This is a response to a girlfriend’s public post online of how i was abusive in our relationship, in which i was. Read her original post here:

https://twitter.com/pottymouthworld/status/943999966304911360

Abby, i want you to breathe-in really heavy right now, and breathe out. again and again. your feelings are valid. there’s nothing to be afraid of in this.
you are special and the world is about to find out why.
———

I am not a victim. I am not blaming mental health, drug and love addiction. My mental health, addiction and these accusations do not fully define me. I am filled with compassion, morals, strong beliefs and love. Behaviors and things I’ve done while playing the role of the abuser that went against my own morals are why I am where I am at right now.

Even after years of therapy and treatment; with all the knowledge, tools, resources and opportunities to change laying in front of me, in moments of anger and fear, I chose not to use them.

This is the one time I will have the internet’s full attention and I will use it positively and with compassion.

In this statement I will:

The abused will become the abuser if you don’t seek help now. I want to help.

I have no access to and have not read it, yet I understand why the person who made that statement would want to take it to those extremes. They are as extreme of a person as me and have been through hurt before our relationship that is truly horrifying. Half of our time together I didn’t know I was sick, and they out of anyone I have been with took the brunt of my verbal and emotional abuse. They lived in a climate of fear I created when I impregnated the room and situation that violence could happen, even when I knew they were safe, they did not.

What I do to Abby in the statement below parallels how I behaved in this relationship. This is famously documented in this episode of a podcast where I discuss the situation that leads to being detained by the L.A.P.D.

If there is one thing anyone reading this does, is listen to my opportunity to talk face to face with legendary Buddhist teacher Jack Kornfield and discuss borderline personality disorder and being an abuser. What he says to me is done with unbiased compassion for each side. Done with grace, personal experience and will help soothe both the abused and the abuser.

———

Abby,

You do not give yourself enough credit in your statement. You spent over 3 months in couples coaching with me. You had never been in therapy before. That’s tremendously brave. You knew I had borderline personality disorder, love and drug/alcohol addiction from day one. And after 400+ days abstinent and completing treatment, you were the first person I dated. You are the only person I’ve ever been with who wanted to nurture these wounds. It was an incredible opportunity for me to change. I pushed you to the limit and I failed you. The love you gave is only going to make me better in life.

You really tried. Thank you.

You are special. Loving. Worthy of all the success that is coming to you and the adoration of your fans. You’re nurturing, kind, a child prodigy, a genius with an incredible back story. One you should be more open about. An unreal songwriter, entertainer and guitar player. A powerful woman and presence. I hope we are both better for going to couples counseling together. For ourselves and our future partners.

An apology to someone who has been abused and is processing trauma is worthless. That’s why there are no “I’m sorries” I will offer you. All I can do is validate your experience and my own. I won’t air out any details of what happened between us. In our brightest moments, we shined and were progressive and brought out the best in each other. I want you to remember how much I encouraged your art and to be more present online and not care what others think of it being “narcissistic to post a selfie.” To be independent and strong. To produce more solo music. Start a podcast. I influenced a song for your upcoming (incredible) album during a writers block that your management praised you in the night. How I lifted you up and believe in you. The majority of our relationship was spent laughing and loving. How overshadowed and washed away they are in our worst moments I will never outlive.

Abusers, here’s where to pay attention.

As easily as I lifted you up, I tore you down in fights. I verbally and emotionally abused you. Played the rational one and surgically dissected your personality traits that were not compatible with mine. I screamed. Flipped the things I liked about you and said I hated them. Cornered you. Circled you. Threw and broke things around you. Punched mattresses you were on. Gave back gifts and destroyed something in my apartment you worked hours on. Got inches in front of your face. Threw water at you. You did your share of things to me to enable these outbursts and were being told endlessly to walk away. You chose to be with me. You were not trapped by any living situation or commitments. But these were a-typical abusive tactics I learned in childhood, perfected in my twenties in past relationships and used intellectually because I felt afraid and powerless against a powerful person.

During our breakup, the fear of abandonment set in. Paranoia, rapid weight loss, all I could think about was you and you were ignoring me trying to create space that I did not respect. We had an opportunity via counseling to end it amicably, almost did, and I went back to my old ways. Completely self-aware. Which makes this breakup my worst. I came back and for a month did what I always do. Drop an atomic bomb on the situation described in your statement that cost me friendships and you.

It’s not uncommon for people in serious relationships to have keys to each others places. Even though my intentions were “good” and to tell you “I love you and I’ll wait as long as it takes to be with you” before I left on a trip
…even though I called, texted, emailed from every direction I was coming over… only recently did I learn, like a child would, that a man contacting a woman at that frequency is terrifying. Entering uninvited traumatized you to where you thought I could at any moment enter again. I recognize and validate that. At that point in my mind, you rushing into my place in the night would have been my wildest fantasy. It was irrational thinking that action would end in my favor.

I admit to online stalking you compulsively for 4-6 weeks after the break up. Though, there’s massive confusion and coincidence surrounding the idea that I imitated an actual friend of yours from another number. It was inappropriate to contact you under false pretenses from another number with a common name pulled from a hat. It is only more juvenile shameful inappropriate behavior.

