take back my life...

This blog has been dormant for a while, as I tried to really focus on family and healing. This time of year gets to me! It was the same time of year I ended up pregnant, standing at my friend door step confirming the affair I knew was happening. It was this time in 2017 that the relationship with the 21-year-old girl started.  And the 50-year-old neighbor relationship ended. It’s like I walked into a spider's web, I didn't see, and it stuck all over me. It's an icky, sticky feeling of wanting to erase something invisible from my skin, trying desperately to remove the fine strands. Still, no matter how much You try, you can’t find that last strand or remove it, so you brush at your skin over and over, trying to find it. Being haunted by the energy of all those affairs, you see, I know their names, Or should I say the seven I am actually aware of. 

I have blogged about my life the last few years, trying to focus on the healing, and in the wee hours of this morning, thanks to another nightmare, I just can’t seem to shake or escape. This is me speaking, and I can only speak for my experience. This is NOT a generalization of all people's experiences, maybe yours was different, but this is my thoughts this morning. 

Over the last few years, I have tried to be dignified. I got in many discussions in therapy about defending one's actions, and you know what show me where the compassion was shown to me by any of these people in the last few years? Notta, nowhere to be seen or heard, from the people who inserted themselves into my marriage without even thinking of me! I have battled every emotion; I have fought hard for many years, these emotions inside me, but this morning no more. I understand there are reasons behind others' actions. I understand we are all shaped by our experiences. We all have conditioning and beliefs that affect how we see the world and treat the people in it.

But....you know what?

I could not give a crap about these woman's stories. I do not give a crap about what happened in their lives that made them so uncaring about families and other people's relationships. I don't give a crap that maybe they had low self-esteem. All of you chose; you made a choice to consciously hurt someone else because you all knew about me.  It wasn’t a mistake or an accident at any moment you could have chosen to walk away; you didn’t! You let the relationship run its course with a married man, and you did what?  To me, you were all gaining strength from harming other people with your actions. So I will say it! The bottom feeders, the parasites, manipulate those around you as if you are normal people. I see you, I see all of you, and my skin crawls because I know the damage you cause. I have felt it in my soul.
Is this kind? probably not, Truthful, YES

Your stories of who hurt you in the past, how you didn’t feel loved, what you experienced will never be an excuse for what you did. I mean, maybe an apology? Wait, then you would actually have to admit you did something so disgusting to another person. All I see is the delusional fix you got from destroying another person. I see no remorse for the utter destruction or devastation you willing created, so yes, when I see you, and I walk away, sometimes run away. Know this it makes my skin crawl to be near any of you.  You thought it was real!! How funny, so did I so I guess for that I can show some sympathy for you? Wait Nah!!! So laughable now when I think of that comment, “I faked it all.” But it's real now, right? Maybe we are all clueless; that’s how he picks us. 

So clueless, we all have a story; who won in this situation? What’s your narrative. I mean, the stories you created in your head to justify it? I wanted to pretend that none of them knew that they were all innocent, clueless, and justified all of your behavior. In the end, I can’t because every single one of you knew! It was downright low and shitty behavior, if you don’t mind me speaking the truth! As for me? I was the poor sucker who got caught in the crossfire of the pitiful story. The dumb wife, minding my own business, building my life, and then that spider web, the one filled with all of the lies. I repeatedly brush at my skin to remove the cobwebs full of lies. 

Today I done keeping secrets. I am done hiding your truth! 

 When I had to read this assignment to my therapist, she stood up and started clapping. Her words, you just unpacked! I guess that day no getting in trouble for defending someone who doesn’t deserve my respect or decency. It’s not just our abusers who traumatize us; it’s those that work with them, defend them, enable them, ignore our cries for help and try and force us to forgive them. My prayer is this, I hope I can help people in my healing process, I hope that I can find the purpose and understanding behind this pain, and I hope that God helps me forget. 

HEAD ABOVE WATER

https://www.youtube.com/redirect?event=video_description&redir_token=QUFFLUhqbmVGUFd3dlZuMm9iYTB4cVV0dUt4MHNyMlc5Z3xBQ3Jtc0tuNU45dnZVNXFQR09QRlFIS21VNmNKcC1KMmZCdHdUR2QycU56N0dpb2kwZFFrWnB6bnp5ckF4SFgtLUo1Z2Y2ZVdJQVdXM0xYNjVlV0R4ZzEzY1Bmc3VadmRqaldlUldoeWNVV1QzcHhhV3FOVV9nOA&q=https%3A%2F%2Favrillavigne.lnk.to%2FHeadAboveWaterAlbumID

In the last 6 months, I have taken a step back from therapy and trauma work; quite frankly, I was exhausted. As I left the office that day, I was given the advice with the promise to return to treatment when my mind settled. I said I just need a break, I need to not have to schedule an appointment for broken me, I need to not cry over the past for a small moment, I don’t want to do the work, well, for the time being. I want to just be able to breathe without putting in all this time and effort.  Funny thing I have a love-hate relationship with therapy. Mental health is no joke. 

