Member-only story
Not ‘All Apologies’
What it looks like when a toxic person is incapable of apologizing
It was almost two years until I got to the point where I was having an emotional breakdown, wailing into my hands as I knelt on my living room floor. I was utterly destroyed, and the person responsible was the person I loved more than anyone on the planet. It had been a long time since I had considered harming myself, but in that moment it was only the thoughts of my children that kept me tethered to this world.
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I couldn’t believe my luck when I first started talking to Sidney. She was beautiful, brilliant, accomplished, compassionate, and was into me in a way that I’d never experienced before in my life. Her sense of humor was incredibly sharp, and she seemed to be able to talk about nearly anything.
This was, of course, not to last. Anyone familiar with the cycle of abuse knows that this is the love bombing phase, as intoxicating as it is brief. It wasn’t long before we found ourselves in a dispute about our positions on a current hot-button social topic.
The crux of the argument was around the participation of transgender women in sports. She was adamant that there was no room for them at higher levels of competition due to safety concerns. My position was that it was an…
