Tonight I am sad.
I think that's a good thing as far as healing goes. It means I'm not angry which is my default defense position.
I started reading "Your Sexually Addicted Spouse" which takes the behavior of the sex addict's spouse/partner and shines the light of trauma on it. It is the FIRST thing I've read that I feel comfortable with. I finally feel validated and sane.
Roi went to a meeting which was triggering for me. Not that he went to a meeting, but how we went about it. He also did two other things since yesterday that were highly triggering, and I decided to just address it all head on. Not let it stew and fester because I know he'll just lie, minimize, blame-shift, etc. Aaaaand, predictably, that's just what he did.
Then I unleashed. I mean I just unleashed and didn't stop for three hours. At first it was just anger and arguing, and then I just said everything I was feeling and thinking, and everything I knew, and all the evidence I was looking at, and what it all meant to me. I cried and paced and chain-smoked and it just kept coming.
He says he's calling a therapist tomorrow. I didn't express whether or not I would go but I will probably go. Not to save the relationship, but because there's a momentum now that I can't stop. A freight train of hurt hurtling right through me and all I can do is ride it.
He's gone upstairs to bed, exhausted and claiming to recognize what all this has done to me and that he has a demon inside him. I don't particularly care what he feels. I'm not capable of that anymore. But sitting here now in the dark I feel an overwhelming sadness and grief. The trajectory of my life was radically altered and I'm left in my own body but not feeling at all myself.
I'm sad that all my friends who went to the same kick-ass liberal women's college I went to are keeping true to their values and I'm not.
I'm sad that I have a career I never wanted.
I'm sad that I can't seem to pull it together.
I'm sad that I keep forgetting appointments because I'm so overtaken with recurring thoughts.
I'm sad that I'm not myself.
I'm sad that I can't remember myself.
I'm sad that I've been so deeply hurt and worry that I will never heal.
There are so many things to be sad about it's overwhelming. I'm exhausted and hollow.
p.s. I'm also angry that I'm sad, so there is still that.
ReplyDeleteI know that the flesh cannot heal until it stops being wounded. Neither can the psyche.
ReplyDeleteI used to cut myself. (I know it seems really unrelated, but it popped into my head, so I'm going to go with it.) As long as there was a cut on my arm that had not scarred, I was still physically and emotionally wounded which set me up hurt myself again, very easily. When there were two or three cuts on my arm at once, I was very wounded and very succeptible to becoming wounded again, on top of the wounds I already had.
Once I started trying to stop cutting, which didn't happen until I was working on the inside of my brain stuff, the stuff that was really hurting me and causing myself to get wounded in the first place, the longer I went between cutting, the stronger I got at the more healed I became.
Taking myself out of it....the longer you go between the instances in which you are hurt tremendously, the more you will heal in the meantime.
I know your book is very important to you, but do you think that living with Roi and reliving the nightmares of the past is almost like living with 2 of him and is almost hurting you 2x at once?
You are deeply hurt, and wounds on top of wounds take a long time to heal, but you will heal. You seem to be in the thick of it right now.
Also, in a side note, did you delete a post? Or am I losing my mind?
ReplyDeleteWhich post? I didn't delete anything purposefully that I know of.
ReplyDeleteI too have cutting scars. It stopped as abruptly as it started, and how it stopped is both clear and a mystery. At times I find myself wanting to want that pain again, but I can't muster it. Which to me means I'm EXTERNALIZING the pain finally, not internalizing it.
As for doubling the hurt - yes and no. It is certainly excruciating. I might as well be curling up with razor blades every night, but at the same time there is a distinct shift happening that I'm no longer in complete control of, but I feel it is seismic and ultimately good. At least I hope that's what I'm feeling and I'm not mistaken. The book is a force of its own at the moment, and I may find the need dies before it is fully written, or that I don't want to publish it.
I have no way of knowing. What I do know/feel is that the compulsion to revisit and compile everything seems to be driven by a need to face the truth, the whole truth and keep reminding myself of it, and to simultaneously purge myself of the shame and denial. To name the monster and shine a light on it.
"To name the monster and shine a light on it."
ReplyDeleteI forget that this is something I keep hearing from you, and with an undeniable sense of urgency. I can only imagine. Go with it.
My cutting stopped pretty suddenly, too, but I was receiving very good mental health care...for the first time, ever, my problems had a voice.
I really hope I am not imagining things...didn't you just post about PTSD?
Kelly, no I didn't post specifically on that topic but we discussed it in comments on the "universe/irony" post I think.
ReplyDelete