Recovery started out for me like a ride on a SCRAMBLER, you know, one of those rides ... they might still have at the fair ... where you are going as fast as you can in one direction, only to be hurled just as fast in another direction? I felt like I was suspended precariously between hope and hopelessness ... I wanted to believe in him even when everything he did was exactly the opposite of someone anyone could believe in.
Recovery is messy ... Healing doesn't come in a neat little package. It has ups and downs. I pushed through some scary, painful times. I had to take stock of what Aydan did to me but I also had to take responsibility for my choices. That DOES NOT mean that I, in any way, take responsibility for HIS ABUSE AND RAGE. I continued to care about Aydan long after I should have. I wasn't protective of myself. I wasn't true to myself. I let him distract me. He was good at it! I ignored the warning signs. I got confused when he accused me of things I never even thought of. I see now that all the things he said about me were true about him! It's all so clear to me now, but at the time, my emotions were so jumbled up, I couldn't even think straight. I can now!
Disengaging and Breaking Away from Aydan was like untangling from barbed wire and broken glass. Every move away from him hurt and cut away at parts of me that I guess I didn't need anyway. I had to let go of major portions of pride. I had to admit that I had made some very bad choices. I had to take responsibility for those choices. I had to ask other people for help. I was trapped in a snare I couldn't break free of by myself. I had to let myself feel everything ... Shame, Grief, Confusion, Anger, Sadness, Acceptance, Hope, Forgiveness, Faith and Gratitude ... I guess I'll have to work on some of those things every day for the rest of my life, but the REST of my life is going to be so much better than it was!
I didn't ever have to do everything on my own! It's never was me against the world. People like taking care of me as much as I like taking care of them! AND I like letting someone else run the train, carry the load, worry about the details, run the show and drive the car! It's nice to be a little pampered once in a while. It's good to see how other people solve problems. I have learned so many new things!
During the first year, I wrote lots of things. They're not classic poetry. They aren't meant to be. Someone suggested that I write my feelings in short phrases ... That worked for me because there were days I couldn't have put all my feelings in complete sentences. It wasn't about making pretty poetry. It was about getting the feelings OUT. Here are a few that did that for me:
TODAY WAS A GOOD DAY!
I made myself think of something else EVERY TIME I thought of him
I thought I saw him on the street
My heart beat fast with fear
and
then my heart sank when I realized it wasn't him.
IT WILL NEVER BE HIM AGAIN
I loved him more after he left
than I ever loved him when he was here
I missed him today but not as much
as I didyesterday
and who knows what tomorrow will bring?
Maybe another strategy
another coping skill to take care of me
because
IT WILL NEVER BE HIM AGAIN
Does he make you tense? Do you walk on eggshells all the time?
NOT WORTH IT!
You haven't found a partner. You've found an ulcer!
Aydan was never really "here for me". I could never depend on him.
How could I depend on him for the big things?
I couldn't even depend on him to be in a good mood!
I'm missing a man that never existed
a man that he never was
a man I imagined him to be
just like a child's imaginary friend
but I am not a child and I have no need for imaginary friends
It's time for him to GO AWAY
An essential part of RECOVERY includes allowing myself to feel
ANGER!
I resisted.
I didn't want to be like him.
Silly me!
I'm not like him. I can feel anger and control it.
NO matter what he ever says or does,
He is still the man who held a gun on me.
IT'S TOO LATE.
I can never trust him again. I could never feel safe.
VERY FEW PEOPLE ACT VIOLENTLY ONLY ONCE.
Most of us have a powerful need to believe that we could never love someone capable of hurting us.
I will not compound the damage to my well-being by blaming myself in any way for HIS criminal and cowardly act.
