years of friendship went down the drain that instance. She didn't try and yes it was my fault to. I pushed her away. I didn't contact her because of him. Just because I was afraid. 

Even today, after 2 years, we haven't talked. haven't looked at each other. The friendship that we had has vanished. But to admit, I am glad we aren't friends. Because of her I know what true friendship is. I know friends will fight by your side till the very end. They wont just give up, no matter how hard everything is. Friends love you for who you are and they don't get influenced by other people.

I felt alone. I was all by myself until I met a real, good and loyal friend. She was true and real.


Because of this I realized, that girl was never truly my friend.

I want me back

May 31 - Nine months, One day

Ann finishes her high school career and has nothing else to do. She decides to go for a run to look for sea glasses for her project for Connor. While running she starts thinking about questions, Why did I stop doing this? Why did I give it up?  
She imagines telling Connor about her wanting to run and she knows he would understand. But she still decides that she wants her old life back. She wants herself back. She feels alive and wonders how she could have forgotten about the feeling of being free.

This thought of wanting my old life back has came to my mind many times. The feeling of wanting to be free. Free from his chains and his words..  Before I knew him, I was a person full of happiness and filled with love. After knowing him, I was a person filled with sorrow, sadness and pain. I lost myself and I didn't know how to get it back.
I always asked myself what I did to deserve this. Why it had to be me who had to be hurt and broken. But if it wasn't me it would have been someone else ending up hurt and maybe dead.
I was broken after this relationship, after all this pain, but I got myself back.
I did forget about the being free, but because I did forget, I broke the chains. I escaped my prison and became who I am now.
Happy, free and loved.

I am sorry..

I am sorry at the moment I don't have the time to write. I am in stress with school stuff and so on. But I will start writing soon again.

As an apology I would like to tell you a story, about what isolation can do to a person.

After I isolated myself because of my boyfriend, I started to lose interest in life. I tried to harm myself many times and never succeeded. Cutting, hitting, overdosing. I probably stopped in time because I was afraid of death. But I was desperate. I wanted to escape the desperation, the fear, and the pain. 

And the worst part? He knew about it. He told me I was a coward because I wasn't capable of killing myself. I was shocked by what he said.

How can someone tell a person who claims they love you, say that you are a coward for not being able to die. 

"Love" is a word that was being abused at that time. But now I know the correct definition of the word. Its called happiness.

What is Happiness?

What is Happiness?

Happiness. I always wanted to find a good definition for this word. The word contains the word ''happy''. So my definition of happiness is:
''Happiness is a feeling that comes over you when you know life is good and you cant help but smile. It is the opposite of sadness.''

July 6 - Ten months, six days

Ann can tell that Conner is in a good mood today, because he left a note on her windshield telling her ''she is beautiful''
She compares herself to Conner's mother. She says she doesn't have to be there for Conner, she chose to be there for him. That's what makes her special in her opinion.
While the couple is watching a funny movie, Conner laughs alot. Ann wants to laugh with him, but she cant.  She thinks her laughter is broken, like everything else inside of her. If Conner looks at her she will fake it. Because she wants him to stay happy.

As I mentioned in my previous post, I was not allowed to be happy, unless I was with him. The thing about happiness is, that once it is taken away from you, you start to forget how to be happy. Because it was taken away from me, I didn't know how to be happy. Yes there were moments where I felt joy that I did something right, but I could never let out a smile that was true. The smiles that I had were fake. I felt like a robot. I was walking around but I couldn't feel any emotion. I felt like I was immune to it. The only thing I could show the most was sadness. I was an expert on being sad. That is the only time I showed my true emotion. The thing at that time, I didn't realize it was damaging me so much. I was just naive.
But there were moments that made me satisfied. Times where it was good. When I didn't do any mistakes and he was happy. Ann describes these moments like an ''island in a stormy sea, and she takes them and hide and hope no one finds her.''
These moments I cherished alot. These moments I hold on to, when things got bad. These moments I wished I could forget, because if I forgotten them, I could have left him easier.

