The Year of Effortless Power

today was a good day. i had an appointment at the Kroc center (gym). it was a mandatory orientation thing to get a scholarship to lower the cost of my membership. i now will only have to pay $24/month for a fam membership. sadly, that’s tough for me, now that i have taken on a large portion of the household bills since we split up. let’s just say im looking up plasma donation places to get thru my kids bday. it’s their 18th bday and i really want to do something special. but yeah, times are tough.

anyway, the good news is that during the orientation…well, first let me paint this picture: i sat there with bitch-face as usual. i feel bad about it, especially at like this charity thing. we can’t help our faces. but i have an attitude too. it’s so ingrained. it’s posture, it’s other stuff. it’s partly the way i dress as well, im sure. i know it’s basically a church, but i dont think they care that i wear all black and my hair is black and im white as a sheet. but when you put it all together, im afraid i stand out. when really, im just trying to NOT stand out. 

but while i was sitting thru the presentation looking haughty and bored but actually just trying to mask my social anxiety, i was flipping thru the catalog of classes. and i started to get this weird feeling. like, i guess i was maybe imagining a world without my ex and without my kids even, where im not howling in an ever-deepening vortex of abyss. instead, maybe taking a yoga class. or joining the knitting circle they host on tuesdays. or something. i think this is what i need to do, well, someone told me yesterday this is what i need to do. but i didnt  know what she meant until i was sitting there with all these options presenting themselves.

plus i ate well. altho it occurred to me that ive been lying to myself again. i am doing an abstinence plan that is no sugar, no caffeine, no dairy + 3 meals a day, no snacks. first, i started having tea before bed, which can’t count as a snack. then i started to add coconut/almond creamer to my tea, which is very low cal, and not dairy. then i started getting Rebbl Matcha Lattes. only twice. but they have green tea (caffeine), and honey (basically sugar), and a little bit of heaven. so then, today, i was rushed after my orientation and stopped at starbucks and got — NO MOCHAS thankfully — but i got an egg & gouda sandwich thing. it’s only 350 cal. but it has dairy and the white bread, tho not technically excluded, is something i’ve been successfully avoiding. 

so im pretty much letting stuff sneak in. i mean, im sneaking stuff in. and not letting myself think about it. it’s pretty crazy that _I_ can do something while at the same time _I_ look the other way. wth. anyway, im not going to be rigid and “start over”, im still at 17 days abstinence, since the infractions were pretty slight. and i’ve already decided to make it “no coffee” instead of no caffeine, and allow 1-2 cups of organic green tea before 12pm, for now. BUT im going to quit it with the Rebbls and figure out something abstinent for those times im out and in a pinch.

but since i was feeling pretty encouraged by a vague image of a possible future before the eventual black abyss, i called Mollie. i dont always want to cry and moan, i wanted to share positivity too. she was very happy for my good news, but was busy. before we hung up she said something really nice. she said that there is something really amazing about me that is hard to explain, but it’s like even in my darkest hour, i always find a way to be raw and open. 

so i’ve gotten weird compliments occasionally in my life. i have been told i have a good forehead. and that the whites of my eyes are very white. i once was told that i really have a way of walking out of a room, which was meant as a biting insult, but i took it as a badge of honor. why thank you, mother, i do, dont i 🙂 but this compliment from mollie, tho i dont understand how she sees that, feels like a very real and great thing. so i felt doubly glad after that. 

on the way home, i thought about how i was only beautiful for one year of my life. 17 years old. before that i was either a scraggly tom-boyish hood rat or a chubster (ages 10-16). by chubby, i mean 20 pounds overweight. to some people that’s nothing, but to a white girl in the late 80s, it’s enough to ostracize you. at 16, i got dumped in a really eh, a bad situation. my mom was dealing with husband no. 2, who was a true skeeze, and i guess i just wanted to take control of my life.  like, i finally realized i could do that. i secretly started eating smaller portions. if my mom knew i was trying to lose weight, she would have sabotaged me and picked me apart. luckily, she didnt pay close enough attention to notice me eating less, or i would have most likely resorted to purging. i also started doing a Kathy Ireland workout video. i had the one video, i wore that shit out. by the end of the summer, i’d shed the 20 pounds. 

