To live in fear, is to live in a lie. At least that is true for me today. Because I am safe today. I lived many many years when living in fear kept me alive. Living in the knowledge that at any point in my day I could be in bodily physical harm, kept me on my toes so that I could do my best to protect myself. No one should have to live in that fear. No one should have to be afraid of their partner. I feared mine for 6.5 years. Yelling, screaming, shoving, slamming, pinning down, head locks, pressing down on my wind pipes, blades held to my skin with the taunting threat of drawing blood, sexual assault, control, isolation. My daily life was chaotic, unpredictable.
I used to think battered wife syndrome was so absurd. “How did a woman not know she was being abused?? How is it justified?!” And unless you have experienced the type of manipulation that goes into abusive relationships, it may sound crazy to you too. I had a conversation with my Aunt just the other day and I was telling her about the abuse I used to suffer and she asked me if I was in denial of the fact my husband was abusing me. I was not in denial. I was in delusion, brainwashed. The dark entity that is my ex husband had me convinced he was hurting me to help me. I know that sounds backwards, and it was. But to me, on the inside, I truly didn’t understand he was abusing me. My ex is a pro con artist.
I met him in treatment as I was coming off of my heroin addiction. He saw a viable target, a vulnerable person, and he pounced. He saw opportunity and I saw a man that I believed would protect and take care of me. He was 10 years older than me, I was only 22 at the time and I had been homeless for some time and was terrified at the idea of not having someone next to me to help me through life. My family was nearly done with me after all the harm I caused them, and being alone in the world was too scary to stomach.
People like him know what they are doing. He loved bombed the hell out of me in treatment. He promised me all the precious stones and money life had to offer. He promised me safety and comfort. He was my superman, saving me from abusers past. My rose colored glasses sat comfortably upon my face. I wanted it all to be true. But in reality, he ended up using all of my past trauma and my mental illnesses as ammo to abuse me further. I could, and may, write an entire memoir solely focused on the 6.5 years we were together, but I will do my best to give you the gist of the horror in this post.
If you have kept up with my previous posts, then you already know that I have a vast array of mental illnesses. My ex did all he could to keep me heavily medicated with my psych meds to better control me. I have dissociative disorders that cause me to lose chunks of time, sometimes days. He was really big on being my savior, and making sure everyone knew just how well he took care of me. He went to all of my psych appointments with me to “help” me be well. When the doctor asked how I had been doing I would usually report that I was as okay as possible. “Honey, you haven’t been doing that well. Remember x, y, and z?” “I don’t know what you’re talking about.” I would respond. “You must have been in an episode. Dr., she has been having a lot more psychotic episodes, and her medications just aren’t doing enough. I hate to see her suffer.” He would say with such care in his voice. The doctor inevitably would raise med dosage or add a new medication. At the end of our marriage I was on 5 antipsychotics, 2 that were scheduled, the other 3 as needed. I was on several other psych meds, all of them totaling 11 or 12.
He was incredibly methodical about the way in which he controlled me in front of other people. “Sweetheart, are you feeling okay? You don’t look well.” He would say within ear shot of my loved ones at family gatherings. “I think you need to take some of your Klonopin. Let’s get you home so you can rest.” He gleamed off the notion that my family and friends could see just how well he took care of me. He also loved to dote how well he took care of his dying mother, to anyone that would listen. He fed off this appearance. I was like a patient to him, a captive really.
Not too long into our relationship I developed an alternate personality. Something my brain created to protect myself from him. Her name was “V”. V could fight back. I would just freeze. He used to intentionally pull her out from the depths of my mind so he could then physically harm my body back into my personality. He would smile with this sickening grin and say to me “I can’t wait to play with her.” It was a game to him. A game that brought him great pleasure.
Three weeks into our life in Iowa, V had come out and we were sitting in his car. He grabbed my arm and cranked it. I screamed and began to cry, begging him to stop. “Are you done!” He yelled at me. “Please let me go!” I pleaded. He cranked my arm harder. This repeated a couple more times, until I was in real fear he would break my arm. Finally he let go. I cowered into the passenger side door, crying and asking why he had done that. His response still sends shivers down my spine. “Because I love you baby. I just wanted to bring you back to me.” That was when he hooked me. That is when I became trapped by his mind games. That story, as terrible as it is, isn’t even the tip of the iceberg. Like I said, an entire book could be written and still not cover all of the horror of my time with him.
I haven’t seen him or heard from him since October of 2020 when our divorce was finalized and I still find my mind drifting off to “what would I do” scenarios. What would I do if he knocked on my apartment door? What would I do if he comes to my job? What if I walk into my house and he is just standing there? This brings me back to the first sentence of this post- To live in fear, is to live in a lie. He isn’t coming for me. He is too lazy, too broke, and too much of a coward to ever put any effort into finding me. That part of my life is over. Thank you, God, that I am free and safe. The fear I used to live in no longer serves me. Now, it causes me mental and emotional pain. A tiny part of me still whispers “But what if you let go of the fear, and he does come for you. What then?” I do my best to bring those fears to God and am doing the work in therapy to snuff out the fear of him coming for me. I have made great strides in regards to that all, and will continue the work to eradicate those fears entirely.
This week I invite you to take a few minutes and reflect back on where you were in the past compared to where you are today. What fears have you let go of? What pain have you healed? Who have you helped with your story?
And take a moment to appreciate exactly where you are right now and allow yourself to just be content. Just say thank you to yourself for all you are in this very moment.
Lovingly and with gratitude to all my readers,
Kassandra