Ann thinks he doesn't love her as much as she loves him. She could even be right.
I did more for him than he did for me. I am not a calculative person, but the things I did for him, I wouldn't have done for just anybody. I was mostly forced to do it. I was manipulated. I was made to do it.

After witnessing a fight between Conner and Blake, a friend of Ann, she runs to her mothers house. She doesn't go in, but she wonders what her mother would think if she sees her. If she would nothing how broken she is inside. She wants alot of things. She wants to go into a bed where nothing can hurt her. She wants her mother and the most important, she wants her father to be alive again and protect her like he once did.

I never told my mother about what happened. Even now, after two years, I never really told her the full story. She knows he was a bad person, but she didn't know in what extend he was bad. I never showed her the bruises I had, or the scars. The thing about my mother which is similar to the mother of Ann is that she is a person who judges someone very fast. I don't want my own mother to pity me. I don't want my mother to feel sad that she wasn't able to protect me. I don't want her to feel guilty. It was my mistake and it will stay my mistake.

Ann knows that Conner need her after the fight he has gotten into. But she wonders when this became something else, as it wasn't like this at the beginning.
Her last sentence is :"I don't know what happiness feels like anymore. I am dead to it."

I was dead to it as well.

I am tired of this.

July 16 - Ten months, sixteen days

The chapter starts with Conner asking Ann why she is still together with him. He knows she deserves someone better but he doesn't understand why she is still here with him. 

Ann just replies and says, '' I can live without him. I don't know who I am anymore if I'm not Conner's girlfriend. Doesn't he see that's all I am now? Doesn't he see that I've given up everything for him?''

Although Ann understands that he is not good for her, she still picked him over her own mother. 

Conner claims he hurts her so that she can leave him. But Ann replies saying he is the person she wants him to be. Conner and herself both knows this is a lie. The person Ann wants to be together with only exist in tiny scenes. Its not the whole Conner.

You may wonder why Ann doesn't want to leave him even though she herself understand that he isn't the person she is in love with. When I was in that kind of relationship, I didn't want to be alone. I was scared of being alone. I had goals that i wanted to reach, but i couldn't reach them by being alone. That's what I thought. For the same reasons as Ann, I only saw him. I thought that is what I deserved. The person I fell in loved with was not the same person that was mostly there with me. He, like Conner, only existed in tiny scenes. 

Ann describes her fear of losing Conner. She feels like she is falling down a mountain, clawing at anything she can grab, and she is missing everything and picking up speed and eventually there will be a cliff, and she will become nothing. 

My ex-boyfriend ever did broke up with me. Although I knew it was for the best, I begged him to take me back. I was really begging him. I didn't understand why I had to do it, And i even knew he enjoyed seeing like this. I was desperate. I was afraid. I just didn't want to be alone. I felt like I was thrown into a hole. There's way out. But he was standing at the edge, holding a ladder. But not giving it to me. He was waiting, seeing what I was doing to get out. 

But the thing is, you wont understand how it is to be alone, if you have never been alone. So alone that you just have none but yourself. I was alone. But because of this, I am now not afraid to be alone.

It's nothing. Just like me.

August 30 - One year

This chapter continues from the very first chapter. Connor is angry and has hurt Ann. He shattered the sculpture Ann made for him. The beautiful heart sculpture broke into thousands of pieces.The heart sculpture stands for Ann's hard work. How each piece is not perfect, but all the imperfection becomes a whole that becomes perfect. Each piece stands for the affords Ann spend in it. The hours she searched for sea glass, the hours she put all the pieces together, all of it, shattered, littering the floor."And now it's nothing. Just like me." The glass sculpture broken, even though it was said to be treasured. Connor broke it because of his anger.

The heart symbolizes the love of Ann for Connor. Connor says he would appreciate it, but at the kids of his anger, he destroys it.Have you experienced something that you think: "yes, I have done well" and then someone comes and destroys it. The feeling when you spend hours in something and then it being crushed. It hurts, and it destroys you. You feel alone, hurt and the worst thing is, no one is there to save you. You are left alone to drown in your sorrows.

