Why do this…

I wanted to do this blog for two reasons.  One, I want to heal, I want to finally close the doors on my past and move on.  Two, I have done a lot of reading over the past year…books, inspirational posts, and learning about narcissism.  If I would have read stories about it early, knew more about it then, maybe I would have been able to see the signs sooner, so maybe someone will read my story and it will help them.  And to give someone hope, that if you keep fighting, if you keep pushing forward, and if you get help, it will not be easy, but it will be so worth it.  

The past few months have been, let’s just say, the most difficult months of this journey. My journey to heal. Some days I struggled a little bit in the morning, I hit play on my favorite Spotify playlist before I even got out of bed and used that to get me going each morning, regardless of how I felt. I would make my bed and go down and grab a cup of coffer and then I would change the playlist to my “shower” playlist. This playlist had two purposes. One, regardless of how I felt, it always made me me feel better, and two, because I tend to get lost in thought in the shower, so I know if by the time Tina Turner was belting out the chorus “Simply the best….” and I wasn’t out of the shower, I was now officially running late.

I could not figure out why I was struggling. Why was it so damn difficult for me to just go to work, do the job that I loved, and go home and just be content. Some days the answer to those questions seemed to be impossible. Years of being told I was never good enough, skinny enough or smart enough, that doesn’t just go away once you finally walk away from that kind of mental abuse. I so wish it would, but it doesn’t. You learn to put yourself down so that when it does come from someone you love, it doesn’t hurt as much. At least that’s what you tell yourself.

You never know when one of the memories comes up, all you know is when it hits, it hits hard. 

My daughter was in high school and shortly after Christmas, the writer left me for a second time. He filed for divorce a few days after he said he wanted the divorce. It came out of the blue and I was completely blind-sided, which as I look back I realized, my life with him was a constant blind-side.  We were living in CA at the time and it’s not like here in ND where you file on a Monday and you are divorced by Friday. It’s a mandatory 6 month “cooling off” period before a judge will grant a divorce. He had been texting someone from work, I only knew because he made it obvious. Valentines came and we were still living in the same house but I was in the spare bedroom. I was working from home at the time and had been in my office working and he was working out and then rode the exercise bike. He showered and got ready and said he was going out. I was crushed. His dad had committed suicide on Father’s Day, 1972. The only reason I know that date is because 9 months after his dad committed suicide, I was born. He was 13 years old at the time. Our first Valentine’s Day together we went out but after that, never again. He always told me Valentine’s Day was a Hallmark holiday only. I never made a big deal about it, I let it be. But tonight, he was taking her out. My daughter was not home, she was out with her boyfriend. I tried to keep myself preoccupied but nothing worked, I sent him a few texts and called him.  I was literally felt like I was losing my mind.  I couldn’t stop crying and everything reminded me of ‘us’ and it was tearing me apart.  What was worse, I was trying to figure out what it was I had done so wrong.    The majority of the time it was nothing.  I was not perfect, that I will say, but in a narcissist relationship, even if you are perfect, the metal abuse will turn you into believing you are absolutely worthless. 

My stomach started to ache and I thought I was going to throw up.  I got up and went into the bathroom.  I heard the garage door open and he pulled in.  He opened the door from the garage so hard it slammed into the wall.  I was in bathroom and the look on his face was not good.  He asked what the hell was wrong with me.  I was crying and asked him why he was doing this to me.  His response.  Because he didn’t love me anymore and he needed someone more like him.  I felt like a knife had been shoved in my stomach.  I told him I should just kill myself and his response was “good, yes do it, and when you are done, I will clean the mess off the floor”.  I went up to bed and cried.  My daughter came home and went to her room, I covered my face so she couldn’t hear me.  She eventually knocked on the door and asked if she could come in.  She crawled into the bed with me and just held me.  She started wiping my hair out of my face and told me I would be okay.  We would get through this.  I never felt like more of a failure at that very moment. 

The next morning, I got up and got ready.  The writer had left for work and Jamie was at school so I cranked the music (the writer hated when I listened it and usually came and turned it down, or off) and I jumped in the shower.  Chris Daughtry’s “Over You” was playing.  The lyrics hit me…hard.  I got out of the shower and got ready and went to my office to start work.  But I couldn’t concentrate.  What was happening to me? There was no way I was going to make it.  I couldn’t do this again. I typed up a note and sent it to my daughter’s school counselor and the writer.  It was a cry for help, that sounded like a suicide note.  I put our dog in his kennel and jumped in my car and drove, and drove and drove.  Her Counselor called me a few times and I eventually pulled up to her high school, right behind a car with ND plates, and I stopped my car and I called him. 

I went into his office and we talked for a while and then I was taken away…in a police car.  I had just 51\50’d myself.

At the hospital I was seen by the on-staff psychologist.  We talked for quite a while.  I told her about the writer and things that had been going.  Not just recently but over time.  The psychologist told me she was going to admit me, not because she thought I was going to kill myself, but because she felt I needed some time away from the writer, to save myself.  That was the first night I was told I was being mentally abused and she wanted me to gain the strength and get the help I needed.  When we walked out of the room and a member of the staff came up and told us the writer was here to see me.  She walked with me, he pulled out his notepad that he kept in his pocket and immediately asked her if I was staying or going home.  She told him I would be transferred to a facility and they were just waiting on a bed.  He started asking questions about where I was going and how long, she stopped him mid-sentence and told him that under the circumstances it was none of his business.  He got in her face and she put her hand up and told him again, it was none of his business.  He turned on his heel and stormed out of the hospital.  The writer moved out while I was in the hospital.  Two months later he hurt his back jogging and was laid up.  His new friend didn’t have the time to take care of him, he called on me.  And of course, my guilt took over and I helped him.  A month later, I went back to the writer and he went to the courts and pulled the divorce paperwork….