thus i entered into the year of effortless power. i was as close to a perfect women as i would ever get. i was tall and athletic/thin with an hourglass shape. i had a pretty, friendly face, long thick hair. i was bright, but not savvy. nieve, even. i had no self-esteem and was desperate to please. every man i met loved me. i got pulled over, no tickets. men randomly bought me shit. my groceries always taken to my car. they insisted. i had men, strange, random, creepy, old men, approach me in libraries and essentially bow as they offered me books they thought i would like. books about witchcraft and erotica. it didnt matter what i said or did, because no one was listening or paying attention. they were just looking and imagining. i remember getting frustrated because i would try to talk to boys in school about assignments, and their eyes would glaze over and they’d smile and nod in a daze. 

i couldn’t walk down the street without being catcalled relentlessly. i was already socially anxious and insecure as hell, so being approached was pretty scary. and rightly so. i was attacked twice that year. my skeezy step dad put the moves on me one night, after months of doing no-contact pervy shit, and at my boyfriends urging, i told my mom. she said, and i’ll never forget it, “how can you do this to me when things are finally going so well?” then they went on a walk on the levy to discuss it, and i sat on the couch with acid stomach. my brain was numb. i had no other family. i had no options. i wouldn’t have stayed in that hell house as long as i did if i had. my sister had been long gone and my brother had gone to stay with his dad (husband #2). my mom and the skeeze came back and he smirked as she said, “well we talked about it and…i believe him.” as in, i dont believe you. 

i was devastated naturally. i hid in my bedroom. i showered and dressed in the dark. (my instincts were right, it was later discovered that he had been video taping me in my room and the shower, which my mom was aware of all along.) after a few miserable weeks, where i was breaking down in class and just being totally erratic, i was threatened with suspension for cutting class. so i decided to reach out for help. thats what the teen magazines said to do — tell a teacher or someone at school. i told the counselor. they called a CPS worker and my mom and her skeeze, and we all had a sit down. it was brutal. i could barely speak with my mom there. after the meeting the adults decided i was lying to get out of cutting class. 

when i got home that night, as late as i could stand to stay out, there were black garbage bags on the front step. they had actually changed the locks. i took my garbage and went back to my car and drove.*

i ended up couch surfing with friends, as long as their judgy parents would let me, until i finished high school. i never felt welcome at their homes. i didnt want to waste their water or take their food. i got a job right away, of course since i was a dumb, pretty 17 year old, and with the unsettled lifestyle and some of my own money, i started going to fast food. i had gained 45 pounds by graduation. 

thus the window of effortless power closed. beauty, and being wanted for sex, is the height of power for women. and if i had been smarter or less damaged, maybe i could have wielded it more successfully. instead i just got run over and spat out, like so many young women. 

the weird part is, and im still trying to get my head around this, is that since that time, i have unconsciously done everything i can to get back to that. and i berate and castigate myself so harshly for every second that i dont achieve that goal. it’s not just a goal weight. there is this livid, hateful part of me that desperately wants to get back to that place, like literally go back in time, and do it differently. not be so weak. have the knowledge i have now and be ready for each and every  one of those people who hurt me. to combine the power of knowledge and inner strength (real power) with the patriarchically assigned female-power. 

but that’s so stupid. it’s so futile. its impossible and pointless. and recognizing that part of me, acknowledging that righteous anger, comforting that lonely damaged betrayed child, is really the only way to freedom. because we can’t go back, honey. we’ll never be her again. but, we dont need to. we dont need to fix it, or to even the score. the only thing we need to do is let it go.

let it go…

 

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Day 23: Alone in a Little Boat in the Dark with no Oar and a Storm Approaching

They just left. He took them for a 5.5 hour drive to another state for a college interview tomorrow. then, wednesday, they’re back on the freeway again for another 5.5 hour gamble with their lives.

I may sound dramatic, but I am a person who hasn’t driven on the freeway for over 3 years. it started with flashes of panic while driving on the freeway. so intense that my body flushed hot and my hands felt instantly swollen. worse, i felt like i couldn’t control my hands. and that i was about to veer out of my lane. it was all-encompassing, and i couldn’t breathe. then it would pass. next time would be worse because I’d think omg not again! i started to be afraid it would happen. i started to plan what i’d do. i became afraid to get out of the left lane, because i needed to be able to exit the freeway asap if it came over me. i started avoiding the freeway. 

