empathy, and I think you are so brave for talking about your experiences. You
have helped me so much.
My father was domestically abusive to me when I was a child up until he
divorced my mum when I was 14, and my sister was 12. It consisted mostly of
psychological abuse: My mum passed me the phone after calling him to tell him I
got into a good school, and he called me a fluke. He said I was unteachable.
Things escalated during and after the court proceedings for child custody -- he
broke into the house and killed our rabbit, stole our cats and starved them,
and tried to kill my mum. He put superglue in the door locks preventing us from
entering our own house, intercepted the mail and let down air in the car tyres.
We were so petrified of him, and my mum didn't think to gather evidence and
press charges. Unfortunately it is too late to pursue this now as the police
say the events are too far in the past. During a visit we allowed in an
attempt at gaining closure, he took my sister's teddy bear, locked it in the
car and said it was going to die in the heat. His case for child custody was
that he didn't want my mum to have us, but he only wanted us for weekends and
some foster parent can have us during the week. I had stopped looking to him
for affection from a very young age. My mum won custody of us and has been the
wind behind me ever since -- an inspiration in tenacity and chasing a good life
despite the past. I buried myself in achievement during my teenage years,
isolating and revising hard for exams, but my mum often says to me that she's
proud of me no matter what, which is so touching.
Tracy -- when you spoke about your ex-husband who you divorced in 2001, I could
relate to being called worthless, not dressing right, not being enough for her.
I still hear her in my head too! I wish I could hug you (if you're okay with
that
) I am still very mixed up about the relationship I had with my ex. Ihave my own problems which I am TRYING to work through in therapy (but here in
the UK it seems that if you don't want to constantly kill yourself all the time,
you no longer meet the criteria for CBT on the NHS), I will be getting
private therapy, when I can afford it, to work through childhood and
relationship issues. My ex said I am "just a penis", and than I am stupid and
often said "you suck!" at me repetetively if I was slow to come up with a plan
of what to do next. I constantly strived to please her, adapting to her every
request. "You should dress better" -- so I went clothes shopping and became
someone else. "You should talk like a gentleman not all weird like you do" -- so
I adopted a charming accent and carefully chose phrases to use. "You're not that
bright, are you? I guess you can be my lover and I'll marry some rich banker.
I'll need his support. I'll let him sleep with hookers while I go off and see
you" -- my reply was "I love you". I would have done anything for her,
sacrificing my self-worth at any cost. She constantly compared me to her work
colleagues and I always lost out. She wouldn't kiss me or hold hands with me in
public because she didn't want to be associated with me until we were behind
closed doors. I am still so ambivalent about her. I poured my energy into
restoring her own self-worth, telling her that I believed in her and I will
always love her, but I felt dead inside by the end of the relationship. I still
do love her, and I go into fits of painting her as perfect and I filter out
everything but the golden moments (the few there were) in the relationship. I am
glad I initiated the breakup, as it was the first start to standing up for
myself and saying NO YOU CAN'T TREAT ME LIKE THIS! I spiralled into a
depression, left my job, and moved into my mum's house, assuming the state of an
invalid, shuffling around looking at my feet, not eating, not bathing, and
sleeping for 16 hours. I constantly thought of suicide, and made todo lists
consisting of what to buy, scores on practicality, cleanliness of the method,
and how to slowly reduce contact with those that loved me in order to minimise
the damage.
I so badly want to work through all this in therapy so I can live my life. I am
very emotionally closed off as I learned a lot about myself and my weaknesses
through my past relationship. I owe it to myself and to others to work on
myself. I do go to Alcoholics Anonymous, partially for the fact that I drank and
smoked marajuana when I was very depressed -- to numb my feelings. I also go for
the positive social influence. Most people are friendly and approachable and are
also working on issues which I can often relate to, and they are very open and
honest about it. I am now 15 months sober from drugs and alcohol. I still numb
with pornography, and I am trying to stop that. I am one year into a course of
anti-depressants and am much more open about asking for help -- calling
Samaritans when I feel suicidal, and booking therapy. I am going regularly to
dance lessons and this helps me mix with women, but I often leave the dance
nights thinking about my ex, missing her, forgetting to look at the past in a
balanced way.
Bless you both and take care. Keep on sharing your story, I am sure it has helped others too