I miss my abuser

I miss my abuser. And right now, where I am in life, I do not think there is a single thing I would not give up just to have him back. Even after all the pain. Even after all the damage he left behind.

On paper, it sounds unhinged to admit such a thing. To miss someone who, by definition, fractured you. To yearn for the person who carved wounds deep enough to earn that title. Yet for me it is a truth that sits quietly behind every thought. Calling him my abuser is still a new, trembling language on my tongue. I am only now, almost five years later, beginning to face the weight of what he did.

Sometimes saying it out loud still feels wrong. It feels like I am rewriting a story I once convinced myself was love. Was that truly all he was? A wound shaped like a boy? He hurt me, yes. Hurt me so deeply his words have become ghosts that settle behind my ribs and whisper their poison whenever I try to breathe. Hurt me so completely that I still assume no one really wants to hear me, that no one truly wishes for me to open up. Because somewhere inside, a cruel echo keeps repeating the things he once said. That I am annoying. That I am too much. That I talk too much about wanting to die. That I am a stupid girl who should learn to stay quiet. A voice that insists he had reasons. That I was the problem. That perhaps I *am* unlovable, and he only ever spoke the truth. That without him I am less than the dirt stuck to someone’s shoes.

He cheated, then swore it did not count, since he never did anything he could not twist into innocence. He told me he would end his life, then vanished for days or weeks, ignoring every call while I sat there terrified. He love bombed me until he became the single thread holding up all my happiness, then let it snap as if I were nothing more than a childish mistake. I believed every word he fed me. It did not matter if those words were venom or honey. I swallowed them all.

But those were not the only memories he left behind. He could be gentle, impossibly kind, the first voice I reached for whenever the world broke at my feet. We never once saw each other’s faces in real time, yet somehow I spent years carrying the sound of his voice inside my chest. We talked. We played games. We fell asleep on calls that stretched from dusk to dawn. I could call him at three in the morning, sobbing, only to hear him soothe me with a softness that felt unreal. With those stupid dad jokes that never made sense. The time zones helped, with him seven hours behind, and I never felt guilty for needing him. He made me feel loved. Sometimes so intensely that I felt like the brightest star in the sky, one he claimed he could always find.

And still, calling him my abuser feels like I am exaggerating my pain. As if I am dressing up my memories in heavier clothing than they deserve. Because at the end of it all, he was just an online boyfriend. Nothing physical. Nothing that left bruises on skin. And some part of me whispers that emotional wounds are not real enough, not valid enough, not strong enough to call abuse.

I gave him more trust than he ever earned, though I did not know any better. I was a child, barely twelve when our paths crossed, still stumbling through 7th grade. He was only a year older, so nothing about it seemed wrong from the outside. Yet even now I struggle to put the damage into words. It always feels foolish when I try. Foolish to admit that a boy I never once saw in real life could ruin me so deeply. Foolish to confess that his voice alone became enough to shape the way I breathed.

Sometimes I wonder if my mind has twisted the truth. When I look back at our messages, I cannot pretend I was perfect. I was messy and scared and far from gentle. But I never acted like I was holy. I never asked to be worshipped the way he asked to be. I still do not know if I left marks on him, the way he left marks on me. I do not know if he carries bruises shaped like my name, or if I ever carved a wound into him that refuses to close.

What I do know is this. I am still here, held together by thin threads after being cracked open by a boy who never touched me. Still here, five years later, trying to understand how someone who lived behind a screen could shatter me in ways I am only beginning to recognise. Trying to breathe through the ache he left behind, learning the language of hurt one quiet confession at a time.

So yes. I miss my abuser. And I do not think there is a single thing I would not give up just to have him back. Even after all the pain. Even after all the damage he left behind.