Then Will hit Eddie’s arm hard & said, “BOY go get in your OWN damn bed!” Eddie got up in the dark, made his way to the door quietly crying & left.

How do people know when they’re being authentic? How do people overcome fear? How can I be sure the verbal abuse is real? Why is it so hard to believe?
Will deployed to Iraq and I’m in our home in North Carolina with our boys. Will doesn’t call or write very often and it’s easy to pretend that I’m alone. I don’t particularly enjoy it when he does call because our conversations are all about the business of being married and the occasional sneak-attack to…
Worthless. Poopy. Bad. Careful. Never mind. What is it to fear? In my head or in reality? No more babies. No more pregnancies. Good and Bad. Positive and Negative. Glad and Sad at some times mostly sad. Mad but no one to blame.
PTSD and depression developed during domestic abuse caused visions of my children dying or dead. Fear of life held me tight, but I didn’t understand why.
Abuse came before Depression in my marriage, but when my Depression lifted (thanks Prozac) I entered another fantasy world.

By 1998, I didn’t even know what I wanted for me anymore. His goals for me became my goals for myself, inserted neat and clean in my mind with brainwashing.