This afternoon I went for a drive...by myself. After three days of walking into my kitchen and it looking like a pet store threw up in it, I had enough. And after three days of just being angry over really....nothing. I walked out of the front door...got in my car..and started to drive.
Times like these are when I know I'm not over the past. I have triggers and I hate it. The things that happen that may happen everyday....but one day happen just at the right (or wrong) moment that trigger a memory in the past. Memories that my husband has apologized for over and over....but memories that hurt so much that even though I think I've gotten past them, something happens that brings it all back. Alcoholism is Hell for everyone that has to live with it. I guess I could say I'm lucky. My husband was never physically abusive. He was obnoxious...hurtful in the things he would say....controlling. I don't know maybe that's one of the reasons I justified staying. I don't particularly like talking about this part of my life, because honestly I feel stupid for putting up with it...pathetic because I didn't think I could do better. I always thought of myself as shy...awkward....ugly. Having times when I would cut my hair shorter than my husband liked it and having him tell me I looked like a boy because it wasn't long enough (even though I've never had it shorter than to my shoulders), only reinforced how I already felt about myself. He had a lot of opinions of how he wanted me to look. I put up with it all throughout the alcoholic years. I've said it in past posts, but I really had to get to my very lowest, before I could see that I really was worth something. And towards the end of the alcoholic years I started speaking up more, because I was emotionally done with my marriage. I honestly didn't care what he thought about me anymore. And I finally got to a place where I could look at him when he would say something...and I would say Fuck You...if you don't like me the way that I am....leave. Alcoholism is a funny thing, it makes you forget. When Todd got sober, things changed in our house...I changed. He denied ever doing anything, ever saying the things I would tell him he said....in fact he thought we had a perfect marriage. I feel like I was cheated out of a lot of things in our marriage. In a lot of ways I know him better than he knows himself.....and he...doesn't know me really at all. He's a different person now...well not completely. He still says stupid things that make me mad. But now he knows when he's screwed up. He has apologized over and over and cried about how much he's hurt me. He's trying hard to make things right, but for me I don't even want to go to that place. Yes, I still care about him...but right now, that's where it ends.
So my trigger...there were a few...and they just snowballed. It started with the third Twilight movie that we watched three nights ago. Ok I've read all the books, I know the stupid story. There's a reason I don't like to watch movies that are love stories. My first trigger...and from that moment it was one after another until today when after being angry for three days...I was done. I needed to clear my head. I needed to make myself stop thinking about the past. Because all I want to do is forget about it, I don't want to think about it anymore. I want to be over it. So I got in my car, and headed north. I drove to Logan...through the mountains, in complete silence...past the little farming communities.. past the college I went to for two years...past my dorms I lived in. I didn't answer my phone, I left the radio off...I talked to my dad and wished he was there because I miss him and I could really use his advice right about now. And I let my mind clear. Three hours later I pulled back into my driveway...ready to face my now clean kitchen. (My family knows it's serious when I walk into a room don't say a word and walk out of the house). My mind is clear again....the anger is gone...hopefully for a while..and I feel like I can fully function again without pretending.
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