Beyond madness....beyond being angry and expressing emotion in a healthy way....I'm talking about the person that you never know when or how severely they will blow.
When you live with someone of this nature, it affects everyone. We learned to not speak our minds, we learned to not tell the truth, and our thinking became distorted from never knowing exactly what it would be to ignite the flame. We lived instilled with fear.
It's the holidays and I'm eternally grateful I do not live in daily contact with such irrational behavior. But it's also the holidays that bring back the fact that as a single mother things have never been the same during these times either. Each year following the dissolution of that long term relationship, I've had the greatest inner strength and determination to make it through.
Over the last few years, I have done a lot of healing and addressing the effects of that relationship. In fact, if anything, my pendulum has swung as far in the opposite direction as possible. I tell the truth even if it hurts. I know now I am not responsible for the other person's reaction. I've become too independent for my own good, I think. And I refuse to live between someone's guidelines of what they believe is acceptable.
Anger is a thief ...... it not only robs the angered one of himself but it steals from those who try to live with the angry. Sometimes, as I have recently, I sit and think...what the hell was wrong with me? And how in the world did I live in such an atmosphere for the amount of time I did. It baffles me. But yet, now, when I hear stories of abuse and fear and why someone would stay....I understand how it happens. That's not to say that I understand the mental process that goes on within us to not realize just how disturbingly wrong it is.
Obviously after a number of years there is no such hope that the person will just change without the help of a professional. And so, rationally, how long can one withstand such behavior? Why not bail at the first, second, or tenth occurrence? Why not bail after one, two, or ten years? The strange thing is, I can never recall ever thinking of leaving. He, on the other hand, ran off in anger every other few days in the end. Only in hindsight can I tell you that anger is definitely progressive. However, slow and subtle it may grow....it will get worse and it will reach greater heights of abuse.
And it was at that point, something clicked. Instantly, the end came and I checked out. With each passing year since, more and more clarity has come. And with that clarity becomes self anger. Yes, strange, right? Wasted years, wasted time, unhealthy emotional trauma....yes, I'm mad at me. I'm angry for trying, I'm angry for exposing myself for so long to another's anger, I'm angry I exposed my daughter to the unhealthiness of it all, I'm angry I wasted so many years, I'm angry I've had to spend so much time healing from it, I'm angry I'm where I am in life because of it, and I'm angry that holidays are not the same for any of us.
And I'm mostly angry that I am letting it take something from me…
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