With the combination of shock, the lack of fully understanding, and the why's,  my brain goes round in circles until my unconscious has a believable answer for my conscious selves. 

  I am 3 years out from realizing my beautiful life. Yes, I said beautiful life because it was a peaceful, content, fantastic life.  I had lived this before and believed we were better, stronger,  ALWAYS, AND FOREVER. This time there was no going back, no 2nd chances, no making it go away because this time, it affected every aspect of our life and the lies we’re starting to pile up.  I didn’t know up from down. I so wanted to wake up from this awful nightmare that he, yes, HE had created. I would’ve liked that beautiful life back, you know, the one he “faked.”

Meanwhile, yes, the collateral damage is what I call the people who didn’t create the disaster they are now facing. The ones now forced to suffer the consequences of. They are under pressure from family and friends to just hate him, get over it, and trust me, if only the therapy work would do its magic and heal it all.

Sadly I didn’t find a fast way to do this as you can’t go from loving someone (and being lied to) to feeling nothing for them overnight. It’s been three years, and you know what? I still love the husband I thought I had, my best friend, my partner for 25 years, the man I choose to have 3 exceptional children with. 

No

Yes, I realize how messed up that is.  Yes, I know he isn’t that man I created in my head, yes, I have eyes, ears, and if I only told you all the messed up reasons, but I will keep some of that to myself for now. 

In therapy, I have learned I have to let my brain make its circles, the panic attacks, aren’t they special, the nightmares of the past, oh, they still exist. Still, it’s the good dreams of the past that have become disturbing when you wake up and realize it was a dream. You are right back into visiting every scenario and outcome in your head; I will always come to a resolution; eventually, it’s a process that takes different people, different times. In the beginning, with my 1st therapist, I think it was a giant waste of money and time, and to be fair to him, I am sure when I sat in his office once a week for a month, it was a waste of his time also, I am sure he has helped hundreds, but it was not the right fit for me. I mean, I did threaten to hit him with his office sign about “it’s better to feel pain than nothing at all.” I won't lie; I would like to know if he ever hung that back up on his wall or if he removed it because of my comment. One can wonder, right?

I did a lot of work with my 2nd therapist. I got very comfortable with her until she realized how deep the trauma was and what I had lived and informed me I needed someone who specialized in my kind of trauma, you know, the repeated betrayal kind. I really did like her, and I felt like the biggest failure that day she referred me out. I would then have to start over retelling and reliving the trauma of the most recent affair along with the many discovered from the last. It was when I had to retell the day about the gun. I said my husband, my protected father of my children, held his loaded duty weapon to my head, and the awful cold words he uttered were this. “Now, what tough girl?” I said I still have nightmares about this, and when I see his face, it’s all I think about? The hair stands on the back of my neck, and I freeze with fear, and my insides shake.

Will that trauma ever heal? Because you want to know the secret? The one that got me referred to you? The awful truth of it is so many days I wish he would have pulled that trigger. I would do anything to forget the past trauma, the one that has left me like this. The one I wish never happened, and  I could completely forget. I worry about everything, and the things that once seemed meaningful are now meaningless. I worry about what would happen if I actually let myself feel again. I think it would hurt and that I dont truly deserve to feel again.  Without knowing I changed, I am not the same me I once was. I worry about what would happen if I actually live again because I did that after his last affair that I actually knew about. Yes, I realize how messed up that sounds, and look where that got me?  I also worry about what would happen if I don’t. 

 I can look and see all that I would have missed if he pulled that trigger. I don’t want to remember, but then that part of you says I had such a wonderful life minus the lying and the cheating. Yes, isn’t that amazing how you can see all the beautiful moments of life, but you now see them as a clouded version because of what you would discover to be so many lies! The moments and places, it really is the worst mind games ever. My mind can’t weed out the good from the bad anymore. It’s all muddled together. Therapy is fantastic, and it’s awful, yep I said it. It’s horrible too. I am learning you don’t have to climb a mountain to stand on top of the world, and it’s okay to be lost as long as, eventually, you find your way back. I am missing the old me. I don’t remember me before him? I also know that I have to let me that was me with him go. I can’t quite figure that out my mind hasn’t done the circle in that, because this me today, the damaged one. “ oh, how I would get a scolding in therapy for calling myself that. In therapy, I have to use the word healing, but like I said, my mind hasn’t circled that, and hey, I took a break, right? Don’t tell my therapist! 

