There is a lot I want to talk about, my dear readers, friends... lovers? Beautiful strangers.
But let’s just take it easy and keep going ahead one step at a time. I’ve been working on myself madly, endlessly, painfully, and now that I slow down I realise that most of the gluey, muddy, heavy trauma left my bones and it pearls my skin when I allow myself to cry and get angry, and then I shower and wash it off and then I feel good. There is still so much work to do, and the more I do the more I realise how fucked up some of the people I considered friends and loved ones are, were, probably will be, but not to me, not anymore but not because I learned how to get rid of them. I’ll explain.
I am still processing recent and old abuse I had to endure. I don’t know why it is so difficult to get out of it when you are in it, it really makes you blind, you try really hard to see the good, you think someone loves you but they don’t. That is not love. That is control... And maybe the abusers themselves were once victims but I can’t justify fucked up behaviour all the time because there would be nothing left of me. I ended up in an enmeshed and co-dependent relationship twice in my life, the other times I was quick at leaving a situation before it became abusive and it wasn’t because I’ve seen it happen before, it wasn’t because I learned it, it was only because I listened to my gut and used all my strength to leave, and it was because I had my friends close to me, giving me some honest perspective on what love really is by just loving me unconditionally.
When abuse was open and almost physical, it was easy, because I’d see it; N would sometimes get aggressive and shout at me, breaking all possible communication and denying me my right to speak, I’d find myself crying in the bathroom because I had nothing else left to do, but he then would come and comfort me, and that was really confusing because he was the reason I was crying. Some other times he would never come and I would cry for hours and then finally call my best friend and she’d send me an Uber to go to hers, and I’d stay there for days.
Other times, abuse was psychological and sneaky, and that fucked me up the most. I sometimes would be very nervous because of my PMS and he would poke me on purpose, say provocative things until I’d react almost out of my control and then he’d gaslight me and say that I was a bad person because I used my PMS as an excuse to be mean to him and that it wasn’t right to pour my nervousness and distress onto him just because he was the closest to me human. After few weeks, I started going for long walks on the days prior my period so I was sure our contact was reduced to minimum. Guilt trip was on the top of our dynamic, any time I didn’t do something he wanted me to do, he’d point out the fact that that’s not how a family works and that I had a distorted perception of unity because my family is dislocated between Kazakhstan and Italy, basically. I would say that my family is just not co-dependent and “no” is a word we use between us if there is something we don’t want to do and we are not forced to do things just because we are family. But because we lived in his family’s flat, I always felt like I owed him whatever I could because I didn’t have enough money to contribute, and maybe that was the perfect trap, and I am sorry I didn’t make an effort to pull myself out earlier. But it just didn’t happen and I don’t know why, and at this point it doesn’t matter. I want to forgive myself for taking so much time to understand and leave. And I want to be proud of myself for ending it and rebuilding my life all by myself. And you know why I was finally able to move out? Because I delivered my first film for Erika Lust and I got my final payment and I spent it all in the deposit for the new place, the moving, the rent… Again, p*rn kinda saved me?
I have hundreds of moments like this, I could write a little book and I’m sure it wouldn’t sound new to many of you. Now that we are out, we see it. And there were very nice moments too but they are so blurry and confusing in my head. I don’t know what is my truth and what is the reality he wanted me to see, so I just need to let go and stay the fuck away. I thought I was being a bit melodramatic but he got back in touch few weeks ago, after me explicitly asking him not to because I wasn’t ready to talk again yet, and I freaked out. I didn’t know how to reply to his desire to see me and have a friendly chat, and him talking about how his life now is pretty good and how much of a better person he is and that it would be nice to see who I am now. Any time we reconnected after the break up, I felt like shit and I thought I was just processing the end of a love relationship, and maybe partly I was but it is not normal to feel so intoxicated every time. I got that message and my brain was instantly filled with memories and some unknown fear, a gut feeling, a pinch of adrenaline flowing through my spine. I started thinking that I was a bad person because I didn’t want to respond. I am still processing the abuse and he still has some influence on me because he did his dirty and manipulative game well and I still struggle to see it completely for what it was. Hoss pointed out to the fact that perhaps it wasn’t a good idea to meet N, I’ve just got a text message and my whole world was stained with his essence, what would happen if I’d see him in person? Also, I think there is an important factor to consider, and it’s that I was just as dependent on N as he was on me and he still is and the fact he doesn’t have any control over my life anymore must be jarring. He doesn’t miss me as a person, he misses controlling someone’s emotions.
