Linda recently wrote to tell us about her abusive marriage. Although it appears her husband is changing, she suffers from PTSD and cannot trust that what happened before truly will not happen again. She remains in the marriage, prays for guidance, and trusts that God will guide her steps.
Todd communicated with me today, and I am so happy to hear from him. I posted his testimonial earlier today, and now is as good a time as any to let you know how he’s doing.
From Todd:
Hi Kellie,
I hope you are in a safe peaceful place in your life. My wife and I are still separated and it’s been 90 + days and I am making progress with my abuse but still have some ways to go to build up her faith & trust. There are times that I take a step backwards but seems to put things in a clearer perspective for me to learn from because I have the will to improve me. I sure love my wife and kids, but I need to be patient, kind, honest and understanding in all my affairs! Please feel free to upload this and display it if you would like on the blog. Take care!
“…patient, kind, honest and understanding” sure sounds like a winning combination. Todd, I’m thinking good thoughts for you.
Whew! Allison submitted a testimonial from the other side of the abuse. She left 7 years ago, and has been busy! Book published, paper under consideration by the Journal of Aggression, Maltreatment and Trauma, scholarship granted…
But perhaps most inspiring is Allison left her abuser when she was 56 years old. Her life is not over, there are many many blessed years left for her to continue LIVING and accomplishing whatever she sets her mind to do. Never let the number of years you’ve suffered determine the number of years you will accept it.
My sister, Erin, supports me consistantly and constantly. She loves me regardless of my decisions, actions, and quirks. She knows my dark side and thinks it’s valuable. I couldn’t love her more, yet every day, I do love her more.
Before I recognized the abuse in my life, she was largely quiet about it for fear of her words pushing me away from her. She knew, instinctively, that Will (probably subconsciously) wanted everyone who loved me far, far away – or at least that’s how it appeared. Still, she would cry with me when I hurt in large part because there were things she wanted to say but held them inside. Or at least, this is the way I think it played out.
One time, after realizing the abuse for myself, I asked her why she didn’t just TELL me I was being abused, and she said, “Would you have believed me if I had?” Of course, the answer was “No.” I’ll never ask that question again of her or anyone else who loves me. It’s not up to them to tell us what is going on, is it? It’s something we have to realize inside of ourselves.
Erin is a very wise woman. She’s decided to put her skills to work helping other people who need fresh ideas and perspectives so they can move away from the things, people and ideas that hurt them. She wants us all to live in our own light, within our own power augmented by Spirit (God, Goddess, Angels, The Powers that Be…).
Here is an email she sent me on facebook two days ago. She said I could share it, and Iwant to because you need to know that there are people in the world like her. People who support you, who love you, who are just itching to help you. You may not see them until you take off the blinders abuse is causing you to wear.
Here is her email:
“I think you are overlooking something you don’t want to look at again… yet.
“You are a survivor. You pushed your way through a horrid time in your life when you was married, and then again pushed your way through the time of uncertainty after you left.
“Other women need to know this can be done. They need to know that after they leave their abusive marriages, they will come out better on the other end.
“I think you are just not ready for it yet. You are not ready to re-visit the pain of it; or to be faced with the women who are still enduring it because you NEED to keep pushing through this segment in your life for right now.
“So, don’t question what you should be doing to earn an income. You are loving your life where you are right now; and I think that is exactly where you need to be. The time will reveal itself to you when it is time to step back into the world that brought you to where you are now…
“The only difference is that you will already be on the other side. Completely.
“Keep doing what you are doing. You haven’t been this happy, or this authentic in a long time. Own it. Live it.
“You will know when the time is right.
“I love you, and I am so proud of you Kellie!!!”
The good news is that even if you don’t know a soul like Erin right now, you can contact her now at her website, Dear Erin. The link takes you to her “What Dear Erin Does” page. I encourage you to contact her because her first two clients are free if you agree to give her a testimonial in return.
The past month whirled around me, through me, like a red wine hurricane. I feel alive and strong, but spinning uncontrollably in my heart are questions and wishes that I’m not ready to answer or fulfill. I feel like I’m in danger of losing my vision because time isn’t pacing itself with my desires – what I want to become, who I want to be is not yet centered inside of me. The person I want to be is still ahead of me on the timeline while I’m forced to continue living in the present.
