I saw MANY red flags but I ignored my instincts.

[vampedvixen]

Another one of these essay/journaling things... trying to figure out what I can change and what I can't.



--I am powerless over the fact that I saw MANY red flags in the beginning and I ignored my instincts.--

How has it affected your life?

The fact that I stayed in an abusive relationship for so long has caused a deep rift between myself and the person who should be my biggest advocate and friend-- myself! I wanted the good parts of the relationship: the laughter, the fun, the adventure, at the expense of my safety. A part of me hate myself because I knew all the facts and I still pressed forward. Before we were even officially together, while we were only roommates, I took a 24 question test about whether or not I was in an abusive relationship and if the way he was treating me could qualify if we ever did end up getting together. Our relationship-- even just as roommates-- screened very high. I still decided to get involved with him anyway. Even after our couples therapist told me pointblank in a private session that he was too angry to have a relationship with anyone at that point, I still didn't want to leave.

I now doubt every move I make and that leaves me feeling helpless and paralyzed. I am a damn social worker for heaven's sake and I would have warned any client of mine to stay away, but I still pressed forward. In the beginning of the relationship, I was kind of wishy-washy on being together, I liked the attention but I didn't know if I was in love with him. It was convenient and comfortable, but I wondered why I didn't feel like I was in love right away. By staying with him longer, it gave me time to push my intuition aside and fall in love and give myself to him in a way I've never given myself to anyone before. Even though we were so tumultuous, there was a part of us that felt like we were soulmates. I soon was in love without realizing that was a bad place to be, like the frog getting boiled alive in the water that got hotter and hotter. It was a nice jacuzzi that would eventually fry me alive.

I always told myself that no matter what happened I would NEVER be with an alcoholic, because I didn't want to live in a marriage like my parents did. I wasn't going to be one of those girls who dated their parent because they still had childhood issues-- and I thought I wasn't because he wasn't an alcoholic. But he was definitely a rageaholic, which caused the problem to come at me sideways in disguise.

I wasted two years of my life walking on eggshells, afraid all the time because I knew the signs of when his behavior would get worse and I looked for them daily. I lost myself in those two years. I forgot how to think about anything but the big mystery of how to keep him happy. I felt like I was wearing a body that didn't belong to me and my skin didn't fit.

I used to think of myself as the stupid person who buys an exotic lion and then keeps their 'pet' in their house, even though they tell everyone it's so majestic and beautiful and they are so lucky to have this lion, there's still a part of the lion that wants to rip the person's head off and probably will in the future. You can only keep a killer pet lion for so long.

It was probably worse for me than someone who could live in deeper denial, because I knew what I was doing to myself the whole time and I deep down knew it was an abusive relationship. I knew all these facts and still I didn't care. And that makes me accept it a little bit more when the victim blaming occurred because I did it all to myself. I gave him exactly what he wanted until he was done with me. And even now, something will trigger a memory for me and I'll miss him for a moment until I hate myself all over again. I wonder if this contributes to my self-care problems-- it may be a major reason why I'm not gentle with myself anymore.

The past is the past now though and there is absolutely nothing I can do besides wishful thinking and fantasy delusions (both of which I've entertained quite a bit) to change anything. This is a fact that I accept in small pieces, a little at a time, but I always seem to return to the self-blame and problem-solving thinking.

How have you contributed to it?

I shut my brain down a lot of the time and split myself off from the angry or the loving sides. I compartmentalized. I would be angry for a brief time, but then cool off and automatically start apologizing even if it was his fault and try to clean up and make the house nice or make him something to eat so he would be nice to me again. I tried to buy his love and affection with shows of grandiose love, anything to make him treat me better. He once told me I was training his bad side to be bad by doing this and a part of me wonders if I made him worse. I enabled his behavior to such a degree, I wonder if I turned him into the person he eventually became.

I learned to anticipate his moods, which caused my hyper-arousal and hyper-vigilance from childhood to deepen into a near post traumatic stress disorder degree. Once I moved out of the house we shared, it took me a long time to realize that I didn't have to rush around trying to appease my roommates and I was shocked at how much time I had to myself when I wasn't worried about the other shoe dropping.

I used to spend so much time trying to fix the problem-- trying to fix him. I also tried to fix the environment around us. I remember when he was visiting me in the hospital, the nurse bumped into my bed in the middle of the night and she said she was sorry she was so loud. My thoughts immediately went to worrying about him, because I knew he hated getting woken up in the middle of the night and I didn't want him to throw a fit in the hospital. This all happened the night right after my surgery. It was all about him and making him happy. I was never allowed the time to be happy, or the means.

I cut myself off from support when people told me I should leave him. I stuffed my feelings until I didn't feel like myself. I tried to save him instead of just leaving. Even now, after everything he's done to me, I still wonder if there was anything more I could have done to make him happy all to the detriment of myself, my sanity and the relationship I had with my intution and Higher Power. I wanted to save him but I didn't want to save myself. I wasn't worth anything if he wasn't happy-- and he never let me forget this fact.