This lasted a couple of years and it started as a friendship and in retrospect I can see the toxicity in our friendship too, it was already there, and then it was in me, and it still is but my friends’ support and the love Hoss shows me everyday are replenishing the poison in my veins with this fresh and vital elixir that will stay and then grow, and pour out and I’ll be able to help other people, and I hope that me talking about these things will make some of you realise that you are not alone, you are not crazy and you did nothing wrong and you’ll be shining in all your greatness again, I already see the sparkle!
I am scared he is going to read this and attack me but I am more scared of leaving this energy rot inside me and ruin my life, and I’ve only got one and there is a lot I want to do in the best of ways. I want to be me, pure in my own darkness. Maybe one day we will talk, for me... and for him because everyone deserves a chance to know what they’ve done wrong. Or maybe not. I don’t know.
Speaking of.
When I was twenty two, I started dating M, I was so in love, so madly, stupidly, unexplainably, endlessly, deeply in love. It only lasted four or five months but it disastrously derailed my sexual energy. Our dynamic was manipulative and controlling from his side, to the point there was nothing left of me and he broke up with me because I became a needy, sobbing, confused, co-dependent mess and it took me two years after that to function properly again on my own. I think that was when I shut down and transformed into a repressed human being; all the fire, the kink, the darkness, the constant horniness and desire were put to sleep and would rarely wake up and when they would I’d get so scared I’d dissociate.
I remember once giving him a blowjob, and it was going all well, I then pulled my panties down and that somehow annoyed him and we had to stop, and he said it looked like I was pretending that I was enjoying it by trying to seduce him with that gesture. Confusing, right? He then took advantage of the occasion to tell me that he never had to stimulate someone’s clit so hard and fast, so maybe it just meant I wasn’t that horny. I felt so intrinsically wrong, any time I would then masturbate on my own I would die in guilt and shame because the only way I could cum was if I touched myself hard and fast but he said it wasn’t normal. If someone said that now, I’d suggest them go educate themselves, but back then I was still learning about my sexuality, I was vulnerable and permeable. And I am still permeable today! But I am my own now.
One day we were about to go grocery shopping, I put on a pair of black shorts, a tshirt, tights, black boots, a coat. He asked me if I thought it was appropriate to go like that to the supermarket but also added there was no time to change, so I walked to the supermarket in shame and then sobbed uncontrollably on the way back, until he stopped me, sat me on a bench, apologised and said that what he meant was that I looked too sexy and provocative and that that would distract him from the task and he really would rather fuck me. And he did, as soon as we got home, he put me on the bed, pulled my shorts down and fucked me in the ass, and the worse thing is that I liked it physically but my brain was fuck knows were dealing with guilt and shame.
I think that I don’t have to explain how events like this, and oh there were so many, defined my sexual life in the years to come.
Few years after our break up, we met again, we fucked and it was friendly and nice, and I still had no clue I’ve been abused but I felt this knot in my throat. One evening we were hanging out in my living room, it was dark and cosy, only the street lights filtering through the curtains, I was looking at him and he was sipping on some cheap whiskey. I told him that he smelled different because of the amount of alcohol he was consuming on a daily basis, totally irrelevant element because that was not what I wanted to talk about but I realised that he didn’t know. He didn’t know that he didn’t smell good, he didn’t know that whiskey and writing became an addiction, he didn’t know that two years before he abused me psychologically and probably to some degree even physically. So I talked. And I talked. And I cried. And I talked and talked and talked. And he listened, in shock at first and then just in distress and sadness. I don’t know if it was genuine but he seemed sorry, not only for doing those things to me but for not even realising he was doing that.
Don’t get me wrong, most of these individuals know what they’re doing to at least some level, and if you take your chance to tell them they’ll deny, gaslight or make excuses and carry on manipulating reality. But I like to think that some of them are just human beings on the wrong path, and I am not there to change them but if we run together for some time and I end up a victim of something they do so automatically, I am going to point it out. For me. Not for them.
And with M it worked. I felt better and I hope with all my heart that he’s never been that way with other people after me speaking up about what he’s done.
N? He’s so unaware and evil, I am still too scared. In general, it is for me terrifying to talk to people that don’t feel anything, they just learn behaviour and archive a list of emotions that they interchange depending on the situation, and sometimes they are very good actors. I want to change the world but I am not stupid.
Back to you, my beautiful readers, I want to thank you for reading my blog, and for your emails and messages, and talks, and support, and for sharing your stories too. I think I am in full on healing process so I am not always able to talk about bright and positive things but I will always try to fill my pages with hope and honesty, and remember that you have my support too! Always.
Dark blessings,
Nina
If you want to know a little bit more about my creative process, know more about the photos you see in my blog and get a bit closer and be part of my community, please remember to subscribe to my newsletter here: