Golden

Golden

An abused person masters the art of silence.  You sob quietly, scream quietly, pick yourself up from the ground and assess your injuries quietly.  You discover a way to perform all your tasks making as little noise as possible.

You forget the sound of your voice, and all the little sounds of life become a deafening crime you hope go unnoticed.

A friend of mine saw him at the grocery store. That feeling in my chest is back, and all she did was tell me about it.

He was with a woman; we think it's the same woman he took on what was supposed to be our vacation ( the one I predominantly paid for). That means she's been around for a little more than two years.

I am really struggling right now with guilt. She's probably seen him for what he is by now. And I'm sorry for that. What if I had had a spine back then and told her. Does she need help now?

I feel I should reach out.

Against some of my more rational thinking, i tried to see if I could find the woman on Facebook.

I think she has me blocked because I couldn't find her and I definitely found her before. Which means he would have asked her to block me. He must be afraid.

That gives me immense satisfaction.

Class

Abuse survivors become experts in damage control. I can handle a lot of tough, semi-humiliating situations with a cool head and a lot more grace and humour than I knew I was capable of. At least on the outside.

I guess people call that class. I called it survival.

I have healed a great deal since my first post here. It is a relief that I have been able to make such progress, when, at the beginning, I was certain I was going to remain in my high-alert, traumatized state forever.

However that does make some flashbacks and other trauma symptoms a bit more jarring when they do appear.  Some days you feel almost... normal?  But something will take you back and remind you that you aren’t, and that you’ll never be completely “normal” again.

I was more accustomed to that notion when I was in the thick of the worst bits, and having such a disaster-brain all the time made me not have a “normal” to miss. But now, I have good days to mourn.

I feel spoiled for even posting this, especially when I read from people who are still in early healing days. But I guess that's further evidence of how we're not quite there yet.

There were so many examples of this. No matter what I chose, it was always wrong. I questioned the rationality of all my decisions all the time. And I was wrong every time.

It wasn't long before my mind went blank when it came to decision making. And then he'd start screaming at me for not being able to make decisions.

Food was always a Thing

He'd tell me he was bored with the food I made so I'd find a new recipe. He would criticise everything about it, say it looked disgusting and ask why I was so stupid.

So he'd give me one to try, I'd make it and he'd love it. If I made it again, it was never as good as the first time. If I made it again he hated it. If I never made it again he would tell me that he loved it and I was withholding it because I was lazy/a cunt.