Robbed - The consequence

The three months I remained in my home state, before coming here to live with my husband again, I practically lived with R. I never felt at home in his place though. I felt held captive much of the time -- captive in the world of a man who was trying to change my mind. I awakened at 3 this morning remembering a time during that period when I really felt that I just wanted to be at my house alone. R. pitched a fit, declaring in the most disgusted and angry voice, coming from the depths of his insecurity, "When two people want to be together, they don't want to 'be alone.' They want to be together." I only had a twin bed in my house at the time, but somehow I acquiesced and said he could stay at my house with me. So he came and tried to lay with me in my twin bed. Feeling crowded and uncomfortable, neither of us could sleep. Eventually he went to the couch to sleep. I remember feeling so glad he left and at the same time thinking he was a hypocrite.

It's both difficult and reassuring to think back to that time in life. Difficult now to consider how I ever got myself so enmeshed with a raging, insecure man who screamed at me as he declared his love and reassuring that there was some semblance of sanity left in me ... enough to get out. I don't know how it feels to realize that I lived my overwhelming life with him, not just in those three months, but in the nine months preceding, while carrying on a whole other life ... or at least attempting to. I suppose it is the same as living with my active addiction and even recovery all these years. Yes, it's true, I do sometimes think that living in recovery is simply switching one parallel life for another. It's just that presumably with recovery I'll be able to become "whole." That is my goal because it sounds so close to "normal."

My abnormal life has robbed me of so much. I wasn't here with my husband during the time his mother passed away, because I was with R. It will take me a long time to forgive myself for that. The isolation of and obsession of my disease has kept me separated from friends and family for so long that relationships that once existed have died for lack of watering, or at best have faded away to nothing. I have replaced some friendships with recovery friends ... but that is a constant reminder of my situation. The colleagues at my jobs have suffered greatly at the expense of my disease and for the most part, lacks the scope of my "normal" friendships. Because I have been unable to remain present, apply myself, for at least four years, and it seems like much longer, I have been robbed of the benefit of a fulfilling work experience. But it's the little things -- the little conversations I could have had with my husband, the time I could have spent with a friend or family member ... especially during that brief time mentioned above, when I was in the south, and my husband was in the midwest. I think of a time when one of my dearest friends in the world was coming to the town where I lived, and he asked me to stay with him, and because R. pitched another of his fits, I declined. This was just after this friend had lost his mother and was going through a very emotional time. He not only needed me, I needed him. Another huge regret for me.

There have been therapists and others who say that I have "repressed anger" toward my stepfather for abusing me. The anger that I feel is that I ended up with this disease. I will be glad when the day comes when I reach the point to tell this disease to go fuck off, just like I did him when he came into my bedroom for the last time when I was 13. I lived the first hell of being molested for 10 years, and now I am reliving it. I pray it won't take 10 years to figure out I don't have to.