Emotional Abuse is invisible... unless you know how to see it.

What my wall would say is:

I'm thinking about it...

I forgot.

Oh.

" ... "

I don't know why you got so upset when I didn't plan anything for your birthday.

" ... ... ... "

What the hell do you want?

I can't even think of what else my wall would say. Most of his abuse is nonverbal.

Other than the words above, my wall would be mostly blank, but it would be pitted with holes, the paint would be smudged and smeared, and a closer look at a flaw in the finish would reveal an old beer receipt that was kind of painted over.

I just wanted a hug.

This cartoon makes me cry.

image from http://www.robot-hugs.com/nest/

It was this situation that made me realize that something's wrong with D, and that I will never be able to fix it. I realized I wasn't happy and hadn't been happy for years and years and years.

At my home, I was feeling really low and asked him if I could have a hug, but he stood there and laughed at me.

So I started crying and asked again for a hug.
"Nope."

I opened my arms and said "Please?"

He backed away.

I took a step forward.

He backed away some more.

By now I was bawling my eyes out, and with tears streaming down my face, he moved away from me every time I tried to approach him for a hug. When I realized I was literally chasing him through the house in a cruel game of keep away, I stopped.

"Forget it," I spat out as I walked away.

"Aww, come on, I'm kidding! Come here, I'll hug you."

"No."

"Seriously, I'll give you a hug if you really want one that bad."

"Fuck you."

This one hug that I never got marked the beginning of the end.

I just wanted a hug.

The pain of ostracism

In my experience, it causes deep physical pain, as well.

When D walks past me without looking at me, talking to me, or touching me, it physically hurts. I ache deep in my core with chest pain and knots in my stomach. I notice this especially when he doesn't touch me.

When D is near me and doesn't touch me, it hurts as if he punched me in the stomach. I have even found myself doubling over in pain. When I made the mistake of reaching to touch him on the arm, he jerked away and glared at me like I'm contagious with God knows what.

Nobody touches me, actually. Not my shoulder, arm, hand, nothing. I have gone for weeks without being touched by another human. It hurts. I mean, it hurts emotionally, but it also hurts physically. I'm lucky when one of the kids hugs me, and I try to hug them daily, but they're in the "don't get to huggy with mom" phase, so I might get a half-assed hug once in a while. But that's it.

This is one of the reasons I started having a few affairs with other men. It's the only time anyone touches me and allows me to continue barely clinging to sanity with my short, soft fingernails. And at least my beaus are happy to touch me instead of begrudgingly making contact or accidentally brushing against me like when a grocery clerk hands me my receipt.

This is too upsetting to write about.
My chest hurts and I'm having trouble breathing when I think too much about this.



Source: ScienceDaily.com discusses the Perdue University Study on Ostracism

I'm thankful for...

• Being shortlisted for several huge contract jobs - that pay well enough for me to not only move to a decent neighborhood, but enough to get off assistance and actually put money into savings. 
• $1,308.00  $1,308.00  $1,308.00 ... right?
• Being able to keep the phone bill paid and the phone turned on.
• My ability to bite my tongue and play nice when out in public with D. 
• Dish soap. I cannot stress this enough. 
• And clean dishes.
• Having plenty of gas in my car.
• Having road service insurance on both cars.
• Having smart, levelheaded, calm kids who can figure out what to do when they accidentally leave the car lights on.
• Music. Loud music. Thank you, Pandora.
• Spring flowers: daffodils, snowdrops, cherry blossoms, camellias, azaleas. Bluebells, redbuds and tulips are next. I love this time of year; it's beautiful and the air smells sweet.
• Making significant headway on my sorting and packing. 
• My goofy, silly pets who yell at me when I sit on the couch and don't invite them to snuggle with me. And purr and wag their tails when I do.
• Birds and subways. Two things that are completely and totally unrelated, except for the fact that they make me smile whenever I see them.
• Advil. I'm thankful for Advil. And I'm thankful for those fleeting moments when I realize that my headache hasn't been bothering me for a while.
• Abuse support groups on Facebook and the moderators and people in the groups. I feel less anxiety about some aspects of leaving after talking to one of these people about my specific worries.
• Being able to take deep breaths when I feel stressed out. So simple. But it helps me to remember to stop and focus on what's right in front of me instead of worrying about all the what ifs.
• Coffee.

Support Group(s)

I did it. I joined an online support group.

Actually, a couple support groups. On Facebook.
It's a starting point.
I had to create a new Facebook profile to do this, since I didn't want D to see that I had joined any new groups. Trying to stay completely under his radar. He may be clueless to what I'm doing at home, and over here on this blog, but when it comes to familiar territory like Facebook, I'm not gonna pee in the pool, if you know what I mean.

Here's my Facebook profile.
Cherry B



I feel kind of loseriffic for not having any friends there, but that's the way it is.

1. If I friend people I know in real life, it links Cherry to my real identity, which D could figure out.
2. I don't even know how to explain my second profile to my friends, since I don't talk about this to anyone I know in real life. Yeah, I'm one of those closeted abuse victims. God, I thought sexuality issues were deeply closeted, and this is even deeper!
3. It could get back to D and then all hell will break loose.

No, it's not Cherry Bom-Beppy.  It's Cherry Bombe Pi.
You know, the Greek letter "π."
3.14159265359...

Alright, so I had a really helpful chat with a support group admin and she gave me some really good ideas on how to gracefully leave without leaving a trail of crap behind me (aka exiting without giving my dad reason to freak out on D) and how to prevent D from stalking me after the fact. These are two things that have had me stressing out like no tomorrow to the point where I was having anxiety attacks. Chest pains, etc.

I feel much better after talking to her.

Why online instead of finding a local group?

1. The local support group made me uncomfortable. I was scolded for calling myself co-dependent and that was the end of my turn. Today I decided that I really need someone to talk to, so I went online for help.
2. The others had already left their situation. I was the only one still in the midst of it.
3. I was the only one who hadn't experienced physical violence (very much, anyway) and I felt like an apple amongst the oranges. Still fruit, but different. 

As I find related blogs and forums and other resources, I'm listing them in my sidebar on this blog instead of bookmarking them on my computer. I'm not worried about D getting into my computer, but I want them available wherever I am, and maybe they'll help someone else.
You never know.
You know what? I still feel alone.
I mean, I feel better after talking, but I still feel isolated and alone.

Odd. D is in the house with me all day, every day, and I have never felt more lonely in my entire life than I have this past year. So lonely. Desolate. At least when I move out, there won't be someone moving around in the house totally ignoring me, making meals for himself only, and otherwise behaving as if I don't exist. I'll be alone because I'm actually the only one there. That will feel a lot better. And then I'll be able to actually go out and take a class or join a social group and make friends without having to explain where I'm going and justify my wanting to go instead of spending yet another night ignored at home. Oh, there's so much more about this but that's a subject for another post.