For the first time, I feel loved in my relationship. It’s a warm, unfamiliar experience. I remember chasing the wrong people, getting high off crumbs of validation. My ex Phoenix* told me I was a “glutton for punishment.” Maybe he was right. Maybe I was.

Growing up, I believed the words I'd hear that cut me. I was never enough. I often felt inadequate in the eyes of my loving but demanding immigrant parents who “sacrificed everything” for me.

A part of me yearned for criticism and even maltreatment in relationships because it felt familiar. If I’m never quite good enough for you and your unreasonable standards, you must be worth it. I should try harder.

But through my very painful relationship with Phoenix, I eventually found self-worth and learned the beginnings of self-love. I got tougher. I stopped taking bullshit. I started recognizing gaslighting, victim-blaming, manipulation, threats, intimidation, and other forms of emotional abuse hurled at me.

It took me more than two decades to recognize this kind of abuse that once felt so normal. Thrilling, even. Rewind back to spring of 2016, and I was in over my head.

***

I told Phoenix I fell in love with him the first time I heard his music. In retrospect, his songs were strikingly mediocre, and so was he. But, at the time, I wanted to believe so hard that he was perfect. A part of me idealized the “bad boy” “heroin chic” “music guy” type. I cringe even admitting this. I’ve since realized that there are no such thing as “bad boys” — just people who are bad for you.

Phoenix had very freshly gotten out of a “toxic relationship” with a partner he clearly still loved. She’s a woman I’ve since gotten to know, who is strong and lovely, and wrongly scapegoated by him. A part of me knew I’d be The Rebound. For whatever reason, I was okay with it. He was damaged, like me, and I wanted to be a healer.

Plus, he intrigued me before we dated. I remember how we played a show together, just once, both filling in for our friend Nate’s band on instrumentals. He’d pop up on my Facebook months later and catch my eye. I thought he was mysterious and cute, but I was in a relationship at the time. When I was out of that relationship, I checked his profile again and saw that he was now in a relationship. Okay, so that’s that, I thought to myself. Months later, I saw him on Tinder. I wasn’t even sure if I should swipe right, but I did, and we matched.

Apparently, Phoenix was still friends with Nate and he was living in Dayton, Ohio, about an hour away from where I was living in Cincinnati. We chatted on Facebook and he gave me his number. From there, the relationship moved quickly on all fronts. The first time we actually hung out, it was like a 50-hour hang out bender.

I went to a show he was playing with Nate, and he came over afterward and spent the night. We didn’t have sex or any physical intimacy. We explored my neighborhood at the time: the restaurants, music stores, vintage shops, and bars. We watched Marx Brothers, he gave me a drum lesson, we listened to music while we smoked on my roof. It was the best first date I’d ever had.

The next time we hung out was just as surreal. We went to the “420 Limp Bizkit” concert at a Sunoco gas station in Dayton (yes, for real.) It was a huge Internet joke event in the height of Facebook’s popularity with Millennials. It went viral and actually drew a crowd, along with some police officers (but Fred Durst was unsurprisingly not present). We did karaoke at a seedy dive bar and sang our favorite songs, replacing select words with “chili dog,” an inside joke of Phoenix’s, and spent the night in my car outside of a warehouse. It was so Dayton, so Phoenix, and so spur-of-the-moment.

Two months later, he was living with me.

***

Phoenix didn’t have a home, really. He was residing with a family for whom he had worked in the past, who would take him in like their son whenever he needed help. He was kind of their nanny, caring for their kids and working at their restaurant in exchange for food and housing. In the beginning, there were small red flags, but the way he interacted with those children made me decide that he was a good person. He connected with them: made them laugh, played with them, cared about them. He was truly a child at heart.

Sadly, the magic faded in an instant. Even though we became codependent — him, on my resources, and me, on his emotional validation — he was expressing signs of boredom around the time he moved in. He probably missed his ex. Maybe he missed heroin. I was neither of those two things that intoxicated him so much. So the criticisms began. My makeup didn’t look right. My nose ring was ugly. My outfits weren’t good enough. My music, film, and literary tastes weren’t sophisticated enough. Nothing I liked was “cool.” He didn’t want to go out with me. He didn’t want to meet my friends.

Every insult crushed my heart a little more than the last. I tried to change for him. I took out my nose ring, dressed differently, starting liking and supporting the same things he did, and even tried to be like his ex. None of it worked. It made both of us more miserable. It reminded me of all of the times I tried to be the perfect “golden child” for my parents, never asking myself what I wanted or who I was.

I’d always think back to those first 50 hours of our relationship and how extraordinary they were. And how they’d never come back. Six months later, Phoenix almost died from a heroin overdose. He didn’t because I saved his life.

