I have had a myriad of fears ever since my infancy. I have always been a “pan-phobic” for as long as I could recall.
Although, there was this certain and most recent type of fear that I have overcome less than a decade ago.
That fear was vulnerability and being a victim.
About a decade ago, I was in a relationship with this guy I met on a dating site, in which it became my worst mistake I have ever made in my life. When we met in person for the very first time, I lost my virginity to him–the most painful experience I have ever dealt with in my life.
After when I lost my virginity with him, I was very naive with the meaning of love. It turned out that I never enjoyed having sex with a man nor am I attracted to him since the commencement of our fake and subsequent toxic relationship.
I did not know what I was thinking while I was with him since we met; I guess it was because heterosexuality is considered as an ubiquitous norm around me, so I forced myself to be straight in order to fit in the norm society, even though I have been gay since the very beginning of my childhood.
I was too afraid of revealing my ambiguous homosexuality–now asexuality–whenever I go out in public, so I faked my attraction to men, especially when I was in a relationship with this guy I met on a dating site.
It was the worst years of my life.
Things then became very hectic when our relationship became even more toxic than before.
That commenced my irrational fear of myself being a vulnerable victim. I reluctantly accepted the abuse I received from this guy and then waited for my next subsequent fate.
There was never any love in between us. There was nothing but toxicity between this guy and I.
There was forced sex regardless how many times I said no to him, much to my severe pain.
There was a mediocre amount of fighting in between us. Mostly emotional, rather than physical, albeit emotional abuse is as painful as physical abuse.
There was a lot of body shaming I received from him. He would force me to strip naked in front of him, followed by him shaming me for my weight gain, and then there would be subsequent sexual abuse despite of his insults of my appearance.
There was even digital abuse in between us as well; as in what I’d like to call “Toxic Texting.” He would become mentally toxic to me via texting in regards to my bipolar disorder and taking medications to treat my mental health, in which he demanded me to skip therapy and stop taking my prescriptions. I did not comply to that and yet he remained toxic to me in the most demanding way he could, simply to get what he wanted.
After coming into conclusions on how toxic this relationship was, I realized that my former love with this guy was nothing but poison.
I finally left him in 2019.
After the breakup, I overcame my fear of myself being a vulnerable victim.
This past experience inspired me to write my poem, Poison Love.
I was all emotional when I was writing this poem down in my journal as I flashbacked to that unwanted past. I struggled with the rhyming and rhythm, albeit, with all my heart out, I was capable of finishing it from the starting line to the finishing line.
In spite of my emotional integrity while writing Poison Love, I gained enough audacity to write this entire poem down and then publishing it. I realized my intention with this poem is to spread awareness to toxic relationships, as well as any type of abusive relationships and even domestic violence, no matter how small or big that domestic violence is.
My true intention is to show the world how strong I have become when overcoming my irrational fear of being a vulnerable victim. I am not a victim and I am not vulnerable; I am a fighter and I am strong and courageous.
As the years passed by, I came into conclusion on how well I have defeated this irrational fear of mines. I then began to lose most of my vulnerability as I transitioned into the warrior I am now.
Even though I cannot change the past, I can bring the past to the present to audaciously express this personal experience I have dealt with and how the mental transition transformed me into the powerful person I am now today.
I remained positively pertinacious as I moved on from this particular past by combating it in the battlefield whenever it appeared in my thoughts despite not asking for it. I remained the warrior I anticipated to become as I fought that unwanted past.
That is how I overcame my fear of vulnerability and being the victim of a certain type of domestic and violent ordeal.
I am no longer the vulnerable victim I used to be.
My Poem, Poison Love:
(C) by Nix Cheng, 2026