secret

I could never breathe a word of what was going on.  Not in private, not in trust to anyone.  I would never be able to do anything.  Besides this was love wasn’t it?  I mean, I deserved this, that’s what I was always told.  Some sort of warped world I was trapped in.  When I felt kindness or love from her i knew that it is short-lived and abuse will happen again. I would live in a constant state of hyper-awareness, watching for clues of impending abuse. I couldn’t trust her smile to be true or be one that lasted, and that was a very big deal.  I slowly lost my Self. The (and emotional or mental abuse) ate away at my soul from my inside out. I became hollow before I realized how awful my life had become. Looking back on the long hellish years, At the time I didn't know that I was being traumatized by the abuse.

My life was dictated from the time I woke up to the time I went to sleep.  How I felt was not up to me.  The days became just survival, just make it through without tears, without the bad feelings.  Raise my daughter. Focus on my ex, focus my daughter, focus on the medical, focus paying the bills, focus on the house, focus on getting through.  The days would flip on a dime. Anything I wanted, Anything I needed, would not get looked at.  The yelling. The belittling. Then back to normal.  How I longed for people to move in with us.  She would act more normal around others. "You're just looking for a fight!" She tells me, and what I am doing and thinking, would even accuse me of attacking her, and then just as quickly would divert the topic to start a new problem.  Making me questions my own reality and sanity. How was I to know I was actually capable of communicating clearly when my ex didn’t seem to understand a word I said?  How could I know I was wise beyond my years when she discounted and diminished my every thought and suggestion?  How could I counter-act the words my ex used to define me when I accepted her definitions for those words? I didn’t have value because I valued her opinion over my own. I allowed my fears to be exploited and be used against me.  When I realized “Gee this is bad.  I have allowed her to change how I think and how I feel.  This is terrible.”  And when I realized that this is abusive… and is a behavior that is not going to change….I needed to end this...When I finally ended it, that shocked her. . I’ve some effects of the abuse... not just from domestic abuse but also suffered childhood trauma as well.  The doctors think that the verbal abuse is strongly associated with my chronic pain, my Fibro, frequent migraines and headaches, difficulty expressing myself, GI issues, and stress-related heart condition.  I see my counselor who believes that the psychological effects of verbal abuse include the fear and anxiety, depression, stress and PTSD, intrusive memories, memory gap disorders, sleep and eating problems, hypervigilance and exaggerated startle responses, irritability, anger issues, suicidal thoughts, self injurious behaviors. I still hear her critical voice deep in my head late at night.  The hardest part of life after emotional abuse, at least for me, is separating my internal criticism from her criticisms of me. I sometimes ask myself, “Tyne, remember what she said? You asked for this. You got it!” I am working to get rid of the thoughts without question. I am working to banish my internal criticisms too. I am my own worst enemy.  When my ex would argue with  me, she’d say I was crazy but truth is I am sane. There were times when I would question my own sanity.  I do not doubt my sanity any longer – not for one second.  After emotional abuse ended and she had left the house, I had a home that didn’t include her, the distance let me see very clearly who is crazy. And I know that it wasn’t me.  I developed depression, anxiety, sleep problems, and many hallmarks of post-traumatic stress disorder.I live in a perpetual ready, on-guard state.  I have PTSD.  I can’t believe I’m saying it but it’s a mental illness...and it  that develops after experiencing, or being exposed to, an event that physically harms or threatens to physically harm someone. This harm, or threat of harm, may be directed towards the sufferer or another individual…. That's what you get after years of torture at the hands of a loved one. PTSD symptoms include the persistent reliving of the trauma, avoidance any place that is a trauma-reminder.  I have trouble sleeping. PTSD symptoms are terrifying and life-altering, as I try to avoid any situation that may bring about severe anxiety. The avoidance unfortunately makes my world much smaller and doesn’t allow me to do fewer and fewer things as I’m afraid the re-emergence of the PTSD symptoms. What if they find me? I know they know. What if they drive by? What if they knock on my door?. Sometimes I want to numb the psychological pain caused by the symptoms. A lot of people, including me see this as just a personal weakness or character flaw and not as a real an illness, I mean it is a mental illness. It is now been proved that post-traumatic stress disorder symptoms are caused by physical changes in the brain and not due to a person's character. I’ll have to work on accepting that fact.  I always wonder how I am coming across to others because it was my ex who always misunderstood and misinterpreted my behaviors.  Now each new person I meet understands me perfectly,   I have spent so many years being told that there is something wrong with me that it is going to be a process that maybe I am not as damaged as I thought.  Don’t get me wrong I realize I have work to do and I am at peace with that but I am free. I used to look deep inside and I would dissect each incident trying to figure out where I went wrong and why I was in the situation and how to avoid it in the future. Where did I go wrong?  After I ended the 18 years I stopped searching. I just couldn’t do it anymore. I didn’t want to spend my days thinking about what could have been.  I had to look towards the future and how to raise my daughter.   I always used to live in the future. I didn’t know how to live in the now. I always looking to escape the now. So now I am trying to work on living in the present, try to take in the moments, savor what is going on….even if it is extremely unpleasant.  Aside from PTSD, and Anxiety  I also have major depressive disorder.  Medication helps to control the symptoms of that disorder.  I lived in a constant state of uncertainty. The world seems unsafe and needing protection from my family my ex reinforced and gave me protection from this while we were together….now I am on my own.  My anxiety is irrational, my heart races, my thoughts speed through my mind. I'm now really sensitive but I don’t realize what I am going to be sensitive to until it actually happens.  I feel awful that it happens. Sometimes a person’s statement or word choice will bring back a memory because they are similar to my ex’s words. That's when I’ll become very quiet. But the people I choose to have in my life are safe; I can tell her exactly what I’m feeling and she respond to me with love. The more I let myself trust, the less often I feel those stings.I am perfectly me.  I had hoped the effects of abuse would disappear after I ended the relationship. Magically. Without any work from me. But the intellectual side of me knows better.  I know it will take lots of work. And nothing, absolutely nothing will ever make what has happened in my life go away, nothing will make it disappear. Nothing will make not have happened. Nothing will make those individuals not exist in this lifetime.  And to be honest nothing can make them not come to my front door.  These are truths that exist and must be accepted.  That is my brain.  My soul on the other hand is a completely different story.  That is what is in therapy.  And for that I have no time line and for that I have no real map for and no real idea on how to navigate those waters.  Maybe my daughters dog Nemo can help me.  Be my therapy dog too.  I think he could help me too….. But turn him into a full fledge service dog.   Therapy dogs have been shown to increase endorphins–a feel-good hormone–in humans.  My thoughts…. Hmmm.  Gives me something to do! Burning Frankincense incense has been shown to help reduce anxiety too.  Hell I’ll try anything!  Ok even tea….! My counselor has me trying meditation.  I am going to do everything I can do prove them wrong. I will get through this. I think of myself  and this process as an onion – peel away layer after layer until I reconnect with the core of who I am.

 

 

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