Baby Steps

Many moons ago, this blog started out as something totally different.  I figured I’d come here and spout out rants and tirades about the social idiocy that surrounded me.  I may still do that from time to time, if that’s what I feel needs to come out of me.  One of the reasons I write, think of myself as a writer, is because vomiting things out on paper makes it easier for me to make sense of all the stuff floating around in my brain.  Lately, that stuff isn’t always easy to get out, much less organize into something coherent.  Those of my readers who know me personally know a lot of what is going on.  I think this one is going to be even harder to write than the one I wrote in the middle of my divorce.  A lot of you may think you know who some of the players are in these stories; I’ll never confirm anything, not just because its not my place to talk shit about other people, but also because this is MINE.  This is where I write about myself, my thoughts, my feelings, all the craziness and mundanity that is going on in my life.  Problem is, other people impact all those things.  But there’s usually three sides to every story:  each person’s view, and the truth.  This is my side of some things that I’ve dealt with in the past.  This is my truth.  I can’t control how you see it or what you think about it, and I’m trying to be ok with that.

 

I was in an abusive relationship.  God, do you have any idea how hard that was to type?  I imagine some of you do.  It doesn’t matter who it was with.  To make this easier to read, we’ll call the dude Wooderson McFuckerton, or Woody for short.  Again, read into that nickname whatever you want; this isn’t about him, except for the ways he affected me.  He was abusive.  Mentally, emotionally, and in the end, physically.  Woody knew my weak spots, my vulnerable places, and he had no problem taking advantage of them.  He knew I was adopted and that there was a time when wondering if my birth parents had ever cared about me was painful; he called me a bastard.  He knew I was self-conscious about being overweight; he told me I was disgusting, that he was embarrassed to be seen in public with me, that I sounded like an elephant when I walked through the house.  He told me that my family members were terrible people and that he wanted me to stay away from them.  He told me that my BFF Pamala was a slut, and that, when I went out with her, I was probably whoring around.  He accused me of having an affair with Becca, the woman I think of as my sister.  In hindsight, he was trying to isolate me from anyone who cared about me, a typical action of an abusive partner.  When I told him the story of a time I was sexually assaulted, he denied that it had ever happened to me, to the point where I questioned my own reality.  He cheated on me, emotionally and physically, once with a girl more than 10 years younger than us.  He lied constantly, mostly about the other women.  Everything I liked was stupid, everything I wanted to do was boring, everything I did was wrong.  He yelled at me, screamed at me, called me names, punched holes in more walls and doors than I can count.  He’d tell me he was gonna kill himself as a way to manipulate and control me.  He took advantage of the love I had for him, used me as an emotional punching bag to try to make himself feel better.  And I took all of this until I became his literal punching bag.  We got into an argument one night, and he broke a chair.  As I turned to walk away from him, he hit me in the back with the chair leg.  I immediately got my shit and walked out the door.  I got somewhere safe and called the police, after a tearful phone call to my sister.  I spent the night with Pamala, then stayed with my parents.  All those people he had tried to isolate me from, who cared about me.  I had a welt and a bruise for three days; I still have the pictures on my phone and printed out for posterity.  Damning proof in the murder of the love I had for Woody.  We didn’t grow apart, we didn’t decide we wanted different things.  That love was taken out back and shot like a rabid dog.

 

 

Do you know what I hate more than all of that?  I let it happen.  Somewhere inside myself, I blame myself for tolerating that sort of treatment for so long.  I allowed him to say those things to me, to kill pieces of my heart, to make me question my memories, my reality, my sense of self-worth.  And the really fucked up thing is that I still blame myself tolerating it most of the time.  The abuse was him blaming me for how bad he felt about himself, and yet I’m still here blaming myself for never standing up to it.  Its like an Ouroboros of blame that I’ve been trying to break for a while. 

All this came to a head a few days ago at work.  I don’t really get in trouble at my job; I love what I do and I’d like to believe my co-workers love me as much as I love them.  But I’m a receptionist in a sales environment, and nothing can get a rise out of people quicker than the perception that their sales, and therefore their money, is being messed with.  So, sometimes my boys (and the one girl), can get in some pretty heated discussions.  They don’t really scream at each other, but voices get raised, and there’s some tension.  Its just something that happens on occasion, and its made me uncomfortable from the get-go.  Almost like it made me twitchy.  And I didn’t think about it until this last incident, but its gradually been making me feel worse.  Well, another little tiff occurred on Friday, and before I knew what was actually going on, I was having a full-blown panic attack.  Shaking, hyperventilating, verge of tears, all that.  I got one of my other boys to watch my desk, went outside, and lit a cigarette I didn’t smoke while I tried to calm down.  My boss came out after a few minutes with his own cigarette and immediately asked me what was wrong.  I told him that the tension and raised voices had brought on a panic attack.  While he was telling me that, if the discussion were to continue, he’d bring it outside after I went in, a lightbulb went off in my head.  I was basically re-living shit from my relationship with Woody.  Once I’d calmed down, I texted Pamala and relayed the incident to her.  She confirmed that this was an entirely normal thing for someone who had been a victim of abuse.  I’d thought of myself as such, in my head, for a while.  But having someone else say it, it sounded so foreign.  Part of me hates it.  I hate that I can rightfully be referred to as that.   But there’s this other part of me that was so glad that all the things I’d kept to myself out of embarrassment and shame had been validated by someone who cared about me, and someone who, as a therapist, has more than a little familiarity with what abuse victims go through. 

 

After more discussion with Pamala, I decided it was time to do something about this.  I feel like I’ve been making all this great progress in my life.  I’m positive, I’m in a good place, I’m dealing.  But, this isn’t something that’s going to go away; its gradually been getting worse and will continue to do so until I get some help.  I’ve been to therapists before, during various difficulties in my life.  I’ve never been embarrassed about it, and actually enjoy the experience.  I’m fucking dreading this, though.  I guess because I didn’t see it coming and because I’m going to have to talk about things I’ve been trying so hard to forget.  I know dealing with this is like having strep throat; I can’t get rid of it on my own, I need a professional.  But, fuck.  How long am I gonna have to deal with his shit?  Woody is the gift that just keeps on fucking giving.  I’m trying really hard to focus on the fact that, once I start doing this, I’ll just be getting better, which is all I really want.

So.  I’m Cecilia.  I’m the victim of an abusive relationship, and the victim of a sexual assault, and I will rise above this.  I will not allow these things to define me.  I will not only survive, but I’ll come out of this better, wiser, and stronger.