I wasn’t safe. i started getting the  panic on highways, going 45 mph. compulsive thoughts would take over my mind, and i would imagine veering into ditches or trees, imagine in greattt. detail. it was excruciating and terrifying. many times i had to take my hands off the wheel, steering with knees or fingertips, because i felt a voice screaming in my head to just DO IT! i was terrified my hands would jerk the wheel of their own volition, or some part of my unconscious that i didnt have access to would make it happen! it felt outside of myself it felt out of my control. it became a significant part of my life: my fear of driving. 

my therapist called this OCD. I bought some books. “The Imp of the Mind” was one. i went on forums and read about Pure O and wrote down other people’s advice. i integrated as much as i could. my OCD waxes and wanes, and it’s hard to tell exactly what, if anything, causes it. i have been able to drive on highways fairly anxiety-free for 6 months, but still avoid freeways and curvy mountain roads. 

the one thing I keep thinking about is that it started right after my therapist tried to do that light-bar therapy, EMDR. she tried it on me to address the cPTSD. we did it once for a minute, and that night i felt really weird. a couple of weeks later we were going to try for a few minutes, but within seconds i went into a full-blown panic attack. i had never panicked in front of her. actually, i am a very reserved person in public and have managed to avoid “freaking out” in front of people except twice. no, three times. that time with her, once in the dentist chair with that horrible plastic flap covering my mouth, dental dam i think?, and once when i was getting set up to have an MRI on my head. they clamped this plastic cage thing on my head and were about to stick me in the giant pencil sharpener, and i absolutely lost it. it was bad.  i ran all they way out of the clinic into the parking lot in they stupid gown with the back open and my butt showing! so humilating 😦 shudder just thinking about it.

do I avoid dentists and MRIs and light-bars now? yes. yes i do. and freeways. i am a person whose life is dictated by fears. im pissed about that. but not sure what to do. they say, “oh just expose yourself a little bit at a time, just a little bit” and yet i can’t help but thinking it only takes a little bit of 70 mph veering to kill me and maybe others. i do force myself to go to the dentist. i have had conscious sedation MRIs. but the freeway, its a hard one for me. 

my therapist thinks it stems from this (but, idk): when I was a kid and a young adult. if i would be driving with my mom, we would be talking, as ppl do. normal chat for my mom often turns into highly emotional erratic rants. i have learned to disengage and tune out as much as possible because it’s emotionally and physically painful. she would be jerking her hands in the air (jerking hand–my fear of my hand jerking against my will?) and then, on many, many occasions, she would ask wildly, “what if i were to just drive in front of that truck?!!?!?” i will admit that this scared the shit out of me. few things can make you feel less in control than being in a situation like that. it was terrifying. and the worst part was that there was this enormous pressure to respond Exactly Right. she was teetering on the brink — or was she? — and my life depended on easing her back to reality. and i was a child.

yeah, it could be connected. idk sighhhhhhh fuck

Im Alone in a Little Boat in the Dark with no Oar and a Storm Approaching. this is how I feel with my kids gone and possibly in danger. taking care of them and protecting them has been priority #1 for 17+ years. their dad, my husband of two years, was an alcoholic, drug-addicted, and violent man. he was an unlawful citizen from Russia. he had overstayed his student visa. we thought when we got married, and surely when we had the twins, he would be granted a green card, or at least a work permit. but no. that’s not how it works in America! he was only granted a green card after we divorced and he was arrested several times. because seemingly innocent young fathers who want to work don’t deserve citizenship, but criminals do!/s 

he wasn’t innocent tho. he terrorized me, beat me, and even started to abuse them, which is what finally forced me to escape. he threatened me constantly. his dad was the captain of a huge merchant ship that delivered goods up and down the coast every couple of months. my ex-husbands favorite threat was that he would steal the babies and get on his dad’s boat and have his mother raise them. this was logically feasible. and I knew if they got to russia, i would never find them. i lived in constant fear. fear of the minute-by-minute possibility that he would snap and someone would be hurt or worse, and fear that they would all one day be gone. my trusty hypervigilance kicked in, and i stopped sleeping. 

eventually it was me who disappeared with them. when they were 14 months, I ran and hid from him until he could be arrested. he was in a deportation holding camp when 9/11 happened, and he told me terrible, just vicious, things that happened to middle eastern detainees after that. then he was just randomly released. he lived in the city, about 90 minutes away, and fell back into heroine, a drug he had escaped for a number of years. crime followed, and right after i moved two states north to get away from his unpredictable visits and constant threats, he was finally deported for these unrelated crimes. they were 5. so it was 5 years of ridiculous hypervigilance. he threatened from Russia too, and altho i felt less afraid, i couldn’t let go of the hypervigilance. i petitioned the school to block their names from yearbooks, i petitioned the state to not seek child support because that would give him our address.  not like i expected child support anyway.

his sister, who speaks no english, emailed me once or twice. she said he was cycling thru addiction/crime, prison, and rehab. this made me feel safer. an addict has a hard time orgnizing shit enough to pull off sneaking back into the US. but I would say it wasn’t until the last year or so that i realized i could start to really let it go. they’re practically adults. he can’t really kidnap them now. he would have to try to reason with them, and he wouldn’t be able to convince them to go. we’re finally safe from him. i mean, we may have been safe from him for a decade or more, but i finally feel that we’re safe. that threat has released me. or, i have released that threat?

I do wonder about the timing. how the threat from my ex-husband began to wane just as the threat of the freeway and other types of containment and pain began to build. i understand how PTSD, especially chronic, affects the brain. when you’re so used to being a highly stressed state, relaxing can be uncomfortable, even impossible. the brain just tries to keep the status quo, does what it has to do to keep those stress chemicals flowing. understanding this has helped me to recognize a lot of the thoughts that were my brains way of “doing it’s job”. but i wonder if this stuff is deeper– i suspect my unconscious mind of this bigger mischief. 

only once before in the last 17 years have my kids been away from me, not counting sleepovers and mini things like that (which ultimately I am still in control of). when they were 9, i let them go back east with my ex (the one i just split with), let us call him Mark. (took 23 days to give him a fake name.) Mark took them back to meet his family. it was impossible for me to travel because of my back injury, so altho it was weird, his family was super nice, and my kids had a great time. i hated to let them go. flying. being out of my care. being with strangers. mark, an alcoholic, being in charge. i hated all of this. but i didn’t want to stand in the way of my kids having fun, novel experiences. and ive always wanted them to have other people, not just me. and in the long run, it was a great experience for them. i clearly remember going to the airport to pick them up. i was wearing a typical outfit for me, some dark boho witchy style. i remember because i saw my daughters face as they approached me from down a long corridor. i became self-conscious as i saw her study me and i saw her smile drop and a disappointed look come over her face. she was 9, she was just starting puberty. this was the perfect time for her to see me as something separate from her and to reject it, to reject me. it hurt so much, but i knew it was healthy for her to push me away as she figured out who she is. i knew that if i could handle it lovingly and without judgement or expectation, she would eventually, hopefully!, come to accept me for who i am, even love my weirdness. and now that she’s 17 we have a great relationship. we are very, very different. but i feel like she accepts me, and i think that as she becomes an adult, she may even love me just the way i am. but it was hard for many years. hard to be rejected and disliked by someone you love so so much. but that’s parenting!

they were gone for 9 days. (2009, 9 years old, gone 9 days. weird.) this was a very interesting and harrowing experience for me. I remember i had certain plans for what I’d do while they were gone to distract myself. but within hours the silence became like this ominous force in my home. it followed me around, getting closer and closer and heavier and heavier until i felt suffocated. i started to panic. this was before i knew how horrible benzos are for you, so i just started popping them like crazy. finally, by like 6pm, i called my mom and asked if i could come over and stay until my kids came back (weak!). when i got there i was a little better, but i was so antsy. then i found a project, a huge one. my g-ma, who lived with my mom, had a million slides that my granpa had taken over the course of 50 years or so. he was an amature photographer. he had died in 2000, and she had stored all these boxes of slides. so i bought a slide scanner and set to work in the basement. at that time, the slide scanners only scanned 4 at a time. so it took me many very long days to get them all. 

so two things came out of this. no, 3. actually, 4:

1. I was able to make thousands of amazing family pictures accessible for myself and other family members, who did not hate me any less for it.

2. I popped so many benzos that i got really messed up and decided to look into them and discovered forums online that helped me get off of them for 4 years (until i was put on a high dose in the hospital 3 years ago and havent been able to wean off them again sadly).

3. my kids got to make connections with a nice family who I think they still feel connected with to this day. if nothing else, they got to experience a different type of family, which has to be good for them.

4. my kids, or at least my daughter, got a kickstart in differentiation from me, which I know is healthy. i know she really liked/identified with (?) Mark’s mom who is wealthy and ditzy and marterialistic and barbie-doll pretty and super sweet — total opposite of me!

but now I have 3 days without them. two nights.  this time’s differnt in ways. they are older, for one. and they have been more and more absent the last few years as they spend time with friends and involved in extra-curriculars. so, im more used to them being gone. im not used to both them and him being gone however. and with their final departure looming (college) in just a few months, something i dread no matter how hard i try not to, there is more significance to them being gone this time. but i have prepared. i have been reaching out to OA people. my #1 priority is to not turn to food, alcohol or pills to distract me from this challenge. i plan to attend an AA meeting today, and OA meetings tomorrow and Wednesday. plus im going to listen to program podcasts and text/call people. i have crochet and knit projects, and some binge TV shows to listen to while i work on them. i have healthy food in the house. the weathers a bit warmer so i am going to take the dogs to the lake as soon as im done writing this. i have a stack of good books and some meditation podcasts set up. i have some yoga videos on youtube ready to go that were recommended to me by a reputable indian friend.

