by Anna Akana
He shamed me for past relationships or decisions. He’d control my friendships, telling me which friends he approved of and which ones he no longer wanted me to see. He’d belittle my accomplishments and projects. He was always right and I was always wrong.
Over the course of our two-and-a-half-year relationship, he isolated me from my friends and family. I couldn’t imagine a life where we weren’t together because he was all I had. I was so deeply entrenched that I felt like I was going crazy.
I’m not an innocent victim in all this. I was a willing participant in this relationship. And I wasn’t perfect. I’d often lie and tell him what I thought he wanted to hear. (I was afraid of his anger, but that’s not an excuse.) I’m sure when he tells the story of our relationship, he has a very different perspective on it. I doubt he ever meant to be malicious. Maybe he just wanted a trophy wife, someone to stand behind him instead of beside him. But that’s not me.
I recently talked to a friend who just got out of an emotionally abusive relationship. She told me that at one point she’d tried to break up with her boyfriend, and he raped her. I was speechless. She nodded slowly and said it had taken her a long time to be able to say that. It’s taken her a very long time to accept the label of what happened to her. She had always thought of rape as “a stranger attacks you in a dark alley and you scream but no one can hear you.” She never thought it would be her boyfriend, forcing himself on her as her body shut down and her mind went elsewhere to protect itself.
She said that even after that incident, she was hesitant to call the relationship abusive. I understood. When you’re in the trenches, you become detached from reality. You don’t know what’s right or wrong. You’ve been told “you’re crazy, you’re overreacting” so many times, you start to believe that’s the truth.
If you think you may be in an abusive relationship, get some distance and seek support from a therapist or your friends. The sooner you can clear your head, the better you can judge whether or not your relationship is toxic, codependent, abusive, or something else.
After I’d had enough time away from Cameron, I recognized when I analyzed his actions with my therapist that I’d been in a verbally/emotionally abusive relationship. He was constantly yelling at me, whether it was a demand (shut the fuck up) or an insult (you don’t know what you’re fucking talking about) or to cuss at me (see previous two). He made fun of me, insulted my ideas, made negative comments about people I loved, dismissed as jokes remarks that offended me, treated me like a child, was emotionally unavailable, and would disengage whenever it suited him. And to top it all off, his favorite pet name for me was “faggot.”
I was nervous when I approached him about certain topics, felt the need to tell him about innocent events in case he heard about them through other people and accused me of lying, and felt misunderstood for most of our relationship. He made me doubt my sanity and my intelligence.
I stayed for as long as I did because I hoped he would change. I wanted us to go back to the honeymoon phase. I was holding on to the hope that the guy I’d first met would return. But without long-term therapy and a willingness to change, abusive relationships don’t get better. Partners who yell and cuss at you won’t suddenly stop. The jealousy, resentment, blaming, and entitlement don’t magically go away. If you find yourself making excuses for hurtful behavior—he’s working on a deadline, he’s worried about family stuff, he just feels like everything is out of control—hit pause for a minute. If the situation were reversed, is that how you would deal with stress? How you would regain control? If you wouldn’t do it, stop making those excuses.
I’ll never forget one of the last things Cameron ever said to me: “You’ll never be happy with a nice guy. That’s not enough for you.”
He couldn’t have been more wrong.
Nice Guys Don’t Finish Last
They say you can’t choose who you fall in love with.
But you can.
Think about it. It may seem like you’re automatically drawn to bad boys and assholes, but take a step back and you’ll see how wrong that is. Everywhere you look, movies and books and TV are teaching us that more conflict means more passion. That you should completely change who you are to be in a relationship with John Travolta in Grease. That unless you’re crying, you’re not feeling.
I wish the advice I’d gotten when I was younger was to find a man who adores me. To find a man who will make a good dad. To find someone who radiates kindness, is reliable, and cares for others. These qualities are always going to result in a more loving, fulfilling relationship.
Last year I found myself in the healthiest relationship of my life. My boyfriend, Brad, is a man who has no agenda. He’s transparent, kind, and funny. He fights for what he believes in. He’s calm but firm in times of crisis or confrontation. He’s the kind of guy who would be portrayed in movies as the nice guy who just doesn’t quite have chemistry with the lead, who’s outshined by the other guy, the one who keeps her guessing. The one she fights like mad with.
That makes for good entertainment. But in real life? It’ll make you miserable.
Sure, Brad and I fight, but there’s none of the screaming and crying and storming out that I used to associate with passion. It’s calm and reasonable and full of understanding. I’m not walking on eggshells around him. I can be completely honest without the fear that he’ll walk out on me. It’s the kind of relationship that makes me wake up and realize, “Oh. This is exactly what I want my life with someone to be like.”
Several of my friends are now finding partners like this. Nice, good men who adore you. Who treat you well and are affectionate and kind. Who are understanding when you’re stressed. Who are endlessly supportive. They’re men who brag about your accomplishments to everyone who will listen. The kind who trust you, no matter where you are or who you’re with, and vice versa.
