Bright Sun and 41 in January

i know i shouldn’t be happy about climate change, but to have a sunny 41 degree day in early January where i live is anomalous to say the least. it was so beautiful. i tried not to look while i was driving, but the sky was stunning, and low on the horizon, just along the crest of the mountains, white clouds with a silver and gold gleaming rim as the winter sun fell. i thought of all the things i would do alone now, all the sites i would see. all the fields in which i would sit alone with my portable speaker and my incense and my book or knitting. on my old blankets that he shared. i thought of how i might someday down the line share my blanket with someone else, maybe a friend maybe a lover, and how i would show them all my secret fields with their rocky slopes and pale yellow weeds that mix with the wildflowers. 

inside was like a carousel today, turning its way between heartache and longing and a new happiness that i dont yet see, but am beginning to feel. i struggled to keep my mind from falling into paths of regret and all the wicked wishes that snag me there. someone at the meeting said that we must avoid the future and the past because god only exists in the present. 

i felt stupid after my meeting today, as i fucking always do. i felt like i talked too much and said stupid things, as i always feel. unless i am sufficiently castigated and keep my mouth shut, and then i feel like i seemed weird sitting there silent, looking down, darting out as soon as the meeting is over. there is no winning. if i could not think about it, that would be a win, but it never happens. i always hate myself no matter what. 

then i wrote a letter to my sort of step-mom. ive been trying to write this letter for over a year. i even bought special stationary, waited for it to be shipped from japan, put it on my bedside table so i’d be reminded, and looked at it almost every day. i wrote in my planner repeatedly, “write S”. never getting to check it off the list. she’s written me 3 times in that space and sent $100 for christmas. i did send a xmas card! which was something, but pretty crappy. she wants a real letter. she hates email. i dont like talking on the phone. so then today it just happened. i had planned on typing up my response so that i didnt have to concentrate on content and my penmanship at the same time, since my penmanship is egregious, but nope, i just robotically reached over and pulled the dusty package over, opened it up, started scribbling away. 

thats how things happen with depression i have found. randomly and way too late.

or maybe it was the sun. i bet it was. 

i have the antidepressants in my bedside table. they’ve sat there for 6 or 7 months. i tried them twice and got a bad stomach ache. i looked it up and ppl were like oh yeah you’re going to have a stomache ache for maybe 3, 4 weeks. wow that is not what i wanna do. the pharmacists said cut it in half, take it with food. then i read articles about how anti-depressants make you a zombie or poison your organs. and they’re so addictive, etc. so i dont take them and i languish in misery and the toxic fog of ativan. i mean, wtf? makes no sense. i wonder why i dont think right. why is it so hard to make decisions, to do things? depression? damn.

but yeah, i wrote the letter to S and then, as soon as it was sealed i thought about all the dumb stuff i wrote and how i come across like a real dunce. and maybe worse. maybe i come across like a blind whiny narcissist or a straight up psychopath? and so i got sucked into the am-i-a-narcissist vortex again. from what ive read, no. but i dont trust myself in any way. im not a very good friend, to myself or anyone.

ok this is taking a negative turn and the truth is, i feel pretty shitty. i really dont want to give credence to the negative self-talk, but i feel confused and my head hurts. i also took my son to the dr. and im pretty sure i acted like a fool there too. why?  why do i act like that? or why do i think so much about it? why am i tripping right now? why can’t i just not care like everyone else? 

i have devolved.

god, my cat looks happy and peaceful sleeping on the pillow next to me. curled up so nice and neat. animals, amiright? they have it all figured out. 

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Day 19: Little Baby Soldier

so, the lady who I talked crap about yesterday called me today and was super nice and encouraging. yes, im a dick. but, also, i am completely drained after a lifetime of being used by narcopaths. (this is the delightful term my therapist says means pathological narcissists, who would be my grandma, my mom, and most of my partners! :D) maybe it’s true, i can’t deny there’s a pattern. if im an empath (which supposedly just means very empathetic, which i know to be true), then i am a neon sign to these types of people. 

its crazy tho, because I really do think im smart and careful and cautious. i have fucking cPTSD from my childhood and struggle with hypervigilance. isn’t the one positive thing of hypervigilance supposed to be that im actually vigilant– like, really, really vigilant?  then why do i keep failing to spot these guys? how are they sneaking thru my radar? 

it’s the unconscious mind. it’s so much more powerful than my conscious brain. and I just haven’t done things right. i haven’t figured it out. ive tried to be this little baby soldier. but i think im supposed to throw all the armor down and focus on taking care of baby me. that sounds logical. and ridiculous. and impossible. and like a ship that’s sailed long time ago. feeling very discouraged. and fragile.

he keeps texting me. so nice. asking can he come over, can he call, can he help me. baby soldier aint falling for it. hells no. one time he said (something like), “I know if i wanted to, i could have you fall madly in love with me, i could really blow your mind.” wtaf??! who says that? a nut! and who hears that but doesn’t run? another nut!

I swear that every day that passes, i see things clearer. and all these old ladies ive been gathering around me help so much. im grateful every day for older women. 

