Left Out & Left Behind

One of the things I hated most about living with my abusive husband, is so seemingly small. I guess it could be seen as petty. Sometimes with abuse it is the little things that are hardest to take. You can learn to cope with the yelling.. not so bad if you drift off in thought while standing there taking it. You memorize the insults. How much can they hurt the hundredth time that he said them? I already believed they were true. But the little things, the seemingly unimportant things, those are the ones that are like a knife to your soul, each and every time.

For each of us it is something different. For me, it is being left out or left behind. I hated that if we had people over, I was always sent to do something in the kitchen, or to nurse the baby in the other room.Why did the guests never notice?Why does no one ever notice? Instead, I got used to hearing, "We would have loved to have spent more time with you. Maybe next time, maybe when the baby is older..."

I hated when he would tell me that he was going out to do something with his friends, or going out "for a break" by himself. Didn't I deserve a break? I spent all day, every day in the house with the kids, while he left the house every day. And if I asked about being allowed to go somewhere, I always got the same old story. "Who will watch the kids while you are out? You will either have to take them with you, or just not go."

It's not that I don't like leaving the house.. but it becomes scary after a while to venture out into that vast unknown. What if I go to the wrong place? What if the wrong person talks to me? What if I look too friendly/ What if HE sees it? What will happen when I get back home? Better to not take that chance. Better to avoid causing problems...

Of course, when he gets home, I am supposed to be happy for him. I am supposed to ask him how it was, if he enjoyed it. If I don't then it is obvious to him that I don't care about him.. and that is just another backlash that is so much easier to avoid. You get really good at putting on the mask. It is the same mask that you put on when other people come over to the house. The same mask you put on when you are allowed out of the house. It is the mask of nothing is wrong, and I couldn't be happier.

I wear the mask. I smile and ask how it was. I listen to him tell me every detail, very attentively.. just in case he asks me a question. And inside my soul dies just a little more as he spoils it for me.. but it is not like I would ever be allowed to go anyways..maybe it is for the best.

Being Haunted By Your Abuse

I had thought that I had left it, escaped it. By not living with him, by avoiding him, wouldn't I be free? I started building a new life. I brought new things into my life: new possessions as I got rid of the old, new friends as I let go of the old... I worked through my feelings: my sadness, my pain, my fear.. i thought they were gone.

As I sit here in horror watching them bubble up in my mind despite it all, I realize that I had only dealt with some of the feelings, had only glossed along the surface level. The rest must be buried deep inside, in relative safety. The same way I kept everything for so long..

How did I fool myself so well? Why could I not see the fear and pain that is still there? Will it ever end? Will I ever be free? Will I spend the rest of my life trapped by the hauntings that are left buried in my mind?

A Gift of Healing To Share

I wanted to share this page and free healing gift that I received today from Rebecca Marina. She is very insightful and I have healed quite a bit from her wisdom and gifts. This is sure to be just as powerful. Go claim your healing  now. http://rebeccamarina.com/2009/12/gift-heal-abuse/

What If HE Was Right....?

What if HE was right when he said I wasn't good enough? ..that I didn't do it well enough? ..that I wasn't worth it? After so many months, and so much healing, these were not the thoughts I expected to have come up today. And yet, there they were.. an innocent conversation with a man that truly loves me. And yet within those words of love, I hear the echoes of words from so long ago, from other men. Why do they still ring so in my head?

The longer you are with an abusive person, in an abusive relationship, the more ingrained those echoes from the past are. Even if you managed to pull yourself from one abusive relationship to another for years, decades, doesn't mean that any of them were right. You are good enough, you have always been good enough, and you will always be good enough.

And HE IS WRONG... No matter how nice he seems, how well intentioned, how remorseful.. he is still the same, and it will happen again. You are your own person, you have your own power.. now is the time to take it back, fight for it, don't let anyone ever take it away from you again. It is your power, and you are good enough.

I am still here...