A friend of mine recently got married. At her wedding, she credited her mom for her successful relationship: “Early on, my mother told me, ‘Find a good man who will always treat you well. Even when the fireworks are gone.’ ”
When I was a teenager and even in my early twenties, I never thought that I would fall for someone who was so transparent. What you see is what you get with Brad, and what everyone sees is a kind soul. I grew up believing that these sensitive and attentive men were all wrong. That you should be chasing some brooding, emotional man you can’t quite reach. Someone with deep pain in their past and smoldering eyes. Someone who could barely talk about their past because it was so riddled with trauma.
But I know now that it’s all bullshit.
Don’t look for success; it’s fleeting.
Don’t go for looks; those will fade. We all get old and wrinkly.
Don’t look for money; that power dynamic is full of problems.
Don’t fall for mystery; you don’t know what he could possibly be hiding.
Find someone who will inspire you to be a better person, who will make you laugh even when you don’t feel like it, and who is good to you no matter how tough things are. And strive to be that person for them.
Oh, and look for a guy who will let you have six cats even though he’s allergic. That’s how you know you’ve got a keeper.
Relationships have taught me so much about myself and how to be a more loving, patient, and overall better human being. No matter who my partner is or how we end, there’s always something I can learn from what we went through together to incorporate into my life.
Thanks for the broken hearts, boys. Now I know how to put myself back together.
Choose Life
Every single moment of every single day, we are floating. We live on a floating rock, hurtling through outer space, in an endless expansion of gas balls, black holes, and other floating rocks.
My sister died. My whole family will die. I will die.
Some people may think this is morbid, but really? These are just facts. There’s a freedom in accepting them. Maybe nothing matters, but
that means all the bad stuff doesn’t matter either. That embarrassing audition I had this morning doesn’t matter. The broken friendships over the years don’t matter. The only things that matter are the ones that you decide matter. It’s up to you to choose what to do with the time you’re given on this earth.
Whenever someone complains about how old they are, I always say that age is a privilege. Not everyone gets to grow old. Cherish it. Because who the hell knows what happens after we die? Really, who the hell knows? In my mind, death is the absence of consciousness. It’s nothing. Not even a black abyss. Just nothing. That lack of space between falling asleep and waking up after anesthesia.
If I’m proven wrong, that’ll be great. Maybe there is a heaven. Maybe I will see Kristina again. But if not, all I know is what I have now. All I can experience is however many years I have left. It’s a beautiful, empowering thing to realize.
—
MY SISTER’S DEATH GAVE my life purpose. It’s the reason I am who I am today. Death is our only guarantee, yet so many of us don’t realize how real it is until we’ve been directly affected by it. We all know we’re going to die someday, but we live as if that isn’t true.
Kristina taught me the greatest lessons anyone can know. That death, though random and horrible and frightful, is nothing to be afraid of. That getting older is a privilege not everyone experiences. That there is no point in living if you’re not doing what you love, if you’re not surrounding yourself with people who love and inspire you.
Life isn’t short; it’s long. It’s everything we know. It tricks us into thinking that it’s going to go on forever. We are all lost, confused, and doing the best that we can with what we have. I certainly don’t have all the answers, and most of the time I still feel lost. But because of Kristina, I’ve learned to make use of the time I’ve been given, to work hard at pursuing my passion, and to love fiercely and truly.
So I will end this book by saying what I said at the beginning: This book is for you, Kristina. Everything I have done, and will do, is because of you. My life is a letter to you that I will never burn.
You were an amazing person I had the honor of knowing for thirteen years. You inspire me every day. You were fearless, talented, and bold. I think of you when I walk onstage, step in front of the camera, or confront a fear. I hope that wherever you are, if you are still out there, that we get to meet again. I hope that you’re proud of me.
I love you, Kristina Marie Akana. And I will never forget you.
FOR MY MOTHER, FATHER, AND BROTHER—WE’VE BEEN TO HELL AND CAME BACK STRONGER.
ACKNOWLEDGMENTS
There’s a handful of people I’d love to thank for helping me stay sane while writing this book: Brad Gage, for appeasing every anxious feeling I had along the way and reading the book more times than anyone ever will. Gabby, Lauren, and Jackie, for being lifelong friends and forever foodies. Tom Spriggs, for always reminding me of the bigger picture. The Coronel Group’s Leanne and Mike. My wonderful team at UTA: Ali Barash, Ty Flynn, and Shauna Perlman. And Sara Weiss, my editor, who helped me shape these raw emotions into a book.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
ANNA AKANA started her YouTube channel in 2011, jump-starting her career as an actress, producer, filmmaker, and writer. Now with over 1.7 million subscribers, Anna produces one short film a month for her channel, in addition to her weekly YouTube show, which features semi-autobiographical comedic stories where she portrays multiple roles.
As a screen actress, Akana can be seen in recurring roles on Freeform’s The Fosters and Comedy Central’s Hampton Deville, as well as in the films Hello, My Name Is Doris, Ant-Man, and the upcoming thriller You Get Me. She is also the creator of the clothing company Ghost & Stars. She lives in Los Angeles with her six cats.
annaakana.com
YouTube.com/user/AnnaAkana
Twitter: @AnnaAkana
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