I myself, have never made something like a sculpture before. But I remember this one experience I had in school.I made cupcakes for school (I am a passionate baker). I remember making it for my spanish class. I made around 25 little cupcakes. They were made with love and they looked really beautiful. My classmates saw them and wanted to try. I saw it as an opportunity to talk to my classmates, my friends I once neglected. From the 25 pieces, left only like 10. When he said he wanted some too, I opened my locker and took one out. He saw there were only 10 left. He then asked me what happened to the rest. I said " I gave it to my friends. You could see his blood boiling, how angry he became that I gave it to other people. He freaked out and throw the whole box on the ground, throwing a few at me. He said, I was a bitch and that if he can't have many, no one else can.The efforts I did. The hours I spend. Backing made me happy, made me free. He destroyed it, because he was jealous i talked to someone. I was not allowed to talk to anyone.
The cupcakes that were once perfect and beautiful, were now destroyed, smashed and useless. Like me.
How could I allow someone to destroy me like destroying the beautiful little cupcakes?

I have done well

"I have done well." These are the words Ann says at the end of this chapter.  

July 30 - Eleven months

Today is the day Ann wants to reveal her sculpture to Connor. She is excited but when he arrives home, she hears from his voice that he isn't in a good mood. The sound of his voice has a dangerous edge to it. A edge to tell you to stay away. Before it can simmer, stew and explode.
She panics because she doesn't want to show him the heart when he is in this mood. When she hands him the beautiful heart, she wants him to smile. She wants to hide it, before his reaction could disappoint her, but he finds it before she can do so.He smiles, and wraps his arms around her. And she know she has done well.

I have done well. Something that not everyone can say in this kind of relationship. I never admitted that I have done something well. Because admitting it means you accepting something, even when it goes wrong.And being disappointed is the worst feeling ever. I understand how Ann feels. She made something with all of her heart. She worked for it, she wants to be happy. She deserves to be happy. And for that moment she is happy, and that no one can take it away from her.

The Mistake

What is a mistake for you? Is it a thing you did unintentionally? Or is it something you do, that is actually completely normal for yourself?

August 15 - Eleven months, sixteen days

Ann is seen by her boyfriend laughing with a guy called Mark. He is a new guy from her workplace. On that day she forgot that Connor's truck broke down and that he will be waiting for her at the place where she works. She says, "He has seen me laugh and push Mark, the new guy. [...] I know what he is thinking, I know where his mind is going. [...] He's steaming. I know the fear he has of losing me overpowers everything else, even his common sense."

She knows that he wont believe her no matter what she says. He will just replay a story over in his mind that is far from the truth. 

And I wonder, how can anyone do something like this? Why can't the other person be happy without you? Laughing, Smiling, these are all natural you do it life. Who are you to get mad, when you know this person is having fun without you?

Ann wonders why she doesn't have friends. Why no one talks to her. She knows its her own doing. It's her fears that something will happen and she'll say the wrong things to the wrong people, and they will interfere somehow.

Ann acts like how anyone would, in a domestic violent relationship.  I myself was afraid to be seen with people. With anybody. I rather sit in a corner doing nothing and talking to nobody, rather than to be seen with people and later getting it from my boyfriend. At the beginning, I was a girl with many friends. I laugh alot, I smiled alot and I sang alot. These were taken away from me by my boyfriend. Everything I loved. When I did smile or laughed, I got screamed and scolded at  by him. I always wondered who told him that. Who was so cruel to tell my boyfriend whether I was happy or not. After alot scoldings, I started to isolate myself. From my friends, classmate and family. I wasn't given the permission to smile nor laugh. Everyone I once knew became Strangers.

I was afraid like Ann. I was afraid that if I do talk to someone, will they tell him what I said? Will they tell him how I reacted? You may think I am overreacting, but if you there, and you heard at least half the things my Ex boyfriend knew, you would have been amazed. 

Once I was scolded because I went to the bathroom in school, and I didn't tell him, which was considered for him, as a waste of opportunity to see each other.

After Ann finishes her work, she walks with Connor towards her car. She's afraid. She says, "I know what this silence means, all I can do is wait for it to explode." She feels claustrophobic and she is considering running. She's in denial. "Maybe this time he'll talk to me. He's getting a little better [...] maybe this time he will understand." 