You were far away, fading into a space of post-existence
Nothingness
Much like the pre-existence you’ll never remember
I hit your face again, hard
bits of mascara burning my red, wet eyes
smudges of black and gray finger paint
over the already dark bags of my eyes
You couldn’t hear me
The shade of blue on the tips of your fingers and lips
would’ve been aesthetically pleasing on a canvas
or a Home Depot color swatch
You were gasping for air both desperately
and faintly
You didn’t even know
“Ma’am, you’ll need to step out of the room”
I was in hysterics, a blur of racing thoughts
But you came back just in time
And then relief washed over me, the kind you get after sickness
like vomiting up all the liquor and pills and Taco Bell from the night before
They took you away for a few hours
Have you ever seen someone die?
I never thought I would until I did
And if it wasn’t for all the good, calming drugs I was on
I may have died too
But you came back that night
Now, things aren’t easy, but they never are
Existence is hard, and things are never totally okay
And that’s okay
It felt like religion
You died, and you may not know it, but you were reborn
And maybe it was all supposed to happen

***

I was a woman obsessed, before and after the overdose. I spent hours online reading about signs and symptoms of heroin addiction. Whenever Phoenix nodded off, I became suspicious. I felt like I had gone mad; every innocuous sign suddenly screamed RELAPSE to me. I searched every square inch of our bedroom for q-tip cotton or cigarette filters, used to “purify” the heroin; foils for smoking heroin off of; any paraphernalia like needles or spoons; powder; and little baggies or folded cards used to carry heroin, in the trash.

Yes, I was digging through the trash. I’d collect the suspicious items and interrogate Phoenix about them. Half the time, I was off base. This made Phoenix furious. He’d yell and scream at me, sometimes getting slightly physical. But the other half of the time, I was one hundred percent on point. There were signs of use found all around the house and in his eyes. They would be pinpointed into tiny dots when he was high. He would look at me, but actually look through me like the ghost I’d become.

A while later, Phoenix was gaslighting me into feeling legitimately insane. I was so anxious around him, walking on eggshells, that I would freeze. Sometimes I felt like I couldn’t even get words out. I would instantly agree with him, even if I knew he was wrong. I couldn’t bring up heroin because it “triggered” him. My mind was warped. Sure, I have bipolar disorder and go through phases of mania and depression. Sure, I sometimes have panic attacks and lose myself. I’m working on it, damnit.

To him, I was supposedly controlling, crazy, paranoid, neurotic, and my anxiety was “too much.” This translated into: not good enough, not good enough, not good enough… While he was in active addiction, I wanted to keep saving him. Another overdose could mean that it was indubitably the end. While I may have been exceptionally fearful, as codependent partners become, I truly wanted him to recover. I still wanted to be with him, because I saw the beauty in him, despite the toxicity of our relationship.

He didn’t want me. And now I know loud and clear — you can’t save someone who doesn’t want to be saved. Even if you technically save them from death.

***

I didn’t say no to trying heroin. Well, I did at first, until I finally gave in. I figured, hey, he’s promising he’ll quit soon. I’ll try it once… maybe twice… and perhaps it’ll improve things between us. I could loosen up. So I smoked a tiny bit of it for the first time in 2017, and it was this euphoric, light sensation that made me feel like I was floating. I was giddy, I was relaxed. I felt like dancing. Phoenix would pick me up and spin me around.

Suddenly, Phoenix and I felt like we were in love again. It was exactly what I wanted. We would lie in bed and smoke cigarettes, high. We would laugh and yell obscenities through the open window, our neighbors peeping in. Trash television was fun. Everything was fun.

I did such miniscule amounts of heroin just a few times that I never got hooked. I never experienced dope sickness or cravings. I never deeply suffered from my experimental use though I would, of course, heavily caution anyone from ever trying it. I was extremely lucky. And despite the trauma, I was lucky Phoenix overdosed, scaring the absolute shit out of me, causing me to never, ever want to use heroin or any dangerous street drug again.

But when I enabled him, I was suddenly alright. He enjoyed my presence. If I could pay for the drugs and drive us to his dealer, I was “cool.” I was enough. He had a lot of hangups about his ex, with whom he did heroin for months. He made it seem like it was her idea, and he romanticized their time spent on drugs together. It was apparent that he had actually convinced her to use, and she suffered from an eventual addiction and difficult withdrawal. I wonder, at times, if that would’ve been me, had Phoenix not overdosed.

***

One night, we drive to a part of town I’d never ventured to before. On the way, we stop to pick up his friend, Greg, who he met at a bus stop weeks ago. Greg was also an addict and the two bonded the way addicts do. They showed each other their track marks to verify they weren’t narcs. Phoenix would run away to Greg’s place to shoot up and I’d be freaking out and crying, searching for him on the streets.

After I was in on the secret, it was okay for me to meet Greg. We swing by and pick him up. Greg’s not the most intelligent guy, and doesn’t look like he’s in the best shape. Years of drug use sadly had something to do with that. His dealer has some potent stuff; way more potent than what Phoenix was previously getting. We drive out to a parking lot in a shady part of town to wait for the dealer.

