In the summer of 2010, I gave my husband what can only be described as an exorcism, though I had no idea that’s what it was until years later. Maybe that’s too extreme a word- it has such a corny weight to it.

I promise there was nothing corny about it.

I have never spoken about that night to anyone. Not even to my ex. I’m not even sure how much I remember, if I’m honest.

But I do vividly remember the moment the energy of the room completely shifted. It was as if the ground poured into the sky, the air becoming a reverse waterfall.

Alex’s energy ripped violently out of my body, from so deep inside my belly that it felt audible. Like all my entrails followed him into the abyss. I was entirely spilled open.

And then it sounded like the seams of time itself burst open with cheers of relief and joy, all of the people who had put all this work into getting us to this moment finally vindicated.

I felt like I was spiraling down into a dark, horrible hole, the echoes of their victorious cheers like taunts of hatred to my ears. I felt like the only person in the entire Universe who didn’t want this outcome.

That night, my then-husband and I had sex for the first time in a long time, and it was………… traumatizing. Not because of anything he did, but because everything Alex had hidden inside me had come roaring to the surface. It was the first time I saw the full extent of my psychological damage.

That was the day my ex was reborn after five years of being used like a battery, a vehicle, a puppet.

It was also the day my house of cards collapsed around me, raining gore onto my face. This was the beginning of my worst period of mental health, and a two year long dark night of the soul.

It took almost a year just to unearth all he’d buried, and I think there is still more I’m too afraid to see. That I’m not sure is really necessary to see.

Do you have to put your hands inside the wounds to heal them?

I’ve thought a lot lately about how I would sit staring into space- completely switched off like a ragdoll- until someone else would come into the room. Alex would snap his fingers by my ear and say, “Sit up.” And I’d come back to life.

I was basically all alone with him for four entire years.

Oh, that poor little girl. She just wanted to be loved.

I promise, I promise- I will never give away my life to anyone ever again.