I want to do weird stuff like meditate naked and blast old school dark wave and dance in black robes. im smudging the shit out of the house! 

and I am really grateful. maybe it would have helped me to not cling so tightly, but i am so grateful that i don’t have a situation like so many people do: shared custody. specifically, shared custody with an asshole. the idea of having to let my kids go with someone i dont trust on a monthly or weekly basis…not being able to demand to be included in group texts like i did with Mark this morning, or to track them like i do with Life360, or to have to let them go when i don’t i feel its safe and the best thing for them. not having that kind of control and peace of mind. just a horrible thought. at least with my ex-husband — yeah i never got any financial help or a break. and my kids didnt’ have a relationship with their dad. these things really suck. but there are people in very similar situations who have to give their kid(s) up to an irresponsible jerk, possibly even an addict or abuser, and the law protects that bad parents right to time alone with their kids. so, as hard as things have been/are, i am so grateful that was not my situation.

im obvs writing a lot so I don’t have to go deal with life. but one last thing. i was trepidatious about how mark would behave when picking them up. this being the first time we’ve seen each other since he left. i purposely didnt get dress (pjs) or do my hair/makeup. i was friendly and superficial. he hugged me three times, all intiated by him. the first time he did some weird kiss/long sniffing thing with a slight, almost silent, moan. seemed affected, but it’s hard to say. the second two were more normal, and i was like uh, ok, tried to be generic but not rude. the kids were gone for the last one, he had closed the door so i was nervous, and he said i love you. i paused, but said it back just to be polite. stupid, i know. im sure it didnt sound passionate. its just he’s leaving with my kids and i dont want him having negative feelings toward me. idk i feel kinda shitty about it. it was just weird. also, he smelled bad. like old rotten garlic.

on that note — To The Lake!!!!

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Day 18: In Which I Reached Out

Today i saw my old therapist. she only charged me $30 for the hour, which was very generous and appreciated since i have taken on so many expenses with him leaving. she said her practice was not doing well or else she would offer to see me pro bono because she cares about me so much. this made me feel uncomfortable. when she offered to see me no charge two years ago, i couldn’t accept it. and i don’t like the idea of her caring about me, seems unprofessional, and makes me suspicious of her guidance. i think that may be just my trust issues talking, but i am not sure. i have never had a normal relationship with an authority figure, and i don’t know what that would be like. growing up i had no adults i could trust. i was responsible for the care of my little brothers, and felt it was us against the world. when i had my own children, i raised them with the same mentality. i always felt more like a big sister to them than a mother. i have a hard time inhabiting an adult world, as an adult. idk what im saying here.

my therapist listened for a while as I filled her in on my nightmare of a year, and then she got kind of tough-love on me, interrupting with, “why do you listen to anything this man says?” she was frustrated. i admitted that i realize now that i was lying to myself 2 years ago when i discussed him and the nonsense of our relationship and how i was distant from him and protecting myself. that i was actually only doing what i thought he wanted and telling myself i wanted it to. that i was just so desperately trying to get approval from a man who could and would never give it to me. she said she believes strongly that he is a psychopath and knows exactly what he’s doing. idk, maybe this is true. she said when you’re around someone who makes you so confused like this, that’s a sign. i said that ive always been so good at reading people, and he seems so earnestly innocent and seems like he really does care about me in his way, but his actions show something totally different, so i get confused that maybe he is just really fucked up and all the stuff he does is straight out of his unconscious mind, for self-protection or maybe to punish me for perceived slights. but that he doesn’t seem to do it consciously. it’s just crazy to think that i could have read him that wrongly. for 10 years. but either way, whether he devises his cruelty or it just happens because he’s fucked up, i know i can’t be around him. i can’t do it anymore, it was killing me, truly. and that’s what i need to focus on.

