Dr. Jekyll & Mr. Hyde

 I have written all about my past, and I have processed that past and written all about the BEAUTIFUL LIES! 

They were lies…

When you think you know someone inside and out, for better or worse, in sickness and health, time and all eternity.

But then someone decides that all those words were fake, all the promises were also fake, and Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde is what you had all 25 years. Not someone’s true self as they had you believe, but the mirror version of yourself, and it took you watching the mirror of another and a crap ton of therapy to see it. 

All human cells reproduce; 10% of the heart is replaced each year, red blood cells every four months, skin cells every two weeks, 

Neurons, the cells that make up the brain and spinal cord, don’t reproduce. 

We may not be able to get back what we lost. In its place, we grow something new.

It happens slowly but surely till we have what we need.

I was, in fact, a FOOL in my own love story

When faced with danger, fear takes over, and we react desperately to feel safe. When someone suffers from trauma, it’s the everyday things, the song on the radio, the smell of your favorite cologne, seemingly random simple things convincing your mind and body that you are in danger and there is no way out. My most significant was a patrol car, oh the trauma it caused on many occasions. I had thought that Healed just the other day; it took my breath away for years later. Crazy. 

What he took from me mattered...

I found a way to hear that. 

I found a way to believe that. 

I found a way to move forward because I was stuck for so long. 

Tossed away like garbage...

I wasn’t in my right mind; I wasn’t in my mind at all.

That night I lost my mind. I pretended I wasn’t a zombie or dead inside. I couldn’t feel it for months, but my mind hasn’t returned, and I am not sure that a part of it ever will...

The words this was not your fault... nothing you did deserve this!

Nothing!!!

I could be told that repeatedly and I couldn’t believe it.

All I was, was a broken person in my own eyes. Maybe if I had said or done one thing differently then? 

It’s not my fault. Those words were said repeatedly; I couldn’t get them to stick.

 

The chronic and systematic dishonesty that nearly always occurs with sexual betrayal is a form of emotional and psychological abuse. And yes, I recognize that abuse is a powerful and mighty word. To rob a person of a sense of reality, chip away at the ability to trust what the five senses and instincts are telling you, and systematically undermine the ability to trust your memory and perception. Judgment is a form of mental cruelty. It is important to look this squarely in the face and name it: emotional and psychological abuse.

Survivors everywhere... your feelings deserve respect and understanding. 

I didn’t deserve this!!! 

Too often, trauma is just in our head; the pain is real; it’s in our muscle cells, not in our heads.no magic fix, no Pill to make it go away, but we can ask for help. We can tell our truth whenever we are ready... 

Tender Mercies

I swore I was never going to write about this. Yet here I sit, writing about it. I don’t write this for you to feel sorry for me or to worry about me. I’m not sure why I am writing this- inspiration, maybe? Or maybe it’s my desperate attempt to reach out to others who, like me have been traumatized in marriage. You see I was married to a serial cheater.

I almost didn’t survive 2018.

 Parts of it and 2019 were a blur. 

 This isn’t a moment I will ever be proud of but it is one that lingered for a really long time and one that I battled. It was a moment I wish never happened, it wasn’t until I said it out loud in therapy, that was when I felt it. The tears, the rage, shame, disbelief, gushing from my yes because of what had just left my mouth. I knew what I had done that day over 3 years ago, a select few also knew and now my therapist knew what was hiding deep inside this shattered heart, the one that had been ripped from my chest, and now was heaving with waves of convulsive pain.  So many moments and days that the beautiful life as I knew it was shattered and broken in a way that I can’t even explain, the devastating affects of the infidelity that ripped apart my life. It almost broke me forever. I had a breakdown and almost ended my life. I had written a letter that night, I have since tossed it but I can still see them, thoes words I wrote when I let the darkness take over and the only way to excape it was this, or so I thought. Grief, denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance.

I write this because I survived that moment in time, that lowest point brought on by someone else’s actions, Someone else’s choices.   

August 12, 2018 

Did you actually forget that I am a person? Your wife? How did I go from being a living breathing human with feeling and pain to trash? The one you have no respect for? While my heart is breaking, what’s your doing? Fluttering with excitement from your affair? This sufferings I can’t take anymore it’s too much to bare! I am sorry. GOODBYE

The scary hard part when I had to talk about the details of what I did that night. Repeat every last one. Looking back this was the lowest point for me knowing my husband was having an affair with a girl my child’s age. My darkest moment. I am not proud of this part of the story but it is part of the awful story I have lived since that day in 2018.

No more tears, no more panic attacks no more heartache no more it will be gone this will take it all away. 

At the time I was so mentally broken I honestly felt like this was the answer this was my way out of all of it from the torment of waking up everyday walking in the same pain as the day before. This was it the battle for my life. 

The Devil knocks and I had answered he was standing right next to me, but you see the lord was also there and in that moment he sent someone with that text and I have no doubt where the voice came from.

The message said this “thinking of you and your family tonight.” 🙏🏼🙏🏼😇

it came from my bishop, I am not sure at that moment why he had text me, I not sure if he felt inspired but weather it was inspired or it was a coincidence it saved my life that night.

That was my moment of clarity like watching a movie I could see the devestation of my choice.

I was now frozen in fear in the cold dark reality of what I was just willing to do to others to take my own pain away. I not sure why the lord sent him but I picked up my phone and I continued to reply.  Shame in that moment and in so many others that year of 2018/ early 2019. It was what I battled over and over fighting off that feeling. It was the many tender mercie after this moment that kept me alive that gave me something to look forward to in my dark world it was the light of others that gave us the gift of a vacation for Christmas and for holding my hand and listening to me sob uncontrollably. It was the lord sending me people to help with the battle of, well me. So many people that I am today eternally greatful for saving me from myself. 

 I can look back and say that I survived some of the darkest moments and day because of them and that I’m stronger because of it. It was a long difficult road to endure and I it has not been easy and I still battle so many emotions. Days I force myself to do things that are hard. It still hurts when I think about it and I still have triggers and insecurities from the affairs and what I thought my life would look like in 2022. Lots of that look different now and I am still trying to understand it all. Picking up all the pieces. It has taken me years to look back at this awful day and see the light in that darkness and know the lord was carrying me; he never left I am thankful to the people who let me steal their light to light my way through it, who never walked away. 

 I can now look at how far I’ve come from that worst day that awful moment my weakest point and I’m proud of myself. These aren’t words I have used for almost 4 years, I haven’t been able to look at myself in the mirror, but today this quote is written on my mirror

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To all of you that have been in this journey with me… My heart is still beating and for that and the many tender mercies from the Lord I am grateful.❤️