The Imprint

Author’s note:

This is a part of my life I rarely revisit. Even now it is more than I want to remember or feel. I sobbed while writing it. It was terrifying and impacted me for decades.

The Imprint

I was 16 the first time someone made me feel beautiful.

He called me princess.

He looked at me like I mattered.

He welcomed me into his family like I belonged somewhere.

And if you didn’t know what my life felt like before that, you might not understand how big that was.

I hadn’t been hugged at home in I don’t know how long.

I wasn’t told I was loved, other than by mom from a distance.

I didn’t feel like I belonged anywhere.

I was overweight,

self conscience,

shy, sweet, and kind.

So when he chose me, it didn’t just feel good.

It felt like everything.

I didn't know that could be dangerous.

At first it was okay.

And then it wasn’t.

And then it became something I didn’t have language for.

He started drinking at 17 and it was like watching someone disappear and something else take over.

There was no predictability.

No safety.

No ground.

He would cry.

He would rage.

He would come home covered in blood and I didn’t know if it was his or someone else’s.

I didn’t know what version of him I was going to get.

I didn’t know what I was supposed to do.

I didn’t know how to ask for help.

I didn’t know how to leave.

I just knew I couldn’t lose the only place I had ever felt chosen.

There is something I need to say clearly because for a long time, I didn’t even say it to myself.

I was terrified.

Not uncomfortable.

Not confused.

Terrified.

I lived in a constant state of not knowing what was going to happen, who I was going to get, or how bad it could become. My body was always bracing. Always scanning. Always trying to stay one step ahead of something I couldn’t control.

And I was completely alone in it.

No one came in and pulled me out.

No one showed me how to leave and actually be safe.

So I stayed inside something that scared me, and I tried to manage it the best I could.

I tried to break up with him once.

He cut his wrist open in front of me.

Another time he punched a hole in the wall.

Those moments don’t just scare you.

They trap you.

Because leaving doesn’t feel like freedom.

It feels like escalation.

So you stay.

Not because you want to.

But because your body is trying to survive something it doesn’t understand.

And because I didn’t have anyone helping me make sense of it, I did what a lot of young girls do when something is too big:

I blamed myself.

I thought there was something wrong with me for being in it.

For not being able to leave.

For loving someone who scared me.

I felt broken.

And whether it was said outright or not, I carried the feeling that my family blamed me too.

There wasn’t a sense of protection.

There was a quiet sense that I was on my own—and that somehow, this was mine to fix.

I was in it from 16 to 19.

The only way I got out was when he stole my car in the middle of the night, totaled it, and went to jail.

That’s what it took.

Not a clean decision.

A forced ending.

I moved.

I got a new car.

I tried to start over.

And then one night at 2am, he was in my bedroom.

He had no idea where I lived.

I still don’t exactly know how he found me.

He covered my car in flowers he ripped out of public planters.

He left a binder full of love letters on my porch.

It might sound romantic.

It wasn’t.

It was terrifying.

I would run into him in town and he would try to hug me.

And I didn’t know I could say no.

That’s what it does to you.

It doesn’t just make you afraid of someone.

It teaches you that their needs matter more than your boundaries.

For years, I had nightmares.

In them, I couldn’t get away from him.

I kept everything in my life locked down and private, like if I was careful enough, he would never be able to find me again.

I wouldn’t even say his name out loud—like he was Voldemort—like speaking it might somehow bring him back.

That’s how much fear lived in my body.

He never hit me.

So for a long time, I told myself it wasn’t that bad.

But terror doesn’t have to leave bruises to change you.

What it did was teach my body something very specific:

That love could feel like being seen and chosen…

and also like fear, chaos, and not being able to escape.

It took me years to understand that.

Yesterday, for the first time in my life, I talked about this—really talked about it—with my mom.

And she understood.

She understood what I had grown up without.

She understood what I needed so badly at that time.

She understood that neither she nor my dad were equipped to protect me.

For decades, I’ve been trying to fix what that relationship did to me—

without ever fully acknowledging how deeply it actually wired me.

I don’t share this story with many people.

But I shared it with someone special later in life.

He listened.

And then he told me his goal was to make me feel safe, warm, and cherished.

He used words of safety.

Trust.

Consistency.

And he worked hard for my love, trust, openness, and vulnerability.

And I believed him.

Not because I was naive—

but because those were the exact things my soul needed.

After years of self protection I finally opened up to someone.

But he wasn’t safe.

He was a wolf in sheep’s clothing.

He used those words to draw me in, to disarm me, to access the deepest parts of me that still carried that old imprint.

And then he used me—for his own wants, his own needs, his own desires—without real care for the impact of his actions.

What makes that kind of violation so painful isn’t just what happened.

It’s how hard I worked to get there.

I worked for years to open myself back up after what I went through as a teenager.

Years to trust again.

Years to believe that I could have something safe.

And I gave him access to that.

And I don’t even know if I had fully worked through the level of pain from what happened when I was younger.

Because what that first relationship did was wire something deep into me:

That love could feel like being seen and chosen…

and also like fear, chaos, and not being able to escape.

That you could be adored and endangered at the same time.

So when someone showed up later—polished, successful, respected—

with kind words and steady language and promises of safety…

I wanted to believe him.

But this time, I see it clearly.

Not just what he did.

But why it reached me.

I don’t live there anymore.

I don’t have nightmares.

I have boundaries.

I know I can say no.

But that imprint?

It shaped me.

Not because I was weak.

But because I was 16, and I was learning what love was from someone who turned it into something dangerous.

And now, I understand something I didn’t before.

I wasn’t broken for what I went through.

I wasn’t weak for staying.

And I wasn’t foolish for believing someone who promised me safety.

I was a 16-year-old girl who learned what love felt like inside fear.

And I’ve spent years learning the difference.