I am grateful beyond words that the only voice in my head is my own. After so many years of sharing space with Will’s voice, I had hoped hearing only my own would end the confusion and doubt. Living free and dis-anchored from Will’s reality set loose a storm of giddy emotions, loving dreams, and happy thoughts within me. I’ve loved the time I’ve spent in the whirl, loved the people I’ve met, loved the feelings of re-connectedness to life itself. But, as all storms, it is passing and I’m left to deal with the thoughts and decisions I made in the spin-cycle.
Despite the whirlwind of emotion, underlying it on the earthy path of my soul, I knew I was in danger of being swept away into a different kind of false world. If I weren’t careful, I could easily exchange Will’s version of reality for another unreal reality, a possibly more dangerous one made up of my own delusion and wish-craft. A conversation with the powers that be warned me of the magical world of delusion and falsehood and then my flesh and bone therapist said, “It isn’t REAL, Kellie. You’re not yet separate from Will, from that life. You need more time.”
Of course, my ego denied the gods and the therapist outright. This delusion was FUN, it was EXCITING, and it was WORKING! … Dammit. And people around me were in danger of being hurt by it; I was in danger of being hurt by it. My boundaries blurred, my dreams for myself pushed aside, I realize I am spending too much time in the whirlwind and not enough time feeling my feet on the ground.
Right as I left my therapists office, I turned and asked her “How long should this last? Do I have at least another month?” I meant the storm of good-emotion fuel, the feeling of being high on living. She said, “As long as it needs to. There’s no set time.” And although I told myself with forced smile that I could ride for at least another six months, inside of me, the storm began to quiet.
I tried to deny the silencing of the storm. I forged ahead, made an emotional decision that felt good in order to re-ignite the dramatic whirl. But what I found was the drama wasn’t worth the price I asked another person to pay. The seed was planted in my mind, I know the storm is coming to an end, and that the person I am right now is not the person I’m destined to become. I’m not the person I want to be…yet.
So now I’m standing here on a muddied path, feeling alive and humbled, letting the greenish overcast that fills the atmosphere after a storm flow through me. The color green heals, so I know that the coming down from the high is also part of my destiny.
Although I’m saddened to know the storm has passed, it also feels good to know that I’ve weathered it. I haven’t blown so far from my path that it is unrecognizable. My feet are firmly planted in about a half inch of mud, much different from the waist-deep shit I was entrenched in months ago. This mud will dry, the sky will turn blue, the birds will sing and life is good.
Life is different, again, but washed clean and humbly refreshed.
This is a stream of consciousness writing I did on the beach some weeks back. Little punctuation, bits of clarity…just felt like sharing.
Sun Surf Freedom Coincidence and Lack. Suntans, sunburns and jumping in the waves, shaking Saltwater out of his hair. Sunshine and goodness, fisherman, vacancies. Maybe too windy. Waves drop into us as we struggle against their push. Wet and warm waves like the aftershocks of sex. The smile and sparkling eyes of a lover and the touch in intimate places feels like warm red wine not meant ot be drunk but for pouring pouring pouring.
Crafty and cunning is the body which longs to experience the carnal quickening of the heart, pulling hair just enough to remind of vulnerability but not enough to threaten. I could but I won’t. I trust but I watch and listen and compare those words to the ones I’ve heard oft repeated in anger.
There is a difference and the difference may merely be time. Perhaps at once, time catches up to us like a freight train with no brakes, slamming into the soul. All at once, one day, one small thing is simply too much anymore to tolerate that one thing shines a bright light on the multitude of smaller harshness from the years and it is too much. Too much.
I fight back. I try to regain some knowledge of who I am and what I want. What I want. The red pouring wine. The small kisses. The shining light from his eyes as he looks at me instead of past me as if i don’t exist. I miss the longing…but he cannot long for one accessible, easy. He longs for what he may not attain, not that for which he has conquered. And he conquered me. He took me. He swallowed me. And he was satiated.
I sat so long in hs gut that his insides started to churn and struggle to digest me…but I wouldn’t leave. And he hated me for it.
Hated me. Hated him. I gave him all of me – All of me. And he hated me. Iam sorry I surrendered to him and I am sorry I remember the harshness of him.
I wish I remembered what my light reflecting from his eyes felt like. What I looked like to him when I was still me. I want to see that light again. I doubt that he will be the one to see me…but perhaps someone else will. I will see him, too.
A man who is tall and thick, with laugh lines around his eyes and a leisurly pace when we’re together. I’ll drink him in like warm red wine and touch him along the lines most will never touch. I will see his light and soak it in, then release it back to him so I can delight in his presence instead of his shadow.