We’re in the car playing The Velvet Underground’s “Waiting for My Man,” for ironic purposes. Phoenix and I share a laugh at this. The man was indeed keeping us waiting. I ask Greg if he likes The Velvet Underground and he says he’s never listened to them. I look around and we’re surrounded by cars in this parking lot. Absolutely surrounded, for such a desolate area. Clearly, Greg’s dealer had a lot of business and was well-respected for his services. He keeps us waiting for a good 45 minutes because he’s finishing up a pizza in his car. All the while, I’m praying we don’t get arrested or shot.

We get the stuff, finally, and split it with Greg. Phoenix and I go back home to our room and Phoenix fills up his syringe. I ask him if he thinks it’s safe. If we should get Narcan just in case. If he should try a tiny amount just to make sure it’s not too strong. He laughs at my concerns and tells me he’s been doing this for years. He was a fucking pro. He was going to put some on the foil for me to smoke, but he wanted to get his fix first.

He shoots up and I can see this sheer ecstasy course through his veins and shine on his face. He flexes in the mirror, in a way that scares me, with a confidence he doesn’t normally possess. He seems loopy, in a trance, and walks over to sit on the bed. Moments later, his eyes roll back and he is convulsing and turning blue.

While I’ll never forget those unfathomable moments, Phoenix only remembers flexing. And then waking up. The paramedics standing over him. A used Narcan container in the trash. The police come, and he stays calm.

“This is the last time, officer, I swear,” he says.

“How many times have you said that?” they ask.

I was in hysterics. They confiscate the drug paraphernalia and arrest Phoenix for only a few hours, likely due to his white privilege. He walked away with two misdemeanors and probation for a year.

But he was alive. I was certain, at first, I was going to have a dead body on my hands. What was I going to do? Would I go to jail? How would his family respond to this tragedy? What would my family do? How much would this fuck up my life? I love this person. He can’t die. He can’t die. He can’t die.

A million thoughts raced through my head when I screamed and bawled and slapped Phoenix in an attempt to snap him out of it. Those thoughts pounded through my head so quickly and so intensely, I thought I was going to pass out and die too. Fortunately, I was able to hold it together enough to make that life-saving call. Meanwhile, Phoenix slept peacefully.

And that is pretty much an analogy for our entire relationship.

***

On my 27th birthday, Phoenix and I had just broken up after a year-long relationship. It felt like a decade. I was crying pretty much every day, nonstop. Anything could trigger it. A flood of tears would erupt and I’d become this useless shell of a person. “Why couldn’t you just love me?” I pleaded with Phoenix over a call. “Because I’m sick.” He said. He was right. I was too. My sickness was that I couldn’t love myself, and desperately wanted to fix someone else so I wouldn’t have to fix myself.

I remember mostly sleeping, chain smoking, drinking, writing, and crying as coping mechanisms after the breakup. They weren’t exactly healthy, writing and crying aside, but I was at least able to thoroughly process my emotions. I processed my grief and trauma, extending farther back than just our relationship. I did a lot of introspection and reflection on my past, especially my childhood.

I finally realized that I am a person with needs, and that those needs matter above what any partner or parent or person demands of me. I realized I am worthy of love, even though the journey to self-love is long and windy, and perhaps never-ending.

It’s unreal to vividly remember idolizing a person who mistreated and hurt me so badly. I thought Phoenix’s potential, curious intellect, dark features, music knowledge, and street smarts were deeply attractive. Poetic, even. Who cares about institutions and corporate jobs and money? He didn’t need to be rich or college educated or have his shit together. Fuck the war on drugs. I convinced myself that he wasn’t that bad for me; that I needed someone like him to complete me.

Then, I woke up.

None of that mattered. I knew I would forever be wounded and incomplete with him in my life. With my hang-ups and inferiority complex consuming me. That slow revelation was my biggest sigh of relief. It was the first step in my healing journey.

As much as I wish I could say my love life was great after that, it wasn't. I’ve unfortunately been in other relationships that were terrible, before and after Phoenix. They weren’t as ostensibly dangerous, but were problematic in their own ways. But I learned. It took me a while — three long decades — but I learned.

My biggest relationship advice to anyone is this: if you’re unhappy in a way that feels irreparable, please leave. Don’t wait for the person to change. Don’t hope that things will get better over time. If you are hurting and depressed from your relationship, please move on. If you’re being abused, mistreated, or disrespected, please get out. You deserve love.

Love builds you up. It inspires you. It pushes you and your partner to become the best versions of yourselves, together and apart. It’s secure and it’s home. Love shouldn’t hurt. It doesn’t hurt. I know this now. It’s a warm but unfamiliar feeling that I think I can get used to.

*Name has been changed