I am still here, and life is good. Well, not perfect, but a solid good.
I'll write more about emotional abuse soon. I have grown so much, seen so much of my part in creating/attracting this into my life. I have spent a large amount of time using EFT to work through all of my thoughts and feelings... and I just don't feel the same any more. I don't think about things quite the same way anymore.
I know there are a lot of people out there that would like to feel the freedom from the fear of abuse that just sets into your mind until it is so comfortable that you don't know that it's there. I know other people would like to know how to get out of their own situations. I know other people would like to break the cycle of abuse present in their lives. And so I will go back to all of this, and tell you how I have gotten to where I am now.
And where am I now? I am separated from my husband. And now, we have revived the friendship that we once had. We have been able to be friendly and focus on our kids rather than each other, which means the times when he is here are so much happier. (My husband is an over the road truck driver, so he hasn't been in the house on a constant basis in over a year.) And life is good. And we continue to grow and change.

What Do You Want?

And that's when I heard it. What do you want? What does this mean? Do you want a divorce? Wow... talk about waves of fear coming up... my mind raced over how to answer. Do I say yes, and then figure out how I am going to support myself and the kids tomorrow, do I say I want to try and work things out, do I say no, I just want him to get help?
I went ambiguous, I couldn't really answer...I said I didn't know...

I thought I had gotten all the signs, all those pieces of paper that might say the wrong thing to him... But then he asked if I was sure that I didn't know, if I was sure I wanted to try to work through things, because number 2 on that list over there was "leave my husband". OOPS! The list was behind me, and I didn't know exactly what it said, but I knew it was a list of why that goal was important that I had made over a month ago. I told him it was an old list, it was a thought, it was something that I had been considering. I didn't want to turn around, and prayed desperately that there was nothing else on that list to explain. And then it was quiet.

"I really have supported all your ideas, and I really do love you," he said. I knew that, I felt it in my soul. And I really didn't want to hurt him, I still love him. A momentary fleeting thought that we could work things out.... But we have grown so far apart, we want things that are so different, splitting up would be the right thing for us. I asked him to consider the possibility that he could have said things that hurt us. I told him that I was willing to accept the possibility that he hadn't meant to hurt us when he said those things. I asked him to consider that since the kids and I are so energetically sensitive, that we felt the things he said or did more deeply. And he agreed that he could accept the possibility that he had said things that had hurt us. After all, he has never been good at dealing with the kids, he never seems to actually understand them the way that I do.

Wow, we have both grown. We have both changed so much from a year ago when it would all have been screaming, crying, accusations...

Time to Talk

He announced that he was home for the weekend. His load dropped on Monday a couple hours away, and he thought he would come home to do laundry, eat food cooked at home, and see us. Kind of a twist, losing the phone, not talking to him in two weeks, he wasn't sure if we would even still be here.
I guess that's when I decided it was time to talk. I can't keep up the facade, I can't lie to him...it is not in my nature...I couldn't spend the entire weekend pretending everything was hunky-dorey. I knew he would either accept what I was saying, and realize that he needed help, or it would end the relationship and he would walk out. I wasn't prepared for that to happen... I really don't know how I would financially support myself and the kids right this minute...I haven't worked in over 12 years, and I do not have a college degree to fall back on...I'm self educated...but that doesn't show up well on a job application!
So, I asked him to sit down and talk. I told him that there were things he had to know, because I knew the kids and I were going to respond strangely at times. I told him that we had learned that what we have gone through, the way we have been living, is emotional abuse. I told him that the kids and I are all showing signs of being the victims of emotional abuse, and we have gone looking for help for it. He started out saying that he has always been supportive of me, and my ideas...how could I feel this way. And then I pointed out when he is overtired or just waking up that he has always said and done things that he doesn't remember later. It was one of the reasons that I asked him to go get help in the first place...it was one of the reasons he decided to go over the road.
And then I said the weirdest thing, the most profound thing. It just flowed out of my mouth, and when I heard myself say it, I knew it was true...although I didn't think about it before I said it, quite the reverse. I actually said something without thinking about it; it wasn't guarded, it wasn't checked for others' feelings, it just came out. And then I thought about it. I said, "I don't blame you." And in that split second of saying it and hearing what I had said, my mind raced. If I didn't blame him, then who did I blame. My mind brought up a tally of all the emotional abuse I have been through in my life, and I thought to blame each of them in turn. And I released that thought for each of them in turn. It was deeper than that, it was older than that. I found myself back in the first moment of abuse I could remember, a child of five with my stepmother. I sat there in my mind and wondered if I could blame her, and then asked myself what good it would do. And I let go of the blame....