then she talked about her ex husband again, which makes me uncomfortable. I don’t like it when she tells me about her life or when she cries about her kids. normally, i would feel honored that someone would be open and vulnerable with me, but in this setting, it feels so unprofessional. i think maybe the reason i didn’t want to see her pro-bono is because i was afraid she’d do a lot more crying and  personal stuff. like, she told me she had dreams about me, etc. it just felt super awkward. but, it’s a small town and $30 is manageable, and i like her in a lot of ways. 

then I decided to go all in and attend an OA meeting afterward. i really did not want to do this for numerous reasons. sighhhhh. but i know i need to reach out and start making connections in order to be less isolated. on the way to the meeting he texted, “<3 have you thought any more about [college city]”. they’re going next mon, tues, weds and he got a really awesome hotel downtown. he’s insists he wants me to go, and maybe he’s sincere, who knows. one thing i know for sure is that i DO NOT want to go. i was clear with him before that i am not going. i didn’t respond to his text.

the OA meeting was at a church. I have trouble with churches, too many bad memories. when i went in i saw that it was only 2 ladies, both whom i remembered from before, both who i liked. they were really nice to me. when it came time for me to talk, i gave a very brief explanation of why i stopped going (trouble with the 3rd step– higher power), and the fact that I’d recently experienced a deep betrayal that led to extreme dissociation and depression. but altho I’ve gained 75 (!) pounds since i saw them last, i’d also lost 150 two weeks ago when i kicked out my bf of 10 years. clever stuff/s

they gave me their numbers and took mine and said they’re going to harass me. they’re really nice, and I think they get it. one of the ladies is 70 something. i used to hang out with her a bit when i went before. we’d go on walks. she’s really a wise one, but something about her troubles me, makes me uncomfortable, scares me. not sure what it is. i think it’s because she smells bad. like she doesn’t shower or wash her clothes. i know full well that’s a sign of depression, but she acts so chipper. she really seems like the cheeriest person. but she openly talks about how she always felt like she had to “have a ham hock around her neck to get kids to play with her”. weird analogy, but i get it. so she is not hiding the fact that she desperately needs approval. which would explain the cheeriness. part of me thinks that scares me because i don’t want to be there if she snaps into depression mode, because i wont know how to deal with it, dont want to get drawn in to another person’s emotional demands (ie my mom). another part of me thinks it scares me because i relate too closely. either way, i feel selfish, wanting the help, but not wanting to give it. wishing i could be an island. telling myself that not every older woman will be like my mom.

then this weird thing happened, which happens to me sometimes and i hate so much. i got her smell on me. i can still smell her. it’s been hours. she gave me a good long hug, but that couldn’t have done it, right? its got to be psychological? some kind of phantom smell?  idk i have to go get dinner ready, but im going to change my clothes and pull my hair up and try not to think about it. ):

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Day 16: Breakthru Sun

I feel different today. Not sure what it is. I said before that i finally saw a light at the end of a tunnel — to realize this is a tunnel and not an abyss was huge — but maybe now i feel that light. idk. one thing im doing is trying to remember, really get in touch with the person i was before him. i look at pictures and think, i don’t know her. or i think worse things, awful hateful things that come from the regret and pain of right now. but if i step out of all that and just think. try to get back in that head space. no, it wont be exactly the same. but she is me, one of the hundreds of iterations of me, and i can remember. and actually this is practice for when my kids leave in september. if i can do this, my next challenge is to find a way to remember who i was before i had them. so daunting. especially since i was a disaster.

one of the ways I am getting in touch with pre-him me is with music, of course, right? it’s very complicated tho because music is HIS.  i think this is a good time to record how we met and a little bit about him and the relationship. we met on myspace! in august of 2006. we were both in a literature forum and started communicating about tolstoy, my fave. it was strictly a non-personal thing for a few weeks, but then his writing started to get to me. he has a way with words. he’s actually brilliant, in a way. he thinks very deeply in these beautiful and unique strands of mind. communing with that part of him is euphoric. it’s the best ive ever had. the deepest. those strands tho are so narrow and are totally disconnected. his mind is so rigidly compartmentalized, and his walls are reinforced a thousand times over. you can ride the bliss train down one of those trails and find yourself trapped in a nightmare of ambiguous hate and fear. brush one of the thorns, and the whole thing wakes up and starts to constrict. its horrible.

one of the areas in which he excels is art.  he is not a creative person, altho I believe he once was very much so, but he has a true gift for recognizing art. what i brought into the situation was long years of studying, and a passion for, literature and film. i have limited experience with visual arts overall, but threw myself into film, first in film school and it blossomed from there. i have experienced real escape and transcendence through literature and film. and in these areas, he and i were quick to find connection. 