That's when he grabs her wrist and squeezes hard. "It's always too much, too intense, too everything."

I know this feeling too well. After being seen by somebody, he comes up to me. At the beginning, he never touch me in public. He always waited until we were alone in a confined room. The waiting was the worst. To know what was going to happen when we were alone. At the beginning I tried talking to him. Telling him that what I did was not wrong and explaining to him what I was thinking at that time. I either got a reply to "shut up" or just nothing. Once we were alone, I was belittled so badly. I was called names. I was then pushed around until I fell. I would have gotten up on my feet and he would either crush my wrist or my arms. It usually left a mark, but it was mostly cold season at that time so I could mostly hide them. That was the beginning. 

After a few months, he would let out his anger in public. Screaming and shoving me around. In school I would start crying knowing he was angry. Hiding myself in the bathroom, only going out when I hear the bell ring. When I was crying, he would stop me by punching my in my stomach, making me not able to breath nor cry. 

After a while, I became immune to all of it. I hardly smiled, laughed or cry. I was just a robot.

Connor shoved Ann to the floor. He was spitting bad words to her, being cruel. She considers herself as lucky, as he let out his anger to the wall and not to her. But she is trembling with fear. After the fight, Connor understands that what he did was wrong. He apologizes, begs for forgiveness and pretended it never happened. She wishes that he would return to be like how they first met. But she knows that he wont. And this scar is from a love that has gone wrong. Sadly no one but herself can see it.

My story has a different ending. He never felt remorse. Not a single bit. We never spoke of it. But I know he never felt any sign of remorse at all. None.

Ann asks a very important question, A question that I asked myself everyday. "Why does he get to be two different people, and I only get to be myself, the one who is here to take what he has to give, and who is here to pick up the pieces afterwards."

It's too bad I didn't keep any pieces for myself

Monster

noun

1. a large, ugly, and frightening imaginary creature.
2. a thing of extraordinary or daunting size.

verb

1. criticize or reprimand severely.

August 23 - Eleven months, twenty-four day

Connor describes his own father as a Monster. Ann finally sees the monster being unleashed, when Connor's father destroys the porch, he himself and his wife built the month before. Connor's mother, Nancy, is crying and begging her husband, Jack to stop. Ann doesn't understand how she is capable to do that, because she is afraid of him.
Connor's mother has nothing left. She is invisible and her eyes are empty. She is not yet fifty, but she has gray hair and deep lines in her face, and there is a sadness about her that never leaves. Nancy is haunted by her life.
Ann is afraid that by looking into Nancy's eyes she will see herself.

Being Invisible is a choice. By being invisible you learn to be quiet and not to react. Because those who choose to be invisible, do it because they are afraid. They are afraid that by being visible, they will be even more exposed to the horrifying world that they are in right now. By saying or doing something wrong, a mistake , can trigger something, which can cause the bomb to ignite.
Those people who decide to be invisible lose alot in life. They feel empty, which makes their eyes look dull and deserted. By feeling empty you lose sense of life and you start to become best friends with the only thing you know, sadness.
To continue surviving in this world you call "Home", you must make alot of sacrifices. Firstly putting the other person needs in front of yours.
That is the right thinking, but you should never just think about them and forget about yourself.
That is a thing I needed to understand myself. I never understood why I must take care of myself. I only thought about him. Always. He took this for his advantage and used it against me. He used his mind games to manipulate me in thinking if I don't do it,  I don't love him. I always wanted to prove him wrong. That made me lose the Battle I never knew I was fighting in.

The moral of the story is: "Never just put your significant other before yourself. As you are as important as them."

The story continues after the fight at Connor's parents house

Ann is in her bed with Connor. She stares at the mosaic heart she made for Connor. The heart is a metaphor. The glass shards symbolises Ann. Each of the piece is another piece of herself she gave to Connor.
There are small pieces and big ones. The glass aren't all perfect. They have edges, splitters, rough edges but also smooth ones.
This is the way a person should be. Nobody is perfect. By being imperfect, you become perfect. Ironic right?
By putting all the imperfections together you get a heart that is whole. It is never perfect but so beautiful and pure.
To bad she didn't keep any pieces for herself.


