5 October: 3 years later
(tw: relationship and sexual abuse, long term trauma, chronic health issues, depression, you name it)
Today marks the 3rd anniversary since I left an abusive relationship during which I pretty much destroyed and wore myself down only to the sexual and moral benefit of someone who never cared for me.
I lost all sense of being after, all my goals, all my love, all my care, everything; I became a blank slate -- blank due to everything built on top being demolished and forcefully scraped off my surface, defining my tattered self as one defined by harm, unaware of who I could trust anymore, what my goals were, what I was to do and be, but I knew that I was still here against all odds.
Yet in that state I realised I was not the only one in that situation, so I knew that if I had something to do it was fight and help for those in the same position as me. That journey lead me to meet wonderful people, including one that helped me get back up on my feet and serve me as a life tutor, but the scars of a past that had only happened a couple months ago kept showing and kept turning into spines.
By the time I realised what was going on and reflected on it, I was back where I started, maybe with more knowledge, more moral consistency and ideas, but I was down on my luck, so like last time, what did I have for myself other than to keep trying.
The year that ensued since is one that I hold as the proudest moment in my life yet also the most shameful and painful, I challenged myself to rebuild myself and "come back" to the place I once stood, to return and reign.
So I did, I became larger than I ever once was, I did so much, I fought for so much, I planned for so much, I became the best I have ever been.
But at the same time the divide of who I was professionally and personally grew wider, and it became clear what side I was fighting more for despite it all being part of me.
While functional, the foundation I had built myself upon was not foolproof, I moved too fast for my own good, I focused on materialistic things too much, and I trusted my own judgment more than I should've.
I started to not care for those around me, started from friendships being left out to them being exploited for my work, started to treat everyone almost like machines, and by the time I felt I was "ready" to love again, the only thing I accomplished was become the thing I swore to destroy and deviate from. I had become the abuser this time around.
And just like the abuser before me, my empire started to fall down, it started with people telling me to fuck off, I started to spend what I had in stupid things and clearly unfeasible investments -- unfeasible because of me in the first place, neglected those who I was suppose to service, and my ego only grew larger and saw it all as an attack.
By the time I came back to my senses and tried to turn the ship around, I was one stupid fucking idiot in debt and solitude.
The year after was just me trying to fix my past mistakes, but I never really finished in the first place, all I had become was a rat with my tail between my legs hiding from the consequences of my actions.
Every day I passed was a day where my anxiety and guilt consumed me, I could not move out of bed and do much beyond the same cyclic things I once did when I did in the point of disarray of my abuser. I had automated and perfected my own rotting and pain.
I tried at times, I searched for jobs, I started to write again, I started to maybe see what chances I could take on, but I always gave up on them and ghosted.
At one point I decided to force another reset, I started to prepare for it, knew what my passions and tools at my disposal were, knowing full well this could blow up on me harder than it did last time.
But by the time I started to move my pieces, heartstruck.
Ever since November 2025, I've been dealing with a variety of physical health issues, first it was my heart, then my ribs, then my blood itself, then my arms and hands, almost like domino everything in me started failing -- or rather, I finally noticed it was failing.
I initially swore when it all started happening that I would not get help and I would just keep pushing through as if a timer floated over my head ready to ring and take me away at any time, but my day to day kept getting more unbearable, and rather than my brain cooking my heart like it did in the past, it became the other way around.
Every day I felt anxious of what could happen, I feared doing long term plans, I planned legacies all the time, but keeping myself away of actually anything. I could not "suicide push" the way I wanted, and soon it was not my heart that became the main issue.
While clearly showing symptoms for a very long time, I've been recently fighting with arthritis more than anything, its been a force that keeps making every day of my life almost impossible to handle, my hands ache just from resting, my back prohibits me from so many positions, my knees don't let me go down stairs without handlebars without a lot of effort and getting on them can only bring down a pain I cannot describe other than a mix of physiological aching and stinging and psychological guilt and powerlessness.