The me today who and what is she? That I have yet to discover,she is a fighter. I can say that because for the record “My kids need a mom” lives because of them, they saved me from that day, August 12, 2018, but that’s a story for another day or maybe never. I was called a doer the other day, and I was flattered, but it’s the dreaming I crave. Dreaming is the beauty of the world and making it come to life. There is beauty in bright places, even in dark times, and when there aren’t, you can be that bright place.  

Learning to heal and grow and resume therapy when your brain has settled on ‘its story.’

 For now,

I will just keep my head above the water! 

LOADED GUN

Every day we will face triggers, reminders of trauma from the past, that try to take us to our weakest points. Times when we are entirely ready for them, other times they will shatter us so profoundly we may never be whole.

This day, the day that my world changed in a blink of an eye. June 3rd, the day I can feel in every shattered piece around me. A day I am unable to forget, a day that triggers the worst and the dream I talk about the one I can not escape. A day that holds so much trauma, the secret that’s keeping me sick. I begged and pleaded with him to find another way when his cold words, dark eyes that are etched into my heart forever.

 I can’t feel this way anymore, I can only assume the guilt of his lying, I will never know as the words he uttered let me leave and tell the kids, or I am going, and none of you will ever seem me again. What kind of options are these neither I would willingly choose without a fight? To this day, I wish I would have chosen differently.  Because of the trauma that would unfold when I told him you win after this incident, I will regret for everyone involved in this ugly situation. 

I looked at him pleading tears in my eyes and said if you do this, you might as well put a bullet in me because that’s what it’s going to feel like anyway. I didn’t understand, I couldn’t see the truth from the lies, I thought he was broken and going to kill himself like he had threatened many times the last month. The secret that’s was keeping me sick the truth I hadn’t admitted to many, the secret I was keeping that my therapist was trying to reach with the EMDR was this. The secret that left me in pieces in her office and I believed shocked her. She said I am not sure I know how to help you as I am not qualified for this kind of trauma.

The secret that came spilling out of me while everything inside me was protesting it stay put, I had fought for healing and this day this wasn’t it.

 The truth I fought so hard to keep inside, and it had just broken me in that office. 

Do you know what it’s like to have a loaded gun held to your head?

What it feels like for the one person you thought would always protect you did the unthinkable? 

 It feels like slow motion I watched as he picked that gun, his duty weapon. I heard the sound of the metal clip, I turned around as I couldn’t look into his eyes as he raised it, I could feel it near my head, my heart was pounding, then came the words “now what tough girl.”

Shaking the words that flowed out of my mouth next were... “pull the trigger.”

That’s what my heart wanted at that moment, and a sense of calm surrounded me. Waiting! 

I heard the metal clip again, and I watched as he tossed the gun back into the box and walked away from me.

I was scared of him in that moment, but my heart also ached, I thought he was broken, and I wanted to understand why he would actually do that to me his wife, the mother of his children was he trying to hurt me or scare me either way it worked. 

I am now terrified of that man. Terrified of what he is capable of. The nightmares associated with this moment In life haunt me. I can’t get it out of my head or the cells of my body.  This week they have kept me awake; that nightmare I dread has returned. Sleep I fear as I know I will live this in my dream, but unlike reality, in my dreams, he always pulls the trigger, and I am jerked awake in the dark in a full-blown panic attack. Sweating and wiling my lungs to breathe and the tears. Is this really my life? 

The truth of the secret told in EMDR is the shame of the many nights I wished, he had done just that pulled that trigger and spared me having live any of this trauma he created.

Learning all the truths of life, I knew nothing about it. I wished on this day, and so many occasions, he could have had the guts to end it that day with the squeezing of that trigger.  I want to not feel the fear in every fiber of me when I see his face or have to be near him. The sound of a gun that creates bile to rise in my throat and the sound of that cocking loading the bullet in the chamber,  gunmetal sending a chill down my spine. It’s what I see when I have to see him that face that gun and I tailspin, emotional turmoil for days.  My soul is connected to him, and I can feel the instant he is near me, my hair stands up. I sit up a little straighter, and I exam my surrounding a little more. I sit in a car longer or walk faster to avoid this trigger. Trauma Bonding.

