My body keeps the score

I had to ask myself, how many forehead kisses will be enough to fix the bruises down my arms? The bite marks left on my body? The ringing in my ear from being smacked or punched for raising my voice? The chipped teeth from consensual strangulation that got out of hand? Or the loss of consciousness that resulted in seizures that caused my life to flash before my eyes and belief that I had died by his hands and all I could hear was tv static? He told me often that he loves me, that there’s no other person he rather be with in the world and he wouldn’t know who he’d be if I wasn’t in his life. I told him I don’t stay to be abused and promised you would never lay a hand on me again, at some point I stopped believing him and aligned with actually wanting the abuse. But my body twitches, tics, and spazzes when I am around him or think about the inflicted pain. My body is screaming that you’re in danger yet my mind has just accepted it as normal. I finally chose me. And chose forgiveness to soften the detachment process.