in many ways tho we are different. where he is rigid, I am fluid. he is closed, i am open. in the very beginning he explained to me that he knew good art, and his opinion on that was unequivocal. that art is a real thing and “good” can be objectified and qualified. i felt that this was ridiculous, because art is an individual expressing an inner state, therefore it is inevitably subjective. a piece of art can do nothing for one person but then explode the mind of another person. maybe they can relate to something in it that the first person can’t. i felt, and still feel, that one person can never determine what will speak to the entire species.  i mean wtf? that bothered me from day 1. but, i couldn’t argue with his taste. he did discount some amazing films, and i think this is where i first started doubting myself and feeling inferior. i was resentful, but didn’t know how to articulate myself. partly because he was triggering old feelings of insecurity, and altho i am a sharp debater, he was as cold and slippery as a fish. manipulative af. i can’t count how many times ive legitimately wondered whether he is a complete idiot or devious as hell. i still wonder. irregardless, he introduced me to a hundred films that expanded my world immensely. 

while I was somewhat new to film, i was not new to literature. i have been escaping into books since i was 9. when i was 9 my mom left her abusive 2nd husband in the middle of the night with her 4 kids in tow. my sister and i were older and, since she could only choose 2 kids to take to the small apartment with her, she dropped us off at my grandparents, where we lived for the next 18 months. those months were traumatic for me, because my grandmother openly despised me. she was later diagnosed narcissistic personality disorder among other things. the family was well aware of her ways: she would pick a couple of favorites and terrorize everyone else. my grandfather was too afraid of her to intervene, so her house was a hellpit. her house was a meticulously clean hellpit, and children were not to touch anything or even sit on the couch. we were contained, along with her animals, in the back yard or garage during the day and straight to the guest bed at night. we were allowed no belongings, and our few clothes were kept in a box in the closet. my  mother was too busy to visit more than once a month for a few minutes, dropping off money i think. most of my memories of that time were of hiding under furniture. if i did interact with her, generally i was being screamed at, hit, or called names. however, the boredom under the table was a massive problem for my always too curious mind, and i started sneaking books from her bookcases. mostly westerns and dirty romance novels.

I was a sheltered child and learned a lot from those books. but escapism was the dominant lesson. it never ended. as a goth teen i became obsessed with the romantic writers. as a young adult, i delved into non-fiction works of eastern religion, 19th and early 20th century american authors, and eventually Tolstoy. his fiction stole my heart. his non-fiction woke me up to what one man could offer. he was the ideal version of myself, and i loved him. i felt a strong sense of self in this area. one that took my ex many years to dismantle. i eventually came to feel separated from literature, and i no longer read. his dominant superiority claimed literature as his. aside from a handful of authors, any book i liked, he knew more about, critiqued harshly, confused me. i started doubting myself. if i read a book, he’d ask to see it and dismiss it, he’d already read it.

it’s very hard to explain this. it seems like, “Who cares?”, but it was a constant subtle undermining of my connection to things i loved. if he didn’t know more, like with the aforementioned handful, he would insert himself there. he’d study the author, he’d get into forums, he’d research the history. so if i ever mentioned it, he’d correct me. and i would be taken off guard and not know how to react. if that happened once in a while, it would be fine, that’s just life and learning and that’s great. but it was everything. it was constant. it was like a thousand tiny tentacles ever so lightly and innocently severing every last ligature of my body until i was floating lost in a sea of confusion and an inability to claim a self or reality. i recognize there is a sublime opportunity in this, and i have managed to seize it in many ways. unfortunately, the destruction of my frail self-esteem has made it incredibly difficult.

music…is a whole other thing. sighhhhh. i think i have to explain a little more: my mother was a fundamentalist christian who had worked tirelessly to keep her children safe from the secular world. nice and cloistered in the twisted, perverted molester world of the pentecostal churches. the most succinct description I can give is one she repeatedly told me, somehow unaware of how nuts it proved her to be: when i was 2 she discovered my father had been cheating on her. when confronted he silently packed one bag and left. she scooped up my 4-year-old sister and i and went to live with people from her church. they counseled her to burn all of my fathers things, which she did.  every last picture. (might not have been that big of a deal if he hadn’t been killed 3 years later, leaving us nothing of him. but that’s another story.) these church people told her she was still too attached to things and instructed her to kill her beloved cat. when she couldn’t, they killed the cat in front of her, and she lost her mind and went wandering. when she was picked up, she was covered with sores and all her hair and nails had fallen out. she was admitted to the hospital, a mental institution, where she recovered for 6 months. during this time, she allowed my sister and i to be kept by the church people. i have had dark wonderings about what happened to us there. if nothing else it is a fundamental layer to the pattern of my life of being abandoned and unprotected.

