Down with the Sickness

So the topic of this blog post is ridiculously well timed. This week's theme is: toxic relationships, and I just spent the last 19 years of my life in a toxic relationship, so I think I'll probably be epically great at writing this.

I feel like I recognized that my relationship was toxic very early on. I remember screaming arguments in the car, name calling, feeling like the world was ending simply because I didn't hear something or understand something. I also remember wanting to stray from my relationship at every opportunity because I felt a void that I never seemed to be able to fill. I never felt pretty enough, I never felt loved enough, I never felt enough in general... at all. That may not have been his fault.

I also recognize that the sentence I just typed is precisely one of the things that made my relationship so toxic. I was constantly blaming myself for everything. It was never "Oh, Russell called me a cunt because he's a verbally abusive prick." It was always "that may have been my fault." Even if it wasn't.

So many people have told me that there is never a reason to make someone feel like shit, or call someone something that makes them feel like shit, when you love them. And that, if you do, you should apologize after. For 19 years, I stood in a space of wondering if I had just kept my mouth shut, or let things go, if my relationship would have turned out differently. I've spent 19 years blaming myself for his actions. And while some of our issues absolutely were my fault, he was in complete control of how he reacted toward me. And he never seemed to be able to curb his anger.

In our last home, there were holes in the wall where he had put his fists through the drywall. There were memories of broken glass from when he'd throw a glass cup in the sink as we argued. One argument would turn into a different one within a span of 10 minutes. It could start off as him feeling that I should have contributed more to the household, and within 10 minutes he'd be screaming at me and telling me that I "ruined" our daughter, that I spoiled the children, that I always made him out to be the asshole, that everything was always his fault. And then when I'd ask him to explain why he felt that way, he'd shut down and refuse to talk to me and slam the door in my face. Literally.

For almost 2 decades I have been terrified that he planted a spot of cancer in me that has metastasized  into something all the mental chemotherapy in the world won't be able to cure. I've wondered if I'm worth anything, or if anyone would ever want to tolerate me, outside of him. I wondered if I could tolerate myself outside of him. For years the security of having him near me was less scary than the idea of being on my own, because he told me for so many years that I was incapable of even the most simple tasks. And so I stayed.

Until one day when I finally said "if you're so miserable, why are you even wearing a ring?" And he put his hands up and said "I haven't worn my ring in months. I took it off when it started to suffocate my finger and make me feel like shit."

And that was the last day of my marriage. Not legally, but emotionally. Every conversation after that was about separating. I don't know why that was the breaking point, and not all the times he called me a bitch or a cunt, or all the times he told me to fuck off and that he couldn't stand being around me. I don't know why that was the breaking point and not all the times I felt worthless, or all the times I would hear his van pull into the driveway and leap off the couch at light speed to look like I was doing something. I would take the kids to school, get home, work from 8:30 to 5:00, get off of work, go to the store to get dinner, come home and make the dinner, wash off the dishes, make sure the kids took their pills, make sure the kids showered, make sure they brushed their teeth, then get them to bed, then try to tidy up around the house. And, still, if I was on the couch when he came home because I was exhausted after a day of mental stimulation from work, there would be an argument about how I just laid around or sat on my ass all day and how I should take on more of the domestic labor because I work from home. 

It took 3 months of confusing ups and downs before he left the house. As I'm writing this, he's only been gone from the home for a week. 

There are spots of light that have started creeping into the darkness, and times where I can see my old self again starting to be less afraid to peek her face out of the cave she's been wasting away in for 2 decades. There are also times where a shadow passes by and she runs back inside. Tonight, at Walmart, I wept in the middle of the water filter aisle because I had a hard time finding what I was looking for, and there was a sad song on, and I kept thinking "if Russell were here with me, he'd know where the water filter was. He would have known exactly what to do while I melted down. And I missed him.

For the last 3 months he's been nice to me. And it's a cruel sort of toxicity because I do wonder if it was all in my head. I do doubt myself and wonder if I made the worst mistake of my life sometimes. 

But then I remember the weekend at my brother's house - when I went to visit him in Tennessee at the end of March. It was the first time I had been away from Russell since the separation started, and I knew he was going to be moving out (or fully moved out) when I got back. We were in the middle of unwrapping Christmas gifts (we do Christmas in March, and also birthdays for Aaron and Drake) - and I felt a drop in my system. It's hard to explain, but it felt like pins and needles that started in my face and then branched out into every corner of my body. I excused myself and went to lay down in the guest bedroom and that's when my 1.5 hour panic attack started. It came in terrifying waves where I lost complete control of my muscles. They would tense up, and then release, and I couldn't control the overwhelming nausea. My brother, mom, and my brother's girlfriend came and laid in the bed with me and rubbed my back. Each time a wave would hit me and my muscles would seize up, one of them would rub my back and tell me I was safe, and then the sobbing would start. Uncontrollable crying that came out in choked back sobs, accompanied by more pins and needles that would freak me out so badly that I left the situation with four separate bruises where I bit into my skin so hard I bled.

When it finally ended, I was so exhausted that I passed out in my brother's guest bed. When I woke up in the morning, I had DOMS from the times my muscles would seize up. And that's when I think the reality of just how toxic my relationship was dawned on me. The moment I felt safe, the first moment in so many years where I realized I might be free of some of the things I had experienced, I completely lost all control of my physical body. I talked to my doctor the very next day and she diagnosed me with Complex PTSD, said it sounded like I had an episode due to prolonged exposure to trauma, and now I have the reminder in writing that stares at me from my medical chart every time I need to visit the Atrium Health page. 

The stupid thing is, I still miss him. And I think that was his plan. There is a small piece of my brain that whispers that I'm being paranoid, but I wouldn't miss him if he weren't being nice to me or being kind, or checking in on me and telling me I'm beautiful and acting like he misses me. And I think that might be the cruelest, most toxic act of all - the kindness that seeps into my phone through text and makes me doubt myself every time he reaches out. I think that's being done on purpose. And that, somewhere underneath the sweet exterior, is the same wolf that tore me to shreds every day for 19 years. It's just that now the wolf is 45 minutes away and dressed in sheep's clothing to look like something I might want to return to.

This entire process is a journey, as cliche as that sounds, and the scary part of the journey that I avoided for 2 decades is coming to a close - and the still scary, only slightly less scary and maybe somewhat exciting part of the journey is right around the corner. But cancer is cancer - and even with treatment, it usually stays with a person. Even in remission, there's always the fear that it will come back and kill you.