This moment In time has left me hating myself for wanting what he didn’t do that day, and I can’t bear to be near him as I can see a version of the man I loved, but the light is gone. The man before me isn’t the same, and I am mad that he didn’t pull the trigger. The secret that keeps me sick is I wish he would have pulled that trigger. 

Do you know what it’s like to have the person you love do this and then walk away and try to deny to you it happened? Try to convince you that he left because you got physical with him, which yes I sat on top of him, placed his head in my hands, shook his face, and said. “Why can’t you see what’s right in front of your face” a moment he asked me to get off, and the fear of him shooting himself stopped me from complying, and I was left with bruises on my arms as he removed me. 

I was angry with the man who didn’t have the guts to pull the trigger, and if I tried to talk about it after he left, he would say the words to me. “I don’t know what you are talking about like I was just crazy and imagined it or made it all up. As if it wasn’t real.  

If you can relate to this for any reason and I honestly hope that you can’t and never will. I’m so sorry. No one should know the pain of betrayal. It shatters you to your core. The pain is indescribable. You may never be the same. Life changes all of us in many ways – good and evil. I’m different now. More guarded, less trusting, and I cry all the flipping time, which annoys me to no end. I am trying hard even on this day with this trigger, trying to not let fear creep back in, a daily battle that I mostly lose. 

I was given this gift of writing to help me heal from the abuse, infidelity, that D-word I won’t use. 
I found this poem and loved it. 

Secrets
Incapacitate me.
I question
My identity.
Reoccurring dream
Paralyzes me.
Covers pulled off
Anonymously.
Goosebumps.
What could that be?
Shame.
Denigrates me.
Shh….It’s a secret.
Threats.
Gag my liberty.
Years.
Spent in therapy.
Truth.
Parades for all to see.
No longer
Is it a secret

author unknown

Don’t let your secrets keep you stuck, I mean who am I to talk as I still try and stuff this secret down, wishing this wasn’t my life, hoping for the life back the happy me, she is gone I have yet to find her I am hopeful as I stay close to the lord he will help me find her or at least help me live. 

STAGE 1 DENIAL

Before I thought I knew what grief was. I had experienced grief at age 13 when both my grandparents passed in a matter of 2 months diabetes and a heart attack. Then at 24 when my dad passed away from cancer. I had heard many talk about it at 14. I didn’t understand much; at 24, it was difficult to understand. At 40, I got a better understanding of what grief really is. I am no way an expert on this; I have muddled my way through many different emotions. I've learned and can recognize what creates my depression, anxiety, sorrow.  

I have learned a lot about the five stages of grief. 

• denial
• anger
• bargaining
• depression 
• acceptance 

But what you learn is that at any moment, you can experience one or several of these. Not everyone experiences them all. But these are the most common, according to experts. 

 Clearly, I was in denial from the moment I got that 1st message about the affair. I lived in that denial for months, and I believed every lie he continued to tell. I was in denial that day he would choose to hold that gun to my head, the day he walked away. I was numb and in shock. Looking back, I honestly couldn't grasp the concept that my husband would do any of the things people were telling me he had done. 

What I would learn was that denial and shock helpd me to cope and made survival possible. It was nature’s way of only letting in bits and pieces, only small pieces that I could handle until it all was dumped in my lap. I lived in that denial and also was full of a ton of hope that this wasn’t the end of it all. 

I still remember the feeling I had the morning I woke up to mediation, and that day would be a fight with so many emotions. 

Just remember you never have and will never stop climbing, and God will never and has never left you alone.  There will definitely be times when you can't do it alone, but he has a rope waiting to throw down to you.  That rope will come in many different ways and through many different people, but it will come.  

https://thebrainypoetcorner.blogspot.com/2008/06/after-all-we-can-do_10.html

I remember receiving this message that morning and sitting on my stairs sobbing. Sobbing and feeling fear. I didn’t have the strength that day, but others were cheering me on. 

My denial period was over. 

I couldn’t pretend my husband hadn’t had an affair, that he hadn’t left, that he wasn’t living with the “rumor” that lost him his career. 

Because today I was going to walk into a building and it was all going to be talked about divided up no more denial. 
My name was going to be attached to documents that were public records and I can promise you this grief would do a number on me. Strangers weren’t going to know the love I had for this man or everything we knew about each other and shared and they weren’t going to care; they get paid to end what you hold sacred. They would only know that all that died. It was an excruciating thing to come to terms with. This day is the reason I can’t and won’t use the D-word. No, not the swear word the one that ends a marriage. Over the last 2 years since this day finalized it with an email informing me, it was submitted and signed by the judge. I have heard many people talking about my denial, my grief; everyone who hasn’t lived this situation is an expert. I heard the when will she realize, or does she realize, let go, move on! 