she was released to my grandparents care. they took the three of us in. she was constantly in and out of fugue states and often wandered for days with bleeding feet. she told everyone that she was in the hospital because my dad had been poisoning her with arsenic. i believed this as a child. as an adult, i realize that if there was arsnic in her blood, it would have been more likely the work of the insane cult she was involved with. and i think its fair to assume that my dad left the way he did because he was afraid of her volatile emotional reaction, the same fear that came to rule my life for many decades.

back to the topic: I was raised for most of my childhood in an extreme fundamentalist home. one of the things we were not allowed was music. when i was 10, my grandfather bought me a small radio. i got a taste then. when i was 11, i was taken back to live with my mother and brothers, and the radio was confiscated. we were only allowed christian music, went to school at the church — if you could call it a school — and attended religious services 4 times per week in addition. she remarried a real sicko from the church. he abused us terribly with her as witness. when i went to the school for help, i was kicked out of the home: i came home, terrified of what they would do to me for telling, only to find two black bags with my things on the front porch. this is when life began for me.

I lived with friends until i finished high school. i stayed out all night, i met interesting people, i lived in clubs and bars and coffee shops that had all night music. i went homeless after graduating. i lived in flop houses and in cars. i fell in love with music; it was a huge part of the real world. it was a huge part of me, i realized. i listened to goth music, 80s darkwave, industrial, 60s and 70s psychodelic (mainstream), and some punk. when i got pregnant, i had to pull it together. i found a job, an apartment. i didn’t go out anymore. but, music was still so important to me. we were dirt poor, but my kids were raised with books and music. 

when I met my ex, i had my little soundtrack of loved music, only about a dozen were obscure bands, something that didn’t mean a lot to me at the time. but music is his deepest calling. i think in another dimension he could be some creative genius musician. in yet another, he’s a world-famous producer. the man has an uncanny ability to find amazing music. he has a relentless drive to search it out. and his dominance is most thoroughly presented in this world by “his” music. he collects it, like badges of his own worth, and plays it constantly. he wakes up: he puts on music. he drives: music. he goes to the lake: bluetooth playing music. he sleeps: music. our home became his domain because he always dictated the music. it was like living inside of his mind. or his mind expanding and encasing the home. “well, just change the music!”, you say! “put something else on!” and i did that! at first a lot. i said, hey its my turn. but when my music was on, he would pout and pace. he would never say anything outright– he’s too polite– but his body language and energy would be super negative, making things uncomfortable. so instead of being able to relax and enjoy the music, it became like a stand-off. playing my music became a rebellious act. a fight. and i hated that. 

and so I would fight less and less. I would go thru phases where I’d get some energy, and I’d kick up some dust, make a big deal. but mostly, i was so tired. and his music was really good. i loved it. within the first year, he copied all my old beat-up discs to an external hard drive. made sense. easy access. i gave my brother a garbage bag full of them. (he sold them for heroine, incidentally.) then the hard drive fell off the desk, and i couldn’t get it to work. it was going to cost almost $300 to have a computer guy pull the music off. money i didn’t have. i tried to list everything on there, but couldn’t remember over half of it. eventually, i never listened to music that wasn’t his. presented to me with his domineering stamp of approval. “this is good. listen to this”

and eventually, I just disconnected from it all. it was too hard. i was too drained with the other stuff going on, the sex stuff and the emotional roller-coaster. he constantly pushed his choice of books and movies and music on me. i was choked with it. i stopped liking movies, i stopped reading. i started driving in silence and tuning out his music when my home felt like a trap. and now i have an iPod full of his music. not a single song unconnected to him. we use google music on our phones, and it’s so hard to remember who i was before, and what i listened to. when i try, i hear him in my head, telling me whats good and what’s shit. 

so its been pretty silent around here. im afraid to play anything, because I don’t want to think about him. i have played a little reggae, because reggae is so positive and powerful it escapes him. and the ramones were always mine. he tried, but he could never get inside that. and I’ve been digging around online finding old favorites that he trashed, and i gave up on. 

I think its one of those things that time will heal. i have to believe I’ll come back to it. i’ll be able to read and watch and listen all by myself again. i’ll be able to say, “this is what i think.” full stop. 

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