My ex ruined my life, but my family says he’s the only one who’ll ever love me again.

The Attack and Family Betrayal

My ex threw acid in my face and now my family think he’s the only person who can still love me and they’ll stop at nothing to get us back together. Samuel was waiting in the stairwell of my apartment building the night he attacked me.

I’d broken up with him 3 months earlier because he’d gotten scary and possessive, showing up at my law school classes uninvited, demanding to put GPS trackers in my bag and car, the works.

The breakup was messy, but I thought it was over until I came home from the library and found him standing there holding a bottle of industrial cleaner. He said if he couldn’t have me, then nobody could.

And before I could run, I felt liquid hit my face and everything turned into white, searing pain. I was screaming and clawing at my face while the smell of acid mixed with my own skin melting made me throw up right there in the stairwell.

I woke up in the hospital 3 days later and couldn’t see anything. The doctors explained that the chemical had destroyed my eyes completely, and I was permanently blind.

My face was destroyed, too. My nose was mostly gone.

My lips were twisted and scarred, and the skin on my face was a patchwork of burns and graphs that would require 11 surgeries over the next few months. I moved back into my childhood bedroom at my parents house and spent my days in physical therapy and mobility training with a white cane.

My mom told me he’d been arrested and was in prison and that he’d been writing letters every single day asking her to read them to me.

I told her to throw them away because I never wanted to hear his name again. A few weeks later, my mom brought up the letters again while we were having breakfast, mentioning casually that Samuel was in therapy in prison and was deeply sorry for what he did.

I told her I didn’t care and that I’d rather die than ever speak to him again. My sister started mentioning things from the letters when she visited, telling me how Samuel still thought I was beautiful, and I screamed at her to get out of my room.

My dad sat me down and said Samuel’s family had money and wanted to pay for experimental treatments in Europe. And I told him I’d rather stay blind forever than take money from the man who destroyed my life.

They kept pushing and I kept shutting them down harder each time, telling them they were insane for even suggesting I forgive him.

I tried to move on with my life and made a profile on a dating app. I matched with a few guys, but every single one ghosted me the second I explained what happened to my face.

I went on one actual date and I could hear the guy’s voice change when he saw me. And he made an excuse about a work emergency and left after 10 minutes.

My family saw how devastated I was and finally seemed to drop the Samuel thing. My mom said, “Okay, she understood. She just wanted me to be happy with someone.”.

A few weeks later, my sister mentioned that her husband’s coworker had recently lost his vision in a car accident and was looking to meet other people in the blind community. His name was Julius and he was a few years older than me and worked in physical therapy.

She said he specifically wanted to meet someone who understood what he was going through and that he’d seen my picture from before the attack and thought I seemed really interesting.

She kept bringing up Julius over the next few weeks, telling me about his volunteer work and his dog and how he loved the same books I did. My mom said Julius’s family was really nice and they’d love to meet me.

I was hesitant, but also desperate for any kind of connection. And everyone kept saying how perfect we were for each other since we were both navigating blindness.