Thirteen years ago I was coming out of an emotional denial. That time now feels like a hazy dream. I was functioning daily in a robotic way, barely going through the motions. Operating on automatic and avoiding my soul. Nobody would have guessed how much pain, confusion, loneliness and anger I was feeling inside because the woman on the outside showed everyone she was beautiful and perfect. I wore a happy smile paired with a content demeanor. Inside I was unsettled and far from feeling even an ounce of peace. I know now I was on the path to a severe nervous breakdown. I was working three jobs while trying to survive a messy divorce. My two boys whom I had been a stay at home mother to for twelve years moved out to live with my ex-husband. It was at my request. An act of compassion in attempting to protect them from me. I believed I was cracking under the pressure of the charade I had been keeping up for twelve years and that it would be safer for them not to be around me. Growing up with my mother terrified me into believing I was becoming like her. I would do anything for my boys to avoid feeling like I did. My mental health issues were coming to a destructive head. I likened it to dropping a million piece puzzle on the ground. That’s how my brain felt. A tearing at the seams turned into shredded material strewn all over my house. I had given the three males in my life everything of me mentally, emotionally, physically and spiritually leaving nothing for me. I stuffed my emotions, my dreams and my desires. I wasn’t even on my list of priorities. An invisible name at her bottom.
Yet at the time I didn’t know any of this. I certainly didn’t acknowledge any of it. I felt fulfilled by my jobs, intensive exercise training for races I was competing in while being an exercise anorexic and consuming huge amounts of alcohol and Xanax. I thought I looked great and it wasn’t until a dear friend brought his concerns up to me. He said, “who do you think you are, a rock star?” I was in a constant state of perpetual motion for twenty hours each day. That had been my routine for months. Truly burning my candle at both ends. Literally running away from life.
Then the monster walked into my life. I refuse to call him by his name because remembering it and saying it honors him and he is not deserving. My ego was off the charts and I presented as a charismatic woman without a care in the world. I believe now it was my sheer brokenness that he sniffed out and was attracted to. Whatever started the spark between us grew rapidly into a raging forest fire within just four short months.
The monster moved into my home almost immediately. I didn’t feel lonely anymore. I had found someone who loved me, cooked and cleaned for me. He also had a dangerous darkness that blasted out of him in crazy incoherent temper tantrums. I found myself the target of his violent episodes where I ended up battered and abused on the floor. I had never witnessed that kind of rage before. Growing up my own mother who is mentally ill had scared the daylights out of me with her fits. She was a lamb compared to this lion living in my house. He said he loved me and I blindingly believed him. I allowed him to control everything I did. He held onto my phone and the car keys like a vice grip. I was in full lockdown and under his wicked spell.
That last month was the most terrifying time in my entire life. He wouldn’t let me out of his sight. I couldn’t even take a shower alone. He controlled what I ate, when I ate, when I slept, if I slept. Absolutely everything. I actually allowed another human being to fully dominate me 100%. I survived being screamed at in my face, choked, punched, kicked and thrown through a wall. I awoke once to him on to of me strangling me and when I escaped he attempted to sodomize me with a wooden hanger. The most shameful experiences were the repeated rapes I endured. His hand covered my mouth while I cried for help in my mind. By that time I was completely isolated from any of my friends and family. My family lived many states away and had no idea of my current condition.He monitored all my phone conversations. There wasn’t any way for me to tell anybody what was going on. The police came to my house too many times to count. My neighbors would call them anonymously trying to save me. Each time I would swear to the officer that I was fine. He would stand behind the door glaring at me, making sure I was keeping his dirty secret. Nobody could save me. There would be no rescue.
Finally, one Saturday morning as I was getting ready to teach a dance class he started in on me. First the screaming then the hitting. The thought came to my mind that he might actually succeed in killing me this time. In an act of taking back control of the situation, I swallowed a bottle of pills and chased it with a few shots of vodka. I would be the one to kill me, not him. He watched me do it and then continued his beating of me before he threw me in the car and dropped me off at the ER.
Upon waking up in a hospital bed with my arms tied to the gurney, I learned I was committed to a psychiatric hospital. Not only was I alive but God was offering me a new life, a chance to change, this was my moment of desperation. I see this now as a tremendous gift. I realized I had two choices. I could try to stab myself with a medical instrument and get the job done right or I could use this opportunity to see hope in my future. Trust me I grappled with the first option for a while. Lastly I thought if I could hold on to hope and give myself a chance to heal, I just might make it. The acronym I like for hope is hold on pain ends.
In the years since that time I believe I am living proof of that statement. I had to learn how to put space between my thoughts, feelings and actions. Determine if I was to react or respond in certain situations. Start on the path to trusting myself, knowing my self worth and most importantly believing in myself. God showed his light through my hospital window that day. He reached out his hand to guide me. All I did was take a small leap of faith, held on tightly to hope and received his hand.