If anyone you date exhibits these behaviors, run. Men aren’t as self-aware as I am. I do believe you stayed as long as you did because you knew that I have a good nature and there was an inch of hope left. Men are not taught how to deal with our emotions and anger (which is why I think Dialectical Behavioral Therapy should be taught in grade school). We take it out on ourselves and unfortunately those closest to us.

Before I move on to address some other important things, like the future of my business, I need you to know something you did that really hurt me.

You were the first girlfriend I came out as queer to. It took a lot in me to say it out loud, that I would scare you away. How you responded made me comfortable and finally, after years of feeling afraid, I felt okay in my own skin. This was early on in our relationship before we began fighting. Your drummer who is a lesbian and a feminist was upset over a faux pas I did over drinks to the lesbians at the table. I did not know I was was being politically incorrect. She went on twitter that night and angrily subtweeted me (which is conveniently deleted). It included every detail I did in my one and only queer experience and debased me as having a typical white male experience.

Not only did you confide my secret to others, you did in every detail and it has set me back tremendously. It took me over a year to slowly tell close friends I was bi-sexual. You taught me about the spectrum of sexuality and I would better identify as queer. When I came out queer on twitter, your drummer passive aggressively liked the post. Making me feel excluded from the LGBTQ community and that all I am is perverted.

I hope publicly coming out the way you did is because it is important to your healing process, was done under the guidance of a professional and not because you were coerced to by friends and peers. Your bandmates are incredibly emotionally and verbally abusive to you. I spent many nights consoling you through this. They are holding you back. You have no loyalty to them. In my eyes, you are St. Vincent level good. I am losing everything I worked for. If you’re serious about getting away from abusers like me, I ask that you get away from them. You will soar when you do. You owe them nothing, they are controlling you and spending energy on it is limiting your creativity. I removed the biggest abuser from my life and watched my career take off larger than I could ever have imagined.

Abusers aren’t only romantic partners. They can be siblings, friends, bandmates, employers, strangers walking down the street…

And all the things you told me about men in the music industry; the assault, verbal abuse, side comments, touching, rape, even what you deal with from sound engineers… there are bands that I enjoy and haven’t been able to listen to since I heard what being a woman in the music industry is like. I hope you organize and take them on. 

You will heal. Time moves slow when you’re in pain. The community supports you. The Los Angeles community is so unique and loving. I don’t deserve the support I am privately getting from them as they express their disappointment in me. Find your families here. You’ll float in-between all of these incredible social circles. Don’t let them down like I have. The sensationalists on Twitter will fuel your hate and set your healing back. Listen to the ones who reach out and are there to lift you up. The ones whose message comes with love. Like mine.

Thank you Abby. I wish you all the success in the world and my only apology is to your loving family whose daughter, sister, granddaughter and beyond I hurt. You should be proud of her.

———

Now that you’ve gotten your fodder, piss off sensationalists. The following is for those reading who need help and after, for the artists and fans of Feral Audio I care about deeply. 

Abuse, BPD, Sex & Love Addiction ignores gender. It plagues households and all relationships. I encourage the LGBTQ community to come forward about their abuse as well. 

BPD has affected my friendships, co-workers, family and I have learned to keep people at a distance so they don’t have to be caught up in one of my mood swings if they occur. I have a drawer filled with gifts, letters, presents from dozens of friends, co-workers and lovers I’ve lost over the years because I lived in fear of their love and exhausted them emotionally.

This is a life destroying mental illness, yet is cognitive and these behaviors can be treated. If any of these symptoms of BPD hit close to home,

Now it is time for me to face my addiction head on. Weeks ago I placed a stone on the grave of my friend who I helped get into rehab that I also copped drugs off of and enabled. I’d be dead if it wasn’t for DBT.

I knew nothing about addiction until a friend introduced me to SLAA. If you aren’t an addict, you don’t understand the pathology. Simple dopamine rewards you get in your brain like successfully parallel parking your car vanish. The only thing that makes you feel remotely “ok” is what satiates your addiction. When you’re not, you are in physical pain. As if you are in flames.

We’re losing millions to opioid addiction and there’s an inherent lack of empathy instilled in us. Doing heroin does not make you deserve to die young. And when we lose people to heroin so transparent about their struggles like Scott Weiland, and shrug it off and saying “well, they did heroin, so”, we are being complicit to why people use and return to drugs in the first place. Pain and isolation.

I will always stand by anyone, like my father who has been sober for 24 years, and have compassion for friends like Andy Dick and Jeordie White who have put in the work to be sober and live a fulfilled life in the aftermath of destruction.   

to quote the podcast below:
“it’s never too late to start again. what needs to die is not your body, but the way you are in the world. And the whole way you are living your life. Some deep, death and rebirth has to happen so you can start again. the thing that made me feel so alone isn’t true, I’m not alone.” - Jack Kornfield

with love, and there are all different kinds,
dustin marshall