...Justified?

Recently, D and I sat on the couch together with our morning coffee, watching the morning news. (A rare event that we're doing the same thing in the same room.)

This was the morning that the news story broke about a high school student who killed a classmate after she turned him down as a prom date. Horrible news.

D turned to me and said, "Well if she was a bitch to him..."

"What do you mean?" I asked.

"If she was a bitch about it when he asked..."

"Are you saying that the murder might be justified?"

"I'm just saying that maybe she was a bitch."

"D, there is no justification for him to murder her, no matter how she may or may not have behaved when he asked her to go to prom with him."

D shrugged. "I'm just saying, maybe she was a bitch..."

This scares the daylights out of me, knowing that he feels like the boy's behavior is justified when a girl doesn't treat him the way he wants.

I personally don't know the backstory of the interactions of these two people involved. I feel badly for the girl and her family and friends, and feel sad for the boy's mother. Regardless of what happened before she was stabbed to death, that still doesn't make it right. Murder is not what you do when you feel insulted or slighted by someone.

But apparently D thinks this kind of punishment is ok.

I feel justified in my fear of D.

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.

Get Out of My Way

I have been an excellent roadblock to myself.

Before going to bed on Sunday night, I wrote up a brief list of goals I want to accomplish this week. They're simple goals, and I could get them all done in a day if I had a hard deadline:

1. Apply for 6 more full-time jobs at my career level
2. Apply for 3 more lower wage, part time jobs (to carry me through until the permanent job comes through. I need money for toilet paper and gas. And an occasional latte.)
3. Clean out the front flower garden 
4. Clean the front porch
5. Clean the bathroom
6. Catch up on my laundry
7. Sort through and/or pack another box of stuff - moving prep

Today I cleaned the front porch. Took me 15 minutes.

That's it. That's all I accomplished today.

I can't tell if I'm depressed, lazy, or afraid to move forward. Or afraid.

If I move forward, then I'll be closer to moving out - a huge change.
I'm SO looking forward to moving out and changing my life, but I'm dragging my feet.
WHY??

I think I'm secretly afraid, and after scrolling through pages and pages of NPD and PA related Pinterest boards, and browsing through a half dozen blogs written by people who have been in the same position I'm in, I think I know what I'm afraid of.

I'm afraid of what other people will do to me when I leave. 

From friends and family - "Why? Oh, poor D. He's such a nice guy. What happened? How could you possibly leave him?" and I'll feel pressured to talk about it.

I'll talk about it here, but I don't want to tell the same story over and over. And over. That's what happened after the accident, and it was hard. I hated talking about it the first time, but then everyone would ask and I'd find myself telling the story again and again. It got to the point where to this day, if I even think about the accident, I start crying about how awful it was, and how horrible the repairs and recovery was, physically, emotionally, and socially.

I'm afraid it's going to be like the accident all over again and I don't want to do it. I just want to get on with my life and not have to talk about it. I also still care about D, and don't want to say anything that will make him look bad. I know that's stupid, but I don't. I'd also feel like I'm betraying the kids if I say, "I left D because ... (insert any snippet of truth here)" I just want to publicly announce one time, "It didn't work out," and be done with it. But I KNOW it's not going to happen like that and I get knots in my stomach thinking about it.

From D, himself - I fear the character assassination that may follow. He may lash out and publicly skewer me in social media (he has no other friends at this point.) He may say things that will ultimately hurt the kids, and I'll feel guilty for their getting sucked into his drama.

I'm also afraid he might escalate. He hasn't for a long time, but I have always been afraid of an explosive escalation. Always. Its never gotten to that point, but from the time we were married, that fear has ALWAYS been in the back of my mind.

Even if I keep my (future) employer's identity a secret, and take precautions to hide from him after I move, he has access to technology that will probably find me, so I don't think I could ever hide from him. That makes me nervous. He's like an earthquake - The Big One. The potential to be devastating is there, and there are no warning signs, so you never know when it's going to hit. Or where you'll be when it hits. You could be hurt by your own home, a landslide, a tsunami, you never know. That scares me.

On the other hand, this is all just worry. I'm so focused on things that haven't happened. They aren't real. They are only  figments of my imagination.

I need to take a deep breath and bravely forge onward.
The things I think I might be afraid of can be dealt with when I'm finally there.

Tomorrow I'll check the three most difficult and time consuming things off my list: 
1. Apply for 6 more full-time jobs at my career level
5. Clean the bathroom
6. Catch up on my laundry

Time to get out of my way and move forward.