So many days I had moaned at the alarmed clock; covered my head with my pillow and screamed,
"I don't want to get up". Depression, indecisiveness, confusion and hopelessness, lack of self-esteem and constant "second guessing" of myself only added to the burden of the crumbled life that I was trying to live. It seemed so futile to even thing that the nightmare would ever end.
Add to this, a Narcissistic mentally and emotionally wounded man who constantly criticised my every move, accused me of unthinkable behavior in his projection of his image upon me and then stood in judgement of me rather than showing compassion or any kindness. I learned early in my almost 12 year marriage to him that life is really hard when you don't feel loved and cared for and even harder to accept with no hope to the abuse ceasing. I lived that way for many years. Oh, at first, when the mask of the "good guy" was on and I was not aware of the covert abuse of sabotaging of the step-mother relationship with his daughter and seemingly appearing that I was the one who had a problem "accepting" who he was. Where was the acceptance that I "am who I am?" When I said that I "was hurting" by his words; he could only respond defensively and rather confidently;
"You are just too sensitive". It was about that time in my life that I found
Verbalabuse.com and
Patricia Evans and her wonderful resourceful books on the topic of verbal abuse. In the tumultuous seas of abuse, she and her books and forum became the anchor that gave me the stability and "clarity" that any victim/survivor of abuse really needs.
Death and divorce; they are very similiar and that is why I will borrow the
Five Stages of Grief by Elizabeth Kubler-Ross in an attempt to retrace my steps that led to healing, extricating myself from abuse and divorce from a verbally abusive and controlling man.
The stages, popularly known by the acronym
DABDA, include:
- Denial — "I feel fine."; "This can't be happening, not to me." Denial is usually only a temporary defense for the individual. This feeling is generally replaced with heightened awareness of possessions and individuals that will be left behind after death.
- Anger — "Why me? It's not fair!"; "How can this happen to me?"; '"Who is to blame?" Once in the second stage, the individual recognizes that denial cannot continue. Because of anger, the person is very difficult to care for due to misplaced feelings of rage and envy.
- Bargaining — "I'll do anything for a few more years."; "I will give my life savings if..." The third stage involves the hope that the individual can somehow postpone or delay death. Usually, the negotiation for an extended life is made with a higher power in exchange for a reformed lifestyle. Psychologically, the individual is saying, "I understand I will die, but if I could just do something to buy more time..."
- Depression — "I'm so sad, why bother with anything?"; "I'm going to die soon so whats the point... What's the point?"; "I miss my loved one, why go on?" During the fourth stage, the dying person begins to understand the certainty of death. Because of this, the individual may become silent, refuse visitors and spend much of the time crying and grieving. This process allows the dying person to disconnect from things of love and affection. It is not recommended to attempt to cheer up an individual who is in this stage. It is an important time for grieving that must be processed.
- Acceptance — "It's going to be okay."; "I can't fight it, I may as well prepare for it." In this last stage, the individual begins to come to terms with her/his mortality or that of a loved one or tragic event.
Applying my life to Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's 5 stages of grief covered the years from 2002-2010.
I married my ex-husband in 1999. I was beginning to become aware of how verbally and emotionally abusive and controlling he behaved toward me in 2002. I remained in
DENIAL that the abuse would stop and that even I must "be seeing this wrong" or that "he is physically ill and it affects him emotionally"; finding any excuse to try to understand and live with his behavior even with one attempt at leaving him and taking our son with me in 2003. Being a Christian, I was apt to believe that he could not possibly BE abusive as he stated that he also believed as I did. I have come to learn thta this was the biggest deception and barrier to breaking of the denial that I had to overcome in order to live a life without abuse.
In November 2007, after reading Patricia Evan's book "The Verbally Abusive Man", I created "The Agreement" as prescribed in her book and presented it to a man who was in denial. His total disregard to "hear me" angered me
and that
ANGER stayed with me; forcing me to truly look at and accept the truth of our "marriage". This anger stayed with me and took on many forms; none that I allowed to become either self-inflicting or retaliatory. My anger became a power that helped me to be strong in the face of the FOG (Frustration, obligation and guilt) of living with and being married to what I understood finally to be a mentally ill spouse; a personality disordered individual.
The
"BARGAINING phase"
seemed to wrap itself around the many years but finally came to a close in late 2009. And until my mother had moved out of our home; I continued to hope that I could somehow resolve; notice that I said that "I COULD SOMEHOW RESOLVE" this "miscommunication". I "knew" that it was NOT going to happen. ALL attempts at all counseling and "talking" had only circularly come back to "his innocence" of all that I had "accused him of". The years of 2008-2009 brought more detachment as I STOPPED trying to bargain and began to accept that I was in an abusive marriage.
When I finally accepted the fact that there
"was nothing that I could do to positively affect my situation", I fell into
DEPRESSION. Of course, losing a son to stillbirth( April 2007), taking my parents into my home (August 2007) and having the betrayal and disconnect with my "then" stepdaughter through sabotage of her father (began 2001), I allowed him to continue to isolate, devalue and demean me, use me and my money and hoard it away from me. At one time I found 11K dollars in cash in our apartment (half of which he claimed belonged to his daughter for back child support from her mother). All attempts at "healing the marriage" was gone. I was now focusing on "me" and my survival. My depression was deep and lasting, it would not "let up".
Finally, in July 2009, I started taking the antidepressants that had been waiting on my amoire shelf for over 8 months. This came with strong insistence of a controlling husband who to try to dissuade me from taking them by saying that I "was not depressed"; possibly to "keep me debilitated" so that I would "not think of " leaving him. The process ended in
ACCEPTANCE of
the "death of the marriage" instead of continuing through the grief stages. No more "going around in circles". In November 2009 after an "act of fate" in October, I was able to take my son; less than half of our liquid assets (much more I believe that he STILL has hidden in savings bonds that he bought for his daughter) and LEFT his household with NO intention to return to an abusive marriage. It would require an ACT OF GOD, a MIRACLE greater than I had ever seen or even heard of to change the course that I had chosen to take.
Escaping an abusive relationship takes all that WE have to understand WHY we had continued in it so long, what our rewards were from being in it and facing the fear of the unknown outside of it. But it is REALLY worth it!
The Abuse cycle explained by Livestrong
