30 Jan Violated…part two
[I have been tempted to remove this post along with cleaning out a couple of others that have been deemed by some as “too personal.” However, I have chosen to leave these more intimate posts here for two reasons: one) they matter. I don’t want to be hypocritical. I ask people to own their story & to embrace the power of that everyday. This is part of me walking my talk. two) these are the stories that people have connected to. These are the stories that allowed people to know they weren’t alone. And that alone is enough to matter immensely. So these posts stay. I hope they remind you of all of our humanness and that you, dear friend, are not alone in your struggle.]
I lied in bed…I had been there for a while. It was spring break. Netflix had become my greatest companion on my week off. My best friend and work out partner was at the beach, enjoying the sunshine. Normally, I exercised everyday. It was a release for stress, a place to center and find myself, and to find some happy endorphins. However, I had discovered that without her presence, I no longer had the motivation to do so.
I had closed the door to our bedroom. I was angry, scared, and confused. He hadn’t had a job for seven months. Why was he playing computer games? Why was he home? Shouldn’t he have been out looking for a job? How many times were we going to have this argument?
When the door opened, I closed my eyes…at least if he thought I was asleep it better explained my isolating myself away from him. He didn’t like it when I was angry with him or passive aggressively disappointed. I had tried healthy, assertive confrontation, asking to have an understanding-seeking conversation. I fully supported him. I knew it was a difficult job market. I just could not comprehend the lack of drive to and/or respect for taking care of our marriage to not do something.
I had then tried screaming. I had tried expressing my confusion, disappointment, and fear over how we were going to survive. I had then tried being passive aggressive. Nothing seemed to work…I was always left confused. Scared. Desperate. And with an utter sense of loneliness.
I worked three days that week…when I wasn’t at work…I allowed myself to stay in bed. It shouldn’t have taken me so long to realize, but that was when it hit me: I was depressed. Utterly and overwhelming consumed.
My world had reached such an incomprehensibly chaotic and confusing state. My heart had been so conflicted for so long. My brain had become so overwhelmed with information that did not match up or make sense…I was shutting down. I had decided to stop fighting. I didn’t want to argue. I didn’t want to exercise. To eat. To write. To read. To play. To talk. I wanted to disappear. If my bed could have swallowed me whole that day (or any day soon after)…I would have held on tight to my pup and gladly have gone away forever.
By this point..he was mostly not nice. He had to be nice enough that I didn’t just stay pissed, sad, and distant all of the time…so when it seemed as if we had reached the point of no return there was a nice moment. We would have a pleasant afternoon. But otherwise…I was left to question…why had he been so “sick” for so long? Why did he spend so long in the bathroom? Why was the shower always running? I did not keep quiet about my concerns…but I also couldn’t throw around accusations that I had no proof for it.
A few weeks later…my sweet cousin passed away from a brain tumor. He couldn’t be there for me. I remember turning to my best friend for support…overwhelmed by grief. And then he was angry. Why didn’t I need him? “He was clearly not as important or significant as my best friend,” he accused. Wasn’t he supposed to be my best friend. “Yes,” I remember thinking, “but you are choosing not to act like it.”
I sat in the bathtub. My usual, general phobia of touching any part of the porcelain or plastic of the tub infrastructure washed away by a heart that could not be mended. I remember sitting there sobbing. I thought, “I’m going to cry until he wakes up and comes in here…why isn’t he already up anyways?” This wasn’t your sniffles kind of cry. I allowed my heart to bellow out gut-wrenching cries of the pain that had been welling up for months. Ten minutes past and there was not a stir. Fifteen minutes. Twenty minutes. Finally, after about twenty-five minutes I heard the door open.
“Are you okay?”
“Are you kidding me?” the words too bizarre to even respond.
He didn’t know what to do. He couldn’t possibly. Cut off entirely from every last emotion he had. Masked, dulled, and numbed by the drugs that I didn’t yet know were in his system.
I didn’t stop crying…now, not only because of the pain and grief…but because of the fact that his presence offered no solace, no comfort. “Why won’t you take care of me? …please! I just need you to be here for me!” My brain and heart cried out…but it was no use. I knew he would not. I just did not yet know that he could not.
Little did I know that I was just a few months away from discovering the depth of not his inadequacy, but the sheer depth of his lack of being. He was not there. He was gone…and had been for years. Lies, control, and manipulation used to cover his fear, insecurity, and plain defeat to things he could not control. His life gone…and mine threatened to soon follow thereafter.
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