Buzzkill thread follows

There was a time not many years ago that I was in an abusive relationship.

As I understand is pretty common, the abuser's behavior went from problematic to scorched-earth nuclear when I tried to leave the relationship.

What originally moved the relationship from bearable to unbearable was my abuser perceived they were losing control over me, and started lashing out more and more desperately trying to reassert that control (in the process driving me further away, ultimately ending that control).

But there was a point where my abuser was still escalating their attempts to keep me under control, but I had escaped far enough away they could no longer directly do anything to me. At this point their angry gestures started to feel almost comical. Sad. Pathetic.

I worry I was kind of a drag on my friends at the time. I kept going into "Oh Did I Tell You About" tirades listing the latest baffling and outrageous thing the abuser had done. It was all so *unreasonable*. They'd lost the ability to mask the things they did to me as reasonable.

It felt good, at first, to be able to name it as what it was. I was no longer in a place where my abuser could dictate reality. It felt good to assert reality, to be able to point at something they did or said and say: No, that's *bullshit*. I can see now why it is bullshit.

But after the initial rush, it started feeling completely hollow. It did not feel specifically good anymore to be able to perceive why my abuser was wrong. Eventually their designs against me started failing, badly, and this did not in itself feel good either.

"It wasn't funny anymore."

Here is what I eventually realized: My abuser losing did not mean me winning. Winning, for me, was *freedom*. Freedom, winning, meant getting to a place where I no longer had to know or care if my abuser was winning or losing.

What my abuser wanted was to be the center of my universe. And gloating about my abuser failing was just another way of centering them. It was judging my happiness by their standards.

What I had to do in order to win was learn to center myself. Judge success by *me* succeeding.

This was all made more so because my abuser was of the type that wielded anger, "hurt", as a tool to get what they wanted out of situations. They could manufacture "hurt" for tactical advantage. In retrospect, I'm not sure all of those were real emotions.

It is probably unhealthy to feel joy that you have made another person angry. But never mind that even!

What's the point in feeling good to know that someone is angry, when you also know that person's anger is *performative*?

Do you see the analogy I am making here? You see it, right? I feel like I am not being subtle.

I don't feel happy tonight. He has lost. Unquestionably, finally, he has lost. It does not feel like we won.

It is good, that Donald Trump has been banned from Twitter. It is good he is maybe-for-real-this-time getting impeached. These things should have happened earlier.

This isn't winning. At best it is avoiding harm. He will not be able to do some harm to us he otherwise might have.

I want to win. I want something good to happen. I want freedom.