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Thank you. It really does make me feel better feeling the love. Thank you thank you.

["I still think of you every night before I go to sleep. You are the sweetest person I've ever met and still love you. I can understand why where we are we are. Just know I'll always be there for you. And I'll always love you."]

Obviously. I knew it would be hard. I know now that the relationship was harder. It's not easy being with an abusive narcissist. I am trying to keep perspective in this giant mess of a situation.

I am 29. I was only married for a year but with my husband for four. The abuse was always there but was taken into overdrive the second we said I do.

It took every fiber of my being to leave him. For the last 8 months since I left I have gone through a few stages.

September - August: Horrible Fear (Is he coming to find me)
August - October: He is completely indifferent. Never even cared I was gone. This allowed me to separate and feel free for the first time in a very long time.
October - January: CPTSD kicked in. Started remembering things I forgot / anxiety, anger, self defeated
January - Now: I feel defeated. Sad. It's so hard to lift me up off the floor.

I grew to accept his indifference to me. I had to accept it in the relationship. We built a business together. A life together. I didn't want to take anything from him in the divorce. Despite the fact that I invested my life savings in building his business. I wanted to walk away knowing that I gave him everything with a fullness of heart and the hopes of building a brighter future together.

But now things are crashing down. He didn't pay his business taxes and now the government is taking almost 50% of my paycheck to cover it (he forged my name on our taxes). My credit was destroyed in the marriage. I can't get a loan. And I'm working for an emotionally abusive company that I now cannot leave. My car is falling apart. I can barely afford gas and food. My credit cards are maxed out and in collections. And the divorce bills...oh man. They keep coming in. My husband did not respond to any of my lawyers notices for his financials, so he is now being held in contempt of court.

And then, without notice (I could never predict his actions), he texted me on Friday at 2 AM.

"I still think of you every night before I go to sleep. You are the sweetest person I've ever met and still love you. I can understand why where we are we are. Just know I'll always be there for you. And I'll always love you."

You can tell by some of the nonsense sentences that he was drunk. I have been waiting 8 months for this message, not that I would ever want to go back. But I somehow wanted a trace of validation that he actually loved me in the relationship, or at least thought he did.

This message threw me for such a loop. He has ruined so much of my life. He took from me every chance he could. And now that he's suffering he's trying to loop me back in. He wants me to save him. This message came after he was held in contempt of court for not submitting his financials, and publicly lying and defaming my name in front of a judge (thankfully my lawyer defended beautifully). "I'll always be there for you"....Ha.

I feel defeated. I feel sad. I feel heartbroken. I feel angry. I don't know how to get out of bed and go to work. I don't know how to see friends or family.

I don't know what to do. I don't know how to dig myself out of this hole. I'm praying for strength (and I'm not typically a praying woman).

If anyone reads this, please send me any positive thoughts you may have even if you don't respond. I need a little help.

Thank you for reading.

<3 d.

["On a personal level, I have learned over the years that when I am feeling especially critical of others, it usually means that I am feeling bad and have flashed back to being around my mother who hated any dip in my mood or energy level lest I be less useful and entertaining to her. During such flashbacks then, I am self-protectively over-noticing other's faults so I can justify avoiding them and the danger and shame of being seen in a state of not being shiny enough."]

"On a personal level, I have learned over the years that when I am feeling especially critical of others, it usually means that I am feeling bad and have flashed back to being around my mother who hated any dip in my mood or energy level lest I be less useful and entertaining to her. During such flashbacks then, I am self-protectively over-noticing other's faults so I can justify avoiding them and the danger and shame of being seen in a state of not being shiny enough."

I have just started to recognize this particular flashback in myself, and it shocks me how often I experience it. I'm getting better at recognizing when it starts, though, so I'm hopeful that I can learn how to battle it effectively.

This made me cry. This is exactly what I'm experiencing. I don't feel as alone. Thank you for this"

Some people talk to their plants
They're always the ones that thrive
That need to be planted in larger planters
Leaves and blooms that stretch
and reach toward the sun

Vines overgrown
With life and silky green
Each cell unique and standing
Creating oxygen and life

Insects and butterflies
Tap at the branches
To soak in the awesome nectar
Of mother earth's trees of life

And then there are plants neglected
Confined to a pot in the corner
Of a room with walls and no doors
Greenery in captivity

Never to reach its fullest  bloom
It's purplest flowers
The best bees
A sweetness not to be tasted

Wilting and brown
Weighted toward the floor
Craving the soil
It misses

Wishing to return to the
Ground it was born in
Neglected and void of fruit
That it knew it could produce

You wanted a house plant
Perhaps only for decoration
To show your ability to pluck it
From the ground where it came

You committed to take care of it
You desired its fruitful rewards
You promised to feed it and nurture it
You vowed to keep it safe

I could have filled you with oxygen
I could have bloomed bright
I could have overfilled my planter
I could have cracked glass with my passionate vines
You could have tasted my sweetness
And let my aroma engulf you

But no.
There I sat.
A plant that could not flower.
I am not a house plant.
* you and your neglect.

