Too much

I went in for more exorcism today ... revisiting the past in EMDR therapy with hopes of reprogramming my sick brain. The therapy is working pretty well at culling out emotions and shifting them in the right direction. Rather than being angry at myself, I'm beginning to show some real anger at my abusive stepfather. Today I succeed at calling him a fucker and saying I hope he rots in hell. I sort of stopped myself with the rots in hell part because I didn't think it was a nice thing for someone to say about anyone, even if they don't even really believe in hell. I believe that hell exists on earth and I think he and I both have lived through it. I also said that because of what he did I have felt like a failure, and while I've spent the past few years reeling in disease, recovery and therapy he has been rotting in his own misery, but doing nothing to acknowledge my pain or his part in hit. I thought of him with pure disgust and a feeling like I wanted to spit in his face. Even writing this I have those feelings.

The more I felt my anger, the more I connected with the idea that what had happened to me made me feel like a failure, the more angry I became,realizing that I had been cut off from all that was good in me. I acknowledged that I am an intelligent, productive, talented part of the world and screamed internally with anger that I have been cut off from that part of myself. My therapist asked me to think of what it would feel like to connect to that part of me, to eliminate the obstacles that cut me off from my core goodness. As I did, I imagined myself wrapped around the world, taking it all in and offering it all up, dancing in unison, whole and complete. I am not a failure. I am enough. That's what it feels like to connect to that goodness. I know that goodness is there and I want to reclaim it as my own. I want to give and accept love, to be carefree and compassionate, to let go of selfish ego and embrace my part in the world. I can do it. I have what it takes. I saw it today.

But it was too much to take in at once. I can't hold on to all of it right now. I can't contain it all and have to let it soak in and process a little at a time. I feel sadness and emptiness right now, because I want to embrace all those good feelings right now. But I also acknowledge my hope and my patience. Today is just one day in my journey. These are all huge emotions and they are just too much for this one day.

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.