He will lift me, I will lift him. We will be as one but two distinct loving hearts. His arms will open to me a billion times, and a billion times I will rush to fill them. Strong but soft. Supporting but freeing. If I fly away he will patiently wait and if he flies from me I will allow him freedom. Coming and going. Coming and going. Coming together in the end.
For the first time in a very long time, I’m dealing with a variety of emotions, bad and good (if I have to judge an emotion as bad or good…). In the last year(s?) of my marriage, I dealt with anger, betrayal, fear, bitterness, probably even hate. But now there is a whole world of emotion to experience that I didn’t recognize or had forgotten about or refused to feel. Most likely a combination of all three.
I was talking to someone tonight and realized that EVERYTHING is different now. The way I experience the world thrills me beyond hope and reason. My microfiber chair is softer, my cat is crazier, food tastes better, music means more. Water is a need instead of a treat I may give myself if I pass a sink on the way to do something for someone else. Now I stop by the sink all the time and I love the sound of the water whooshing from the faucet, anticipating the non-taste of the cold, and quenching a deep thirst I hadn’t paid attention to before.
The emotions swirling around my heart and mind excite me. Some I think I “shouldn’t” feel, but I’m trying not to shut them off. Maybe letting them run their course, as I’ve let my anger and hate run their course, will ease the intensity and mystery. Pretending not or trying not to feel something I feel is not a good thing – I know that now. Being inundated with these new-found high-energy hopes (and doubts) is luxurious. Like a cold drink from the faucet “just because”. I need it. I need this time.
Married to Will, I spent my days deciphering HIS emotions, his thoughts, his wants in order to avoid upsetting the balance. I didn’t do it very well and beat myself up about that. But what I was missing was my own life, my own internal workings. Outward focused, I forgot what it felt like to truly FEEL something that came from ME.
Now I am trying very hard to stay inside my own body. I am refusing to guess what he meant by that, what she meant by that. I am trying to ask questions and accept the answer. I think I throw people off a little sometimes. They’re not used to it – being asked to clarify. But I think most appreciate it when they realize that I am truly curious, not judging or waiting to judge their response. I’ve been lucky to be around people who are open to me.
Life is a luxury that I haven’t lived in a very long time. I’m changing that.
When I started this blog, I was an open book. I told it ALL, and it felt wonderful to unload. Will desperately wanted me to shut up, to forget about it, to stop telling “lies”. I knew I couldn’t stop telling my truth. Spilling those secrets was the best thing I ever did for myself because only by being open did I find all of you, and with you, the courage and power to move forward, to move away.
If it weren’t for my willingness to lay it all out here to be picked apart and at times judged harshly by strangers, I never would have pressed charges against him on January 22, 2010. I would have left that night for sure; but I would have slunk back into my own home like a shamed puppy the next day. I did that in 2008, but by 2010, I knew that I couldn’t let it slide anymore. I was no longer ashamed of myself.
Life here on the other side is sometimes frightening. Sometimes his words and behaviors still throw me for a loop, and I very anxiously await the next time I must speak to him. Like always, these outbursts are preceeded by days of calm, considered conversation. And as usual, I know the outbursts will not be followed by an apology.
It’s still all my fault in his eyes. I make him mad. I make him say the things he says and do the things he does.
I guess I have power over him, in his mind. I think he thinks I feel entitled to his money and to get everything I want at his expense, and that I lie and manipulate my way through life, blaming him for my wrong-doings and taking all the credit for his success. I suppose I am still a cunt, to use his word.
But Will is not much of any of that to me anymore. He isn’t my world, he isn’t my life, he isn’t my other half. He is the father of my children. He is a volatile force to reckon with for sure, but because we spend so little time together anymore, his eruptions are easier to handle. Despite the fact that I do feel anxious after an outburst, I also have a strong voice in my head that reminds me “This is the pattern. It has little to do with you, Kellie. Some things are his to own, whether he chooses to own them or not.”
I have my own sanctuary, my house. I have my own money, my own job, my own financial plan. I have my own dreams and I’m finding my place in the world. I have my own thoughts, and I can (usually) tell if my thoughts are benefitting me or hurting me.
New to me are my own secrets. I have some wonderful, heart-pounding secrets. There are also some secrets that I can’t wait to tell you, secrets that would shed light on my silence. But I must wait to share them.
Please don’t mistake my silence for pain. Although there is still, at times, plenty of hurt, the hurt is no longer fueled by fear.