And the worst part is all the drugs I've gotten for it never seem to work, and neither do doctors appointments that just keep ordering more blood tests and more x-rays while telling me to come back in 2 or 3 months, while all I can do is suffer.
All while the aforementioned emotional trauma keeps cooking me every day, I grieve all the time for the things I lost when my abuser entangled me, I get sink low and start crying when I try to get back into something like programming and my brain does nothing but freeze, I get flashbacks all the time of the fucked up messages from her telling me to kill myself, I remember the relationship that came after and miss the happiness and moments of it every day, then I remember why its not there anymore, and then I remember the actions I did to the one after and all I can do is trauma response out "I'm sorry" and "please forgive me" while my stomach feels like it wants to puke.
Every single day, its the same thing, loops of guilt, regret, stress.
And if that wasn't enough, I've been in a series of legal issues since early 2026, started from a single lawsuit, became multiple, then became multiple police investigations, reaching the point I was advised to not do anything publicly to not risk anything going wrong -- a systemic stalemate, something that my inner demons only feast more and more from.
I still cannot comment on them, will say all of my legal issues are not related between eachother but they are pressure and things I have to take care of with due pace and care.
Pressure also has been building up in my wallet, having moved out of my maternal home in May and having to support myself and my expenses while working minimum wage jobs and "basically charity" aid, for which every day I amount more and more debt as the result of ins not being enough to satisfy the outs.
Despite it all, I am still alive, and as terrible as it has been reading, some nice things have been happening.
For the last 9 months I've been in a relationship with someone who I care a lot about, and that despite a few rocks here and there due to eachothers issues has been a source of groundness and stability, specially since we moved together a few months ago.
I have also been going back into hobbies and things I abandoned, playing videogames is one of them, been playing a lot of Counter Strike, VRChat and Forza Horizon 6 in the past few months, which is a small repertoire of games but compared to me either never playing games or just playing Minecraft solo has been a breeze. Also have I started to take back up on previous musical projects I left dormant for a long time, which I think I will describe at some other time when I feel more confident of them. Photography has also been something that's recently been evermore so present in my life, specially instant photography which has been my new addiction (and money hole), which to branch also into another hobby I've been picking back up, I've been doing camera mods on old Polaroid 600s, started at doing I-type conversions and silly stickers but I want to keep experimenting (I-type conversion board for 18650 batteries soon trust).
At the same time I have started to work on my education and right now I am working on getting my computer systems engineering degree and planning on studying law in Spain, so I'm not all out of hope and future planning.
And of course, since October 2026 I've been writing a series of posts called Force Majeure, retelling pretty much everything here but with more detail and with a structure of that of a memoir. Its a string of posts that I initially started as one to remember the things I have lost but that slowly absorbed all my diary entries, call-out posts, commendations and go-fuck-yourselfmendations, etc. I originally planned to release the first part of it a while back but multiple difficulties (as you can probably guess from the preceding paragraphs) has been pushing it back more and more, I wanted to release the first part today (5 October) actually but yeah, right now I am aiming for a November release date. If anything this post itself serves as a prequel but also a spoiler, you decide how you look at it, but I just couldn't leave this day with nothing but a snarky Bluesky post with an Enter Shikari song.
Which, I would be doomed if I didn't try to slip in that I am devastated but also hopeful for the Enter Shikari split-but-also-not-its-a-hiatus-but-im-a-tally-hall-fan-and-i-have-ptsd-over-a-hiatus-announcement, and I'm planning on flying to the UK next year to attend at least one show (hopefully Alexandra Palace if they do one), this is one of if not my favourite band of all time and of course, this day but 3 years ago was when it consolidated a place in my life (getting a Sparky tattoo soon!!!).
So, its all been a doozy, I guess this is the first time in 3 years that I try to stand up for myself and retell my story, although a very watered down and summarised one focusing on where I've been and the effects of it. I still have more to say, and I still have more to do, and I am excited to keep trying and "retry" again, but for now I will say one thing:
I am Leila. Leila Sother. And I'm still here.
Thank you for reading.