During the last few weeks of my relationship, after my partner announced that he was leaving and told me I had been sent into his life by Satan to destroy his soul with my sexuality, he would no longer take calls from me or answer texts, even when I had promised him I wouldn't talk about ANYTHING other than splitting up our finances and closing out our joint accounts. And when I insisted, he would call me crazy and tell me I was mentally unstable and that he was terrified of what I would do to him, so he would bring his father with him or have his father listen in on our phone conversations. He said he needed a witness because I had become such a danger to him.

I only share this to say that there is little that hurts more than the person you loved in every way treating you as if you are a bomb about to go off - even when you didn't earn it. That is some next-level gaslighting. The scars from that never go away.

And the ice house... Or my witch's house in the woods... These are the refuges of resignation. The sanctuaries of surrender. When there is literally NOTHING left, NOTHING that can be done, when we have lost every last bit of power - that is all that is left. Those structures that hold us while we wait out the storm. And when we come out afterwards, the landscape is unrecognizable.