For example, although it hurts to not be labelled my boys’ “primary” parent, it is merely a skin-deep wound. It injures my pride and nothing else. I tell myself that the custody situation is only temporary, but this could very well turn into the permanent custody arrangement. I could stay the “secondary” parent in the eyes of the law. Nevertheless, my boys will never see me as a secondary parent. I know that now, in my bones and throughout every cell in my body. I will never “lose” my children to their father. They will never choose one of us over the other.
Will cannot win, even if the law calls him the winner. Our boys are not a prize or a thing; our sons are feeling, thinking, loving beings who are wiser than even I gave them credit for being. They are their own people, their own men. Time will work it’s magic with them, too. Their broken hearts will heal, bit by bit, understanding by understanding. It probably won’t happen as quickly or even in the way I hope, but it will happen. They will probably be angry at me, angry at dad, angry at everyone including themselves at some point, but after the anger, the healing begins.
Eventually, we will all heal. I dearly wished we would heal together, but that is not going to happen. Eventually, all my secrets will be exposed. I am not worried. I am not ashamed. But I can’t tell you all of them yet.
But it is no secret that I am happy. I am truly, through and through, happy.
In the weeks leading up to “the separation day”, I would cry to my sister over the phone and tell her that I was “so fucking lonely” even though Will, our boys, my friends, and she were there for me. I was lonely; it was the first time I’d realized it, and I wondered how I could be so lonely amidst so many people.
I was looking outward for the cause of my loneliness, just as I looked outward, to other people, for a solution to end it. Isn’t that what we’re told to do when we’re depressed and lonely? Volunteer, make friends, … fill your life full of activities and responsibilities to be happy. But that’s bullshit. Those good deeds, the other people, the outward motions, they merely distract from the loneliness. They don’t erase it.
When I drew this picture, I didn’t know that the blackness inside of me was loneliness. I thought it was a flaw within me; that if I could find the source of the flaw, then the blackness would disappear. I was searching the blackness with a flashlight, but looking for the wrong objects. What the flashlight revealed was a great emptiness. A vast, tightly compacted, black hole. Nothing else.
But I missed the blackness because I was looking for THE FLAW.
Realizing I was lonely when I was still with Will was more painful in many ways than the loneliness I now feel. I brought that pain on myself because I EXPECTED him to “make me” not lonely. I thought that if I reached out hard enough, long enough, that he would eventually connect with me, ease my pain.
Expecting him to “make me” feel something caused the flurry of side emotions. Every time he didn’t do as I expected, I felt betrayed, hurt, unloved, crushed…those emotions distracted me from the truth and any possible solutions.
Loneliness is realizing there is a black emptiness within myself. Loneliness is the place where I do not allow the light.
I chose to keep this black hole inside me because searching the blackness with a tiny flashlight is scary; finding NOTHING when I hoped to find THE SOURCE is actually terrifying. (Kind of like in horror movies when the flashlight is darting from corner to corner – you don’t want the heroine to find the monster, but when she does see it then there is a sweet release. At least now she knows from which direction to fight or run.)
But I am changing course. I’m not going to search that blackness with a tiny light. I’m going to flood it with light.
If my loneliness is like a black hole, a dead star, then in time, it will explode outward from the force of its own compaction. When it explodes, it will form a new universe, a new beginning. All new. All me, but re-formed and rejuvenated.
I am unaware of when my black hole’s lifespan will evolve. What is the moment before the explosion going to feel like? Will I notice when it happens? Will I feel the Big Bang?
Is it possible that an infusion of intensive LIGHT, which is both nothing and everything on which our world depends, could hasten a black hole’s end? Is LIGHT the catalyst for the Big Bang?
I am going to concentrate on pushing light into the vast emptiness within me. Whenever I feel the rumblings of discomfort in my gut, I am going to imagine real love as a light source and PUSH that light into that dark space. I am not looking for anything. I know there is nothing there to see because it is too densely compacted to see anything right now. But after the explosion, ALL will come into the light; I will KNOW what I’ve created. And once I know, then I can either do something about it or leave it alone to see how it develops on its own.
I will have a new universe inside of me. A new universe to tend to, love and cherish. I can enjoy it and cease to rely on the external world for manufactured and temporary joy.
Take in the light, black hole. Your lifespan is at its end.
“…Stephen Hawking thinks that once matter falls into a black hole and reaches the Singularity, this Singularity at the quantum scale may actually become a gateway or a spawning ground for a new universe which would exist in some adjacent set of spacetime dimensions. Black holes formed in our universe, according to Lee Smolin, may actually spawn universes beyond our own.” - Ask the Astronomer