There are times I'd like to pretend I never even knew Aydan, but how can I encourage other women to "take the journey" toward healing if I don't warn you of the hurdles? Of course, you will feel love and longing and sadness! He wouldn't have chosen a woman that didn't have a BIG HEART! But don't let him use your own heart against you! It's exactly like I said earlier,
IF YOU HAVE A HEART BIG ENOUGH TO LOVE SOMEONE SO UNLOVABLE, YOU HAVE A HEART BIG ENOUGH FOR A REAL LIFE ... ONE WHERE YOU GET TO BE HAPPY!
Are you thinking that only you understand him, that if you just give a little bit more, he'll realize how much he's loved and suddenly change? Are you thinking that if you do everything perfect, he'll notice? You do know you are only fooling yourself, right?
The truth is that the more we did to please "our men", the more they felt entitled and the more demands they made!
It's okay if you find yourself wishing that things could be different. I did the same thing! I wasted months. I began to realize that I had two relationships ... one with "Sweet Aydan" and one with "Scary Aydan" ... In the beginning, he was one of the sweetest guys a girl could meet ... He said and did the sweetest things. He was so thoughtful. He was almost too good to be true. As he got more comfortable, "Scary Aydan" started making demands. They were simple enough at first, but they kept getting more and more unreasonable. No matterwhat I did for him, it was NEVER good enough! "Scary Aydan" was a thug! If it was a battle between good and evil ... between "Sweet Aydan" and "Scary Aydan", then, "Scary Aydan" won ...
In fact, I believe, now, that's who he was all along. I wanted so much for him to be the man I met at first. I wanted him to be the man I imagined. Sad thing is, on some level, I think Aydan wanted to be the man I admired too, but he couldn't pretend to be someone he wasn't for long! How could he become a better man and still keep all his "bad boy" traits?
I can see it, and you can see it too, that while they think they are "being so strong", the rest of the world sees them as SO WEAK! Real men don't have to abuse women.
The love I felt was mine. I heard that he mocked me and said sarcastically, "She's IN LOVE." He's right. I was. I'm not sure about him though. Some abusers confuse love with control. Others may never really know love for anyone or anything. It doesn't matter how sick our abuser is. What matters is that ABUSE is NOT LOVE ... in fact, they are opposites.
Charles Swindoll said "To love and be loved is the bedrock of our existence. But love must also flex and adapt. Rigid love is not true love. It is VEILED MANIPULATION, a conditional time bomb THAT EXPLODES when frustrated. Genuine love willingly waits.
Love isn't pushy or demanding. While it has it's limits, it's boundaries are far reaching. Real love is NOT shortsighted, selfish or insensitive. Love is Patient. Love is kind. (I Corinthians 13:4)"
Scott Peck, in his book, PEOPLE OF THE LIE, talks about what happens when people choose NOT to grow. We either get better or we get worse ... and some people (like ourabusers) do get worse. They don't acknowledge their own wrong doing. They justify the cruel things they do. They "armor themselves up" for the battle they fight against themselves. They ruin their own lives to save their precious PRIDE ... They are like dead men walking ... living only the part of their lives they are willing to admit to ... That's whatmakes them "people of the lie". It's not the lies other people tell them that hurt them. It's the lies they tell themselves! Each time they lie to themselves, they sell a tiny piece of their soul, and some of them didn't have much "soul real estate" to begin with!
Well, that's not my story to tell. I hurt so bad that all I knew was that I didn't ever want to get to this place again, so I did everything I could to, hopefully, not to come this way again. I have the tools to choose more wisely, set better boundaries for myself, listen to my intuition, question things that don't "feel right" as soon as they don't "feel right" ... and never let myself fall so far and so fast again.
I can't control anything or anyone else, but I am in full control of ME ... thankfully! I will do my best with what I'm given today, and I'll do my best with what ever happens tomorrow and the day after that, I'll do the same, one day at a time, until doing my best is a habit!
From the start he and I may have tried to help - change - fix each other.
In the end I had to help - change - fix myself
so that I could help - change - fix his victim into a SURVIVOR.
I have more strength than I ever knew.
I SURVIVED him.
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