Category: Surviving

Originally I decided I wouldn’t write specifics about my current situation in this space, in an effort to avoid airing my family’s “dirty laundry” to the masses.  Please understand that I don’t hate him, I don’t wish him any harm, and I’m not trying to make him look like a monster.  He is getting help for his behavior, and I hope he’s able to conquer those demons.

But this is my story.  My life.  This was my reality.  I won’t be silent.

————–

Being married to someone with extreme paranoia was hard, especially because, in an effort at self-preservation, I couldn’t help but become paranoid myself.

I wonder, sometimes, how long it will take me to stop looking over my shoulder.

He was always creeping up on me.  On particularly bad days, he would sneak into the house so that he could catch me doing… whatever it was he thought I did when he wasn’t there watching me.

When I would be startled by his figure in the doorway or by him suddenly touching me when I thought no one was around, he would tell me that only someone who was doing something they shouldn’t be doing would be so jumpy.  

So I learned to have nerves of steel, and never react.  When will I startle again?  Ever? 

I walked barefoot into my dark kitchen two weeks ago and stepped on a snake that had somehow wandered in from outside… and didn’t utter a sound, not even a gasp.  I just removed my foot, caught the snake, and tossed it outside.  That’s not normal, is it?

Anything I did – or didn’t do – might be suspicious in his eyes.  I never knew, from one moment to the next, how he might react if I looked too nice, ran too many errands, fell asleep in the girls’ room, spent too much time with any particular person, or didn’t get enough done during the day.  The things that set him off were constantly changing, and completely unpredictable.

There was always the possibility of him lurking in the shadows, peeking through windows, checking the history on my computer, driving past the park or the store or my friend’s house to make sure I was where I said I would be, doing things he didn’t consider suspicious.

He would just materialize.  And only someone with something to hide would have a problem with that.

So I learned to be aware, always, never trusting that I wasn’t being watched.  How long will it take for me to stop feeling his eyes on me, wherever I go?

It got to the point that I wouldn’t talk on the phone in my car, because I didn’t know if he had it bugged.  I kept my head down and avoided talking to people in public unless I had to, in case he was having me followed. 

It didn’t matter what innocuous things I might have talked about, because he was convinced that I spoke -and wrote- in code. 

He went through my emails, chats, notebooks, journals, tweets, blog posts – all with a fine tooth comb, trying to find hidden meanings, demanding to know what I meant by one thing or another.  

So I learned to watch my words, always.  Will I ever be able to speak freely again?

Yes, I will. 

I am. 

Right now.

I look around me at all of these things, the shit that is supposed to represent the life we built, and realize that I want none of it.

I imagine throwing them against the wall, one by one, and watching these things shatter into a thousand tiny pieces. 

If I throw them hard enough, and rage long enough, will I bring the house down? 

Leave a pile of rubble where my family’s home once stood.

Broken and absolutely worthless. 

Let it all fall apart.  I don’t want it.

But… that’s not who I am. 

What good is rage and broken shards of nothing? 

It doesn’t change reality.

It may not be what I thought it was, but it is worth something. 

If only to me.

Tell me you can see the line.  The one marking your space and mine.

Tell me you can see the line.  The one separating love from obsession… from possession.

Tell me you can see the line.  The one between want and need.  Desire and greed.

 That side is yours, this side is mine.  Toe the line.

Back the hell up and maybe you’ll see it… right there, in black and white.

Do Not Cross.

I.

Will.

Not.

Be.

Owned.