I am nervous about what he’s going to do when i tell him he can’t come home for christmas. i think it best if we just visit him on christmas at his flat, so i can leave when the time comes and can’t be confined with him in a private space. but, i don’t think anyone, he or the kids, will go for it. my son, to whom i suggested the idea, said “ew no, gross.” next best would be letting him come over on christmas day for a few hours. i would have to have my guard up, and maybe lie and act like things are going to be more relaxed between us from then on, agreeing to go back to providing emotional support, etc. which im not going to do. and im nervous about that too– when he finds out that it’s not going to just be ’30 days of no communication’, but ‘forever of no communication’. because i have found that when he doesn’t get what he wants, he does some very sneaky underground crazy stuff that ends up making my life very complicated. he has less ability to do so now, since i have distance. but the financial ties scare me. i believe that’s where he will strike. he has to know im nervous about it. and i need to be prepared for something completely unpredictable and extreme. for myself, it doesnt matter, but a financial blow would definitely upset the kids lives, and he knows how much that would stress me out/hurt me.

I can’t belive im here again — trying to extricate myself and my children from a dangerous relationship ever so carefully. ive got to stop trying to do everything myself, and start looking to other people to show me the way to heal properly and grow stronger and safer. i can’t trust my instincts, they’re all muddled up. and this will be my greatest test of my life: putting my fate in the hands of others. this is that same path i keep running from. the path to a power outside of myself. 

I hate this so much ❤

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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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Day 2 Without Him

Confusion. crying. screaming in my car. anger. more confusion. giving myself a very loud, manic pep talk while crying, angry, and confused. and happy. little bursts of pure joy that lasted for only a few seconds. I think maybe hope is a better word.

today I organized the closet and spread my stuff out. i know that the hangers will always be put where they’re supposed to be, and that is truly a very nice feeling. I bought a huge thing of garlic and put 5 cloves in the Roast. It was fucking delicious. I sat at the table savoring every bite. He would have loved that roast, but his gut would have killed him the rest of the night. But that’s not my life now.

“This is my life now!!!!!!” that’s what I yelled in the car. it’s funny the weird stuff that comes out at a time like that. this is my life now. i think it was a rallying cry.

then i listened to reggae which always helps. rastafarians seem to know how to talk about suffering in a way that is indeed real, but somehow uplifting. there is a lot of music i have to avoid right now. i think I’ll keep it to cherry picked reggae and maybe the ramones. that’s it.

I felt so energetic after that, that i decided I’d walk the dogs in the neighborhood. I hadn’t planned to, because i have a ton of errands to do. but the sun was out and blue skies and i felt rallied, so i got home and leashed them up and marched into the cold sun. at minute 13 of my walk, i came upon a mama moose and her two babies. when i first saw the baby jump up, i thought, “wow, that is one husky deer!” but then the mama rose less than 10 feet from me and i bolted in the opposite direction, which was thru some pretty dense underbrush and directly toward an open field. there was a woman there with like a dozen toddlers (a daycare?), and i warned her about the moose. i looked back and mama was still squared off watching me. no advancement! but the woman started screaming for the babies to run! run for the van!!! which really got me thinking, and i ran the rest of the way home.

when I got home i ate gluten-free uncured corndogs and garlic saurkraut and ordered several break up books. i also ordered Anne Lamott’s “Hallelujah Anyway” because that woman is amazing. And its spiritual, which is something I’ve avoided for years. because i was in a soul crushing relationship. i read the first few pages, and she talks about churchy stuff and bible characters and instead of cringing, i smiled because this is my life now. i do what i want. i can make up a new story. im not accountable to anyone.

his mom called tonight. she was crying on the phone. ugh that hit me. why did I answer? why didn’t i think about it first? make a plan? remember to always make plans for things like this. ask yourself: “what do i want to get out of this interaction?” write stuff down. outline. nope! i rightly ignored the first call, but when she called immediately back, i thought “omg what if something HAPPENED”, of course, and answered. she said she hadn’t talked to him, but had heard from his sister, and wanted to know how i am. wtf do i say. i blabbered something pretty generic, and she started crying saying she feels such a loss. she’s a nice woman. i teared up a little, but i held it together.

but after talking to his mom, it gets me thinking. I wonder which sister it was. he must be talking to them. what is he saying. is he sad and miserable, like he swore he’d be (barf), or is he thrilled and titillated walking around the city with a big grin and a bounce in his step looking for his next mark. but this is exactly what i don’t need to be doing.

a problem is how we left it: a trial separation. we did this to make it easier on ourselves. especially since I am still in his house and driving his car. all these strings. The kids 7 months from graduating, it was easier. we told them he moved to be closer to work. that he’d visit all the time and they’re welcome at his apt. but secretly i told him i would not speak with him for one month. i need space to think. to be free of the emotional manipulation, so i can sort things out. which seems impossible from where i sit right now. but it’s supposed to be hard, right? it’s supposed to be messy and terrifying and hurt like hell. and im supposed to do it anyway. that’s how it works when you want to become a butterfly after staying far too long in that suffocating cocoon.

successes today:

• I did 4 of the 11 things on my to-do list today. one of the things was costco which should count as 3.

• made a real dinner. meat and veggies.

• 3 decent meals, no mindless snacking, no desserts

• made contact with 3 old friends and set up a visit with one and a phone call with another.

• organized a little

• walked a little

• survived an imminent moose attack

goals:

• stay off phone at night

• just stay off phone for anything other than communication and knit/crochet patterns

• do at least 3 things from to-do list each day

• do at least 3 things from self-care list each day

• try to reconnect with at least 1 person each week

• 3-0-1

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

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