I gave him everything I had. But he hated me for my imperfections. He wanted me to be perfect. I had to be as perfect as those princesses in the fairytale books. But that's not me. I am not perfect. I am weird at times, when I am happy, I dance and sing. When I am sad, I cry and talk about the problems  I have. But with him, I wasn't allowed to do so. I was not allowed to be happy without him. And i was not allowed to cry. At all.

Ann wonders whether Connor realizes what the heart stands for. I wonder whether he did too.

Connor promises Ann that he will never let anyone hurt her, especially not his own father. Ann knows that Jack, Connor's father don't hurt her through his own hands, but through the hands of Connor. She says that inside of Connor's monster mind, lays a helpless little kid that is stuck inside.

Me knowing that in the mind of my ex boyfriend lays also a young child who is helpless and clueless.
His past affects the way he thought at that time. He was hurt by his own mother. Betrayed at a young age. Sadden because of this. I am not here to mock him. I want to forgive him.
John Greens book "Looking for Alaska" deals with a topic that got me thinking for a while. "How do you escape the labyrinth of suffering? The only way out is by forgiving."

I am trying to forgive him even though he did things to me I will never be able to forget, that's the reason why I won't name him. He knows who he is, but you dont need to know.

Ann has surrendered and waved her white flag. So have I.
How about you? Would you have done the same?

Introduction

Hello!

Firstly I would like to introduce myself. My name is Vanessa. I am a girl of 18 years. I have gone through things, that not many 18 year olds have. I would like would to share with you my experience. The biggest lesson, I have learned in my 18 years of living.

But instead of just writing my experience, I wanted to try out something new. I got this book called, "But I love him" by Amanda Grace.

'But I love him' is about a girl called Ann. She was a smiling, straight-A- student and track star was friends and a future. Until she met a haunted young man named Conner. Only she can heal his emotional scars, while only he can make her feel so loved - and needed. The perfect relationship she had with him was long gone. The man she first fell in love with disappeared, as just one mistake could trigger Connor's rage, a senseless storm of cruel words and violence damaging everything - and everyone - in its path.

The book deals with emotional and physical abuse. The kind of abuse no one in life should ever experience. No matter if it's a child-abuse, bullying at school or even at a workplace, Abuse is the worse thing you could do to anybody.


So lets start shall we? 

August 30 - One year

Ann describes the Aftermath of the fight. She says "My chest is hallow and empty, as if he ripped out my heart and took it with him when he left [...] All i feel is pain"
What I want to say about this is, that my Ex boyfriend made me feel like I was nothing. My chest was empty, my thoughts were empty and my heart, it felt nothing but pain. Feeling pain is one of the worst feeling you can feel. But quoting John Greens book "The fault in our stars" , he says: ''Thats the thing about pain. It demands to be felt."
There are different degrees of pain:

1. Pain caused by losing someone you know/ loved
2. Pain caused by emotional stress
3. Pain caused by physical stress
4. Pain caused by a heartbreak or a lost love

but the worst type of pain is:
   
     5. Pain caused by someone you love

As you can see pain will always be there. It can be disguised and it might hit you when you least expect it.

After the fight, Ann sits alone in the darkness, hoping the world would leave well enough alone and we could find peace. She understands that, No one can protect her because she pushed them all away. She lost everything, she gave him everything but he gave her nothing back in return. She knows she lost herself.
I myself did the same mistake. I loved that guy alot. Because of that love, it blinded me. It blinded my actions, my thinking and the worst thing of all, my heart. I gave him everything I had. I gave up my friends, my hobbys, even my family. We thought "its us against the world" but I never expected the world to be against me.
Being with him, I longed for the love I dearly seeked for. The love that was never there to begin with. The foolish youngness of my youth, thinking finding true love is the most important thing you must find. I was foolish, I know that now, but telling the 16 year old Vanessa what stupid thing she is doing, you wouldn't have gotten far.
Ann lost herself, I myself, lost myself. How could we be so foolish to not believe in the greater good?