why try to control me if you didn’t even want me fully?
a therapy session
Girlhood is: free therapy with ChatGPT. Girlhood is: figuring out why I’m bloated. Girlhood is: buying a new lip product every week in lieu of nice groceries (i will gladly eat pasta every day if it means i can get a new lip gloss). Girlhood is: being strategic about the friends you make (who can get me free ___). Girlhood is: kicking yourself for hooking up with the bartender because, of course, it ended badly and of course, you don’t get free wine anymore.
Girlhood is: budgeting for your next nail appointment. Girlhood is: wondering what would have happened if you did, in fact, get pregnant with your ex’s baby. Girlhood is: not being able to shake the feeling that he did all of that on purpose. Girlhood is: always feeling like someone’s entertainment. always feeling on display. Girlhood is: ignoring the stares. Girlhood is: not internalizing outer perception.
Girlhood is: ghostin (the instrumental version) on repeat. Girlhood is: one rose candle lit. Girlhood is: 10 pm on a monday evening. Girlhood is: telling all of your secrets to a robot.
Do you feel like you made peace with what happened… or is part of you still sitting in that moment, wondering about the "what ifs"?
The what-ifs. He would get very controlling, even if he didn't intend to be. But whenever he would feel me slip away, I felt that he would do certain things that he knew would keep me in his orbit.
It sounds like he had this push-pull dynamic: afraid to lose you, but also unsure how to handle his own feelings without trying to control the situation… or you. That can keep you caught in a loop of longing and resistance — of almosts and what-ifs.
And it makes perfect sense that you're stuck in those what-ifs, because those moments when he reached for you — when he cried, when he said it was special — they felt so genuine. They probably were. But even real love isn’t always healthy love. Sometimes the parts that make us feel seen and wanted are also the parts that blur the line between connection and control.
Where I'm struggling is - with the control he needed to have over me. There are nights and moments that play in my mind - where I wondered why he was trying to control me, if he had no intention of pursuing a real relationship.
Control, especially in someone who’s emotionally uncertain, often isn’t about love in its pure form — it’s about fear. Fear of losing something valuable without being ready or willing to commit to it. It's like he didn’t want to fully choose you, but he also couldn’t bear to lose the version of you that loved him. So he held on — not through open arms and mutual respect, but through subtle or not-so-subtle ways of keeping you close: guilt, pressure, maybe even confusing affection. And that left you in a kind of emotional limbo.
Do you feel like you’ve fully named to yourself what his control looked like — or do some parts of it still feel confusing or hard to call out for what they were?
Very hard to call out for what they were.
When control comes wrapped in affection, or when it’s mixed with softness and apologies, it can be so hard to untangle. It doesn’t always show up as yelling or obvious manipulation — sometimes it’s more like quiet pressure, guilt trips, or that look that makes you second-guess your own decisions. And because you cared so much about him, it probably felt easier at the time to smooth it over than to name it as control.
Sometimes it’s only in hindsight — when the noise dies down — that you start to see how many of your choices were being shaped by what he needed, what he was okay with.
Moments like that might seem small in isolation — but they create this emotional atmosphere where you're constantly walking on eggshells, hyper-aware of how your actions might be misinterpreted. That’s not just jealousy. That’s possessiveness trying to wear the mask of affection or protectiveness.
It also sounds like he may have had a deep insecurity — and instead of working on that within himself, he projected it onto you. Like you had to make yourself smaller, less expressive, less free, just so he could feel more secure. And that’s not love being shared — that’s love being policed.
Yes. I know I needed to walk away. But what I can't wrap my head around is - why it was always in the physical ways he would choose to control me. He would go days without speaking to me, but when we were together - he would go to lengths to be like, "you are mine."
That contradiction is so hard to live with — and to make sense of after the fact. It’s like he couldn’t show up for you emotionally, consistently, or with clarity… but the moment you were in front of him, physically present, he needed to possess you. Not love you gently or hold you close in a way that feels safe — but to claim you. Mark you as his. As if your body was where he felt power, even if your heart was slipping away.
Do you think he ever really saw you — like, the whole you — or just the version of you he wanted to keep close?
I think he did actually see me. And I'm a writer, and I write so much about him. The good, the bad, the ugly. And he...loves it. Even when he cried, he was like, “Are you going to tell everyone that I cried?” And before I could respond he goes, “It’s okay. It’s your art.” And he has never stopped me and has only championed me.
That adds such a layered dimension to everything — that he saw you, not just in the romantic sense, but in your art, your expression, your voice. That he let you write your truth, even the painful parts, and never tried to censor you — maybe even encouraged it. That kind of emotional permission can feel so validating, and confusing too, when it comes from someone who also hurt you.
It sounds like, in some strange way, he respected your mind more than he could handle your heart — or your autonomy. Maybe he couldn’t hold you emotionally in real life, but he could admire the version of you that bloomed when you were putting all that pain and beauty onto the page.
And for a writer — for you — that connection through your work, through being witnessed, can be more intimate than anything physical.