I have been not ok with something for about two weeks.

I am sick over this.  I feel violated.  I feel used.  I am filled with hatred.  I can't sleep. I can't stop crying.  I've been trying to not think about it all day.

For Christmas, Luiz gifted me with a piece of art.  This is already where the controversy starts, because I asked him not to, this year.  For the past like 3-4 years, he's given me art as a "gift" and, it somehow never makes it to my possession.  One year, he gifted me a blank canvas, and promised me an amazing surprise.  I watched him paint a beautiful rose galaxy, and he kept it.  I never thought about the blank canvas, I assumed he forgot.  Two years later, I said something about how much I loved the piece, and he was like "oh? That's yours, anyway."  Then indifferently thrust it into my hands.  Another year, he gave me an underpainting, for Christmas, with the promise that it wouldn't take too much longer to finish.  26 months later, it's finally hanging on my wall.  That's after it spent time in a gallery (while it was half done).  Then came my birthday picture, the one of Bella, my sweet beloved pug.  I'm not in possession of that either, it's in his room.  Merry fucking Christmas to me, right?  So, when he asked me this year, if I wanted a piece of art, I said "no."  Why? Because he's never actually given me a piece of art.  Nothing.  Not one piece is actually "mine"  Mine to hold, mine to hang, mine privately.  Mine. Like a gift.  Like when you give something to someone as a gift.  So, I said no.

I just went through the house collecting all these bullshit "gifts" and gave them back to him.  Well, he's sleeping like a baby, so I just rested them by his bed.  They're meaningless to me, at this point.

In standard Luiz fashion, not only did he create a piece of art for me, after I specifically said I didn't want one, it wasn't even remotely done by Christmas.   But, you know, when we're all unwrapping things, it was lovely, blah blah blah.

It's a picture of a nude reclining "fairy" that looks exactly like me, with a few body flaws smoothed out, but nude all the same.  He took nude photos of me, curled up, to use as a model, then changed the structure of my body just a tad, to make it more like an Ingres painting.  The fairy is curled into the fetal position, on a cushion of marijuana buds, drifting off into a sleepy smoky dream.  There's images of my own incorporated, my doodles, my glyphwork, I even drew a spider on it, at Luiz's request.  Because this was a painting for me, of me, for my bedroom wall.  I wouldn't even hang it in the living room, honestly.

Ok.  I struggled with it, as a gift.  I don't advertise that I smoke pot.  I keep that rather private, and I definitely am not into displaying an image of my naked body.  Unwrapping it as a gift made me a little uncomfortable, but, that was on me.  I fight body image issues every day.  Just because I'm comfortable enough to walk around the house naked, does not mean I am even remotely comfortable enough to parade around in public the same way. As a piece of art, what he presented me on Christmas looked rushed and unfinished, and he even said so himself.  It took him till just days ago to finish it. Why the rush now?  Because he wanted to use it in a show.

He asked.  I said "I'm uncomfortable with it, I'd prefer you didn't. That's my piece, you gifted it to me."  Then I said "but I would feel like a jerk if it prevented you from earning money, lets let ask the cards."  The cards said, as a print, it would be met with indifference. It wouldn't earn money.  It doesn't speak to people, people can't relate.  Full stop.  I was satisfied with that answer.

Luiz displayed it at the gallery.  Today, I got to stand in front of my nude-curled-on-a-heap-of-pot picture, for three hours, while people looked at it.  It definitely looks like me.  No mistaking who that maybe could be.  That was psychological torture, but, again, what the fuck am I going to do at this point, it's in the gallery, the art opening is in full swing, I'm standing there talking to friends of mine 3 feet away from my naked ass.  To add insult to injury, they insisted on hanging the piece sideways, so it unflatteringly looks like I am sitting on a fucking pinecone. This gallery, by the way, is about four doors down from my actual workplace, and many of my customers and friends drift through there, daily.  It's closely affiliated with the shop I work at.  In fact, he never would have even met those people, if it weren't for me.  I hooked him up with them in the first place.

