PTSD

Ptsd and the after-effects of abusive behavior

What it is that distinguishes one person from the next from developing post- traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is still pretty unclear.  It is probably a combination of factors: the level of trauma, the support system of the individual, the inner stability and assurance that a person may develop from childhood that "all is okay".

I don't know.  But what I am fairly certain is that I have PTSD.  And why I know this, is because I can still react to its triggers with what I remember from when he was home (hurtling back in time, like a timetraveller!)...  The hyperarousal (whats that sound?!), the fear (especially the fear), the sense of crunchiness of all those familiar eggshells.

In short, it sucks. Having him served for noncompliance, I seek my day in court; no, I am forced to.  No money, no health insurance for the kids, no childcare or tutoring costs, we can not make it easily... And after a week of hunting for him (and time growing short before the court date), the process server states he has to serve him when he drops the kids off here after his "weekly night out". I tell him, okay, but not until the kids come in...My stomach is in knots.  I am afraid, though I can not express it, he will be angry, I am sure.  

And he is. He is "a wild man", according to the server- who states he threw the papers back at the female process server, and would have kept at it if her male associate had not jumped out.  I heard his BMW rip away with a screech...as I herd my kids upstairs.

I know it was something I had to do.  His refusal now to pay ANY support, even as he talks to the kids about the house he is going to buy, and the fact that his girlfriend. and son will be moving in....goes on. Or as he tells them over another expensive dinner in a restaurant, before he takes them to the store to buy some toys...(those are not bad things actually, I'd rather he'd feed them well than not, ...).
The timing could have been better but there was no choice.  And the secondary part of what I think is PTSD seeps in.  The guilt, the feeling of sickness that it's "me".  "All me".  The feeling of learned helplessness that tells me that its not going to work out and no matter what he will feel and do fine by not paying ANYTHING now...and I will have to scramble for the second and possibly third job to make up the difference.

Or the guilt that the amount he WAS paying as per assigned via state laws on child support formulas is generally way more than anyone  i have heard receives...but it just barely covering our expenses even with my salary.  I am proud of the latter because my wages are decent even after having been a SAHM For 13 years.

But its not enough.  I am trying to keep it right for my kids (and even for me, as I have started to fund, minimally at least, my retirement fund).  I pray he is forced to provide the child support, having offered not to pursue maintenance (after 24 years) so that I could get the best custody arrangement he would agree to (though he swore he'd never "give" me money for me).  But I feel weak.  It feels like he will be able to pay nothing, the lack of power is oppressive.  But he must not know about it.

So.. Abuse is a funny thing.  It makes the giver feel strong, and the receiver feel weak. And even as I have passed that aspect of it, and applied full force boundaries against this man who has become a nasty and unkind narcissist (though, I despise labels because it cuckholds people into boxes, and never tells the whole truth about them), i feel helpless and afraid behind closed doors.

I write, to cope.  I keep quiet and try to find my way.  I call my own friend who is a support, having lived through her own Hell.  But it is so hard.  What this has done to me, i am afraid to know.  Kindness from strangers, sets off my tears.  Why, I don't know..except to say that kindness seems so foreign now.

Sucktitude

06.05.2014

My ownership of what went wrong in my marriage rears itself up at the craziest times.  Like, just now as I was pulling into my driveway, I was reminded of how I used to nag him about whether or not a certain bill was paid.  “Did you pay the cable bill? How about now? Now?!”  And inevitably, it would not have been, he having been too busy in his legitimately busy professional career. The persistent feeling that our home life was not a priority in his reality, made me press harder, then harder as his return home started to get later and later. 

The other issue was his desire to socialize in what I considered an alcoholic haze.  Through much of our marriage, he did not overdrink, but truthfully it was likely because of my watchful (read: fearful) eye to assure that he was not driving drunk home, he was not going to do something to endanger the kids or us on the way home, and truthfully, because it just SUCKED being with someone who made an ass of himself being the party boy while I had to sit and watch.  No, not fun.  So my bitch mode would be on suspenseful “lock-and-load” mode whenever we would go out, worried that like the days before our marriage he would lose control; as in before a dating period when truthfully he lived his teens and early 20s in a drunken boisterous social life being the life of the bar. The alcoholic party guy who was the life of the party.

We were so different.  There are people now who love his spirited charm as they would see it, I’m sure.  But being married to it, wasn’t fun- and I felt like I had to be the parent of our kids and HIM all the time.  Did our bills get paid? Did the doctor’s appointments get set up?  Did the food get bought?  Did our retirement investments get invested?  No? Then I have to do it.  And I did.  It was an endless cycle of responsibilities that had been instilled in me at a young age, as IMPERATIVE to do to stay safe in life.  My baggage, my fear to be sure that fed nicely into his willingness to have someone else take care of the necessities.  It sucked.

*****

Let me rein myself back in now, because this little diatribe is meant to be about ME, not him. Because as he liked to say, I guess in many ways, I DID suck.  I sucked big-time.  And it was not for reasons that I would have preferred (if there was such a thing to feel good about sucking).  Apparently, I was not in touch with the real root of the problem- being that my philosophy in life, the life of the worker ant who worked to stay safe, or the Capricorn who was meant to be grounded and stable in the realm of real life..just did not mesh well when faced with someone who did not feel that same way, at least for their own  personal lifestyle.

The more he pushed away, pushed back from the consistent and caring for our life staples (albeit happy for me to do it, just not him when he did not feel like it), the more ANXIOUS I became, pushing back to make, then FORCE,  him to see that this was important stuff that we both needed to do.  For BOTH of US, not just me.  I thought I was being a helpful and supportive wife, and I was.  But nope, it was not to be that he would see it, believe it.  As things turned, I was perceived as a harpy, a nag who did not want to hang out for extended periods in a bar (for at the end, that is where he wanted to be..with his buddies).  Now, he is at his OWs parties, family, friends, cousins..doing what he does best. And that is good- that my own conflict has been released so that now I can be the person I am- with someone who does not make me suck.  To let me honor what I believe to be the right thing, and even, allow me to bring out my own little grasshopper.

***

So now I am contemplating this little conundrum of the past.    I wanted to become the grasshopper playing in the field for a while, to be allowed to have someone else take care of business, while I hung out and partied.  But it would have been a bit of a lie, because a true grasshopper ultimately doesn’t care if that work is done or not…and that would drive this ant (dressed in fake grasshopper garb) nuts.

But that doesn’t mean I don’t want to dance in the rain sometimes.  Even worker ants get to party sometimes.

All the great and inspirational speakers that I have been reading (not to say I have read them all, just as many as my brain could digest on these cold, lonely Saturday nights) say that to be truly happy you must honor yourself, open yourself up to the experience of life- the part that stinks as well as the part that sings.  AND most importantly, own up to your own vulnerabilities, your own SUCKITUDE and then accept it as part of who you are.  It’s okay, because in the end, we all suck- just in different ways.  And if we didn’t, how boring that life would be.

My partner in life, should he ever step forward will have to accept me for who I am.  And for me to accept him, he would have to help me take on the weight of our little breadcrumb, shoring it up on his shoulders at times when he doesn’t want to--just as he might expect me to do the same.  And maybe, we could dance in the rain together…or even alone, celebrating and laughing to our balanced shares of suckiness. 

It’s a dream I have, but hey, it is a start….