I have been pushing down my anger for so long and it's finally coming out.

I left my abusive marriage in July. Plugging along. Pushing through. Found an apartment, started the divorce proceedings...

Trying to do everything right in such a wrong situation.

And now all of a sudden here is the anger. Here is the despair. Here are the nightmares. Sometimes when I'm driving I see explosions.

I feel like I've been hit by a train. I thought I was making progress. And now I'm lashing out in anger. In small ways. So out of character for me.

I wish I were stronger. I don't want this horrible man to control my life anymore. I feel like the residual pain and emotions I have is just him holding the puppet strings. I want to be stronger.

I hate him.

[Gulp, Glug, Smack.]

I left my emotionally and sexually abusive husband on July 18. In the time since I've been trying to find my voice and have found poetry to be incredibly healing for me. I performed this poem out loud (for the first time ever) at a poetry slam. I have always had stage fright and had to confront my fears in order to do so.

It feels so good to prioritize my voice. To read it and hear it.

Here goes:

Gulp, Glug, Smack.
November 14, 2016

Gulp. The gurgling grossness of my own self swallowing liquids disgusts me. Gulp. The deafening demonic noise escapes my belly, my throat, my mouth - makes my skin crawl, my spine seize, and my palms burn with self doubt.

Glug, glug, glug. Each glug of grape gurgles and cascades from the bottle, my second, of the day. Glug, glug, glug, still pouring and feeding the glass with my regret.

Smack, smack. Chewing and chewing and clenching on gum until my jaws ache, my teeth crack and the pressure behind my eyes build until they POP. Each inconsiderate smack escapes, and cracks, and spits....and...

Giggle. Don't do that! A noise has escaped without permission? Even a giggle which arises out of joy or silliness or love... gives me away for giggles are but signs of temporary insanity, and by its very definition, cannot be sustained.

SLAM. The door. Am I too loud? Were my giggles and glugs and gulps and smacks making my existence known? I hold my breath to ensure that not one more escapes, not one more noise. I shrink my body, wilt, curl inward...

STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. "Be small...be silent..." STOMP. STOMP. STOMP." Be small....be silent...don't breathe, don't be.... don't be anything. Take up no space. Don't utter a sound."

Click. Quick! Shut off the light. Turn over, sleep. Look like your sleeping. Don't breathe.

Thump thump thump. My heart beats, echoes, fills my ears with each deafening bang. Louder and louder my heart thumps and I can't stop it. Faster and faster, thump thump thump thump thump thump. I plead. Stop beating heart. Be small, be silent, don't be, don't be anything.

STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. It's coming. STOMP. STOMP. STOMP. It's here.

Silence.
The dark silhouette fills the doorway and engulfs the room, until I am in total, deafening blackness. I pray that I am small enough, quiet enough, nothing enough, that I won't be seen... but I know all too well that my prayers will not stop my loud, stupid heart, from beating.... I wish they would.

Thump, thump, thump. The shadow shifts above me. It permeates my skin and penetrates my soul taking a piece of it with each painful shadowy thrust. My mind gasps for air but I don't make a sound....except that is for my loud, beating, stupid heart.

Thump...thump...thump....thump... Heartbeat transforming....from a whisper...to a breath...from breath to movement? Thump... Thump...thump... My arms and legs fueled now by pumping blood, body flooded with life jolts forward as if possessed by a ..SLAP.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. I rise, and the shadow shies as , light shoots through my toes, my mouth, my ears, my eyes...  Clanging, beating, thumping, light. SLAP! Weaker now the shadow shrieks and sinks away from the light, fighting with it's life...

Zip zip, quick. I pack. I march away and my heels click fast. Gears clank and the tires slide, away from that * I drive and drive / into the arms of my mother, I cry, and cry. Sobs and snorts and snots and screams and claps....

and then a giggle.... and a chortle...and a laugh. Haha if this insane then I will gladly proclaim it. Are my laughs to loud for you now! On  my feet I scream I AM FREE.  FREE to believe... to breathe to choose me.
I am not a worthless. I am not nothing. I will not be abused and confused. Not today. Not ever again.

Because the shadows of the world should know that they can't steal my light, they can't take  anything from me, not me, not my sisters, not my mother, and  that no MATTER how much you try to push me down and steal my voice, and pluck my pride, even when you think you've succeeded in reducing me to nothing....we will not, cannot be defeated especially not my loud, beating beautiful heart.

THUMP. THUMP. THUMP. I fill the room the house, the streets, the mountains and oceans, the sky. I am the brightest biggest loudest star in the * universe. And the shadow...and all his shadowy friends are but an insignificant dot.  I create symphonies with my gulps and giggles and glugs and smacks. I conduct orchestras with my thumps. I sing operas with my slaps. I am not stifled, shadowed, or silenced. I will be heard. I will stomp and yell. I will take up space. I will rise and rise.

No shadow of a man, not even my husband, will dull my light my voice my right to be ...myself.
Thanks to the thumping and thrashing, the beating and pumping of my big, loud, stupid, beautiful, heart.