So, we get home from the opening.  I am exhausted, and socially wrung out.  I go to my internet playground to blow off steam.  He posted it on fucking reddit. He posted my nude image to fucking reddit.  Luiz posted this picture, his first art post ever, the first image he chooses to share (of ALL his art) is that. fucking. painting.  Which he unceremoniously just called "the weed fairy".

I'm beside myself.  I fucking hate him.  He's taken everything from me, at this point.  Over the years, he's fucking stripped me bare, emotionally, mentally, financially, and now, physically. My privacy. Gone.  My bedroom picture, a gift from him to me.  An image I won't even hang elsewhere in the house, because it's so private.  Spent all fucking day on reddit.  It's hanging RIGHT now in an art gallery.

I'm so shellshocked.  I feel so literally violated.  When I discovered it, I was upset, and I told him so, and that I've been upset about the whole thing since he decided to put it in the gallery. Upset.  No.  Physically ill.  Totally fucked up about it.  Shocked.  Horrified.  Fuming.  Angry.  Devastated.  I am furious.  His response?  "I reserve the right to all my paintings and images, it's mine to do what I want with."  I told him I hope he goes back to Brazil, where he'll live as a failure, mooching off his alcoholic father, and probably get aids from fucking hookers.  Like, I didn't even mean that to shock. I literally meant that in that moment.

I'm not sure how or if I'll come back from this.  Nothing he's said tonight even remotely touched me.  It's all bullshit self preservation.  He says he loves me.  How can he love me, if he doesn't even know me? That was devastating to learn, tonight.  He doesn't even know me. It keeps repeating itself over and over in my head.  How can someone say they love me, then do this?  Me?  I am such a private person. I have struggled my entire life with ownership of objects, and ownership of self.  My whole childhood, my mother told me ad nauseam that I didn't own anything, everything I had was hers, because I lived in her room, in her house.  I never had a room, a sanctuary growing up. I never had a shred of privacy.  They drilled the locks out of my doors, and burst into my room at any hour day or night, if I was changing, sleeping, anything.  My stepfather used to come in my room at 3 am, with a flashlight to do a "bed check", and stand there leering at me in my sleep.   They went through my stuff daily, and threw my possessions out with abandon.  Nothing, and I mean literally nothing, was actually mine.  They sold cars out from under me.  I struggle with ownership of self.  I lost my virginity without my consent, when I was 14.  Luiz created a real problem with my self ownership too, with the rape and coercion situations of the past.  I really struggle with that.

 He claims he had no idea that I would react this way.  Even though I told him dozens of times that I didn't want that piece in a gallery or as prints or anywhere besides right on the wall in my bedroom.  For the simple sake of having just ONE fucking piece of art that I could call my own.  I figured if I could even ask that about one fucking piece of art, it would be the nude, right?  The one I trusted him with.  But, what's the first thing he does?  Puts it on the internet.

I can't trust him. He did a lot of untrustworthy stuff last year.  He lied a lot, and did a lot of horrible shit to me. It took me months to start trusting him again, and feeling secure in our relationship, and even though this is a different kind of betrayal, that trust is destroyed again.

I know, though, because I am a fucking loser doormat, that he will make a good show of apologizing, and promise to never do this again, and say nice things, and seem very sincere, that we will just continue on much the same after this.  Just like after last summer, when he was looking for gay and straight hookups on Craigslist, and actively cheating on me, while resenting me and sneaking into my bed in the morning and fucking me, in my ass, and in my sleep without consent.  Just like the summer before when he decided he had a crush on Michele, and almost destroyed not only my friendship with her, but most of my social life.  Just like after all the times he's hurt me in big and little ways.  What the fuck is wrong with me?

 Writing, usually a catharsis, is just torturing me.

I don't know what to even do.