What a journey and battle this has been since that denial phase of grief. I can see the many blessings of the denial stage now, because when it was really over when the pain hit.

 The pain was INDESCRIBABLE and DEBILITATING. If you recognize someone in this stage just HUG them. 

March 2018 Discovery

March 2019 it’s Final

March 2020 Covid

March 2021???

The rollercoaster of emotions suddenly, unexpectedly hitting you smack dab in the heart. It leaves you feeling exhausted and downright confused—that reminder of the cruel words of the past. Just when you think you are pretty stable, all it takes is a message to slam you back into the wall frozen with fear. 

What if that pain I have come to know that familiar gut-wrenching pain I have come to know so well over the last 36 months. It started with a social media message.  I received one the other day that rush of pain the words from the past hurt. I was in an okay space, and now... I don’t want to get up. I don’t want to talk to anyone. I don’t want to move. My eating habits crap! Last night my pillowcase soaked with tears. My head hurts from thinking and overthinking. That familiar panicked feeling I have learned to control, threatening to take control. Yep, it still hurts; the wound isn’t healed, and it didn’t take much to rip the scab off and have it bleed again. The trigger of an Instagram message!  How stupid, right? The deception of other actions and the timing all slamming me back into that heartbreak.

These are the questions my mind will ask, and my heart will feel more often than I want, more often than I can control, I do the work, I fight the fight, but on the days I lose, I lose big! 

Why was this an option?How could he?I don’t understand?Why wasn’t I ENOUGH?I can’t do this anymore...It’s never going to feel okay...I don’t want to do this work anymore... This is now my life...I hate it...
There it is, the truth after 36 months, betrayal is painful, no matter the details of it. The words and thoughts ripping through like a razor blade cutting you from the inside. You wake to wish you could go back and freeze a moment in time, wishing this damage had never been done, the damage you are now left with and responsible for healing. The pain and sadness make you want to run, but I have been told the pain will follow me; the only choice is to heal it. 
I think to myself, it official the day you have all been watching and waiting for the day I lose it... I keep repeating breath, just breath, but it seems too torturous to even do that. 

I mean, how attractive is grief? One step forward, 10 steps back... (sigh) am I going to fall back into that darkness and be lost forever? Will I step into the light and finally leave it all behind me? When the devil knocks... yep, I listen, I listen to the words it’s too hard I am done, I listen to the words it exhausting just give up. I listen to you wasn’t enough. You will never be enough. What the heck is happening? Why are these feelings I have felt with the darkest days surfacing again? What you are not prepared for is how utterly exhausting it is. I have so many tools I have been given in therapy, bug moments where I am taken back to a place where I forget it all, I forget all the work I have done and all the steps forward I have made. This is where I am a ball bouncing back and forth from dark to light. It sucks, and it’s work, and it’s exhausting. Trauma, post infidelity trauma. The work to getting unstuck, no point in wishing it didn’t happen because the reality it did, wishing only brings the pain, and then I prefer to run from that pain, I don’t want to sit in it, I am not ready to at the moment. Because I can’t do one darn thing about that wound that I have learned will stay with me, the one that won’t heal. That’s what it is an inner wound nobody can see, but it’s there, and that’s what it is; nothing can be done about it. This is my reality! 

Say it out loud, yep, therapy tool. The joys of therapy! 

He cheatedHe did it You can’t wish it away.There is nothing you can do to change it.It hurts

Every toxic bit of it was real.The fall out of the trauma is this, every day is a battle nobody sees, nobody feels it, and dang sure nobody but you can fix it. Truth statements, it was abuse.  I remember that moment I had to repeat these words; I couldn’t say them because no was I someone who would ever stand for abuse, but what happened to me was abuse. Pain from that abuse has caused trauma that knows no age; it’s like it was yesterday in your brain like it's happening now. Pain and its superpower Here I stand or rather lay in my bed trying to find a positive ending for this post, and guess what happened? It was sent to me by a friend, the perfect ending to a messed up life.Yesterday, my inner child spoke to me because all I wanted to do was pack a bag and take off, you know like you did as a kid when you threatened to run away. I said to a friend, you think anyone will notice if I pack a bag, and I start walking down the road dragging a bag and a blanket. Will anyone come after me? So I guess I crawl... and keep moving forward!

Thank you, you know who you are.