You Poked Me

One thing about deflection is you might not even realise it’s happening to you.

And one thing about a deflector is that they’ll latch onto any flaw in your behaviour and drag it to the ends of the earth.

Last year, I was in a funny little relationship.

Funny, as in: I stopped laughing pretty quickly.

This man was persistent. Relentless, even. He didn’t stop at a single “no.” God, he didn’t stop at twenty.

His needs always came first. Even if it meant dismantling my own sanity in the process.

One night, we were lying in bed. Silent. Still. Then, without a word, he pulled his pants down and said:

“Do something about it.”

What the fuck.

I froze. No one had ever spoken to me like that before. I wasn’t trained in this kind of combat.

The only thing that came out of my mouth was, “I’m not some Thai massage lady.”

Yeah. I know. Not the greatest comeback — but he’d only just finished explaining how “common” happy endings are. #TraumaDump

Unamused by my refusal, he threw himself under the covers and “fell asleep.”

(If you’ve ever slept beside a man, you know how fast they go down when they don’t get their way.)

I lay there. Wide awake. Unsettled. Replaying everything. Trying to figure out what to do with the sulking man in my bed.

So, I did what any emotionally drained woman might do.

I poked him.

After ten minutes of whisper-yelling his name, he finally emerged from his fake slumber and muttered,

“Wot?”

“I need you to leave,” I said. “I can’t sleep with you in my bed.”

After a whole lot of confusion and repetition, he eventually left. But not without drama.

Minutes later, I got a message:

“Can you let me back in? I don’t trust myself driving right now.”

Long story short:

He sat in my driveway.

Then came back inside.

Told me, “I hate when we fight.”

Went back to sleep.

Then woke up and said:

“You poked me.”

As if that was the problem.

As if I was the abuser. And he was the victim.

Not only that. But he kept calling me mean after this.

He’d bring up that one moment. The night I poked him. Over and over again.

It became his favourite line. A way to flip the script.

To reduce everything that had happened down to my bad behaviour.

Meanwhile, every time I tried to talk about the coercion, the pressure, the manipulation. He didn’t hear me.

He didn’t want to.

At the time, I called it deflection.

But it was more than that.

It was calculated. It was repeated. And it made me question my own character.

Eventually, I started to believe him.

That I was the problem.

Maybe I was mean. Maybe I was cold.

Maybe everything that happened really was my fault.

And when I finally stepped back and saw the truth, I saw how long I had been trying to fix something that wasn’t mine to fix. I felt like an idiot.

But here’s what I’ve learned since:

You’re not stupid for trusting someone.

You’re not mean for protecting your peace.

You’re not crazy for feeling uncomfortable, hurt, unsure, or violated — even if you can’t quite find the words to explain why.

If any of this sounds familiar, if you’ve experienced deflection, coercion, manipulation, or anything that left you questioning yourself… You are not alone.

You are not the villain in your own story. You are heard.

Teach Me To Hear is here to hold space for you. To help you name the things that were never named.

This is a community built on empathy without judgement.

You don’t need the perfect words or a perfect memory. Just honesty. Just your truth. And we’ll figure it out from there.

Teach Me To Hear