It’s amazing how this kind of person can, and will, take the joy and fun out of absolutely everything. They also turn hurt and pain into a suffocating darkness that swallows you whole. It’s one extreme to the next.

I always told Chris he could ‘take the fun out of a wet dream’.

I meant it.

If I was getting dolled up in the attempt to have a good day and maybe even leave the house like people do, here the fight would come. ‘You always have to dress like a slut’. If I didn’t want to get dressed up and was just in some cozy clothes (that were just as cute), it would be ‘really that’s what you’re gonna wear’?

A holiday…. a birthday …. a pregnancy…. a special occasion…. a big event…. a trip to the grocery store….. it will all surely be ruined because everyyyything….is…. a…. probbbblem!!

Having a good day?…. ahh ahh ahh, not so fast. Let me ruin that for you, baby.

The first morning I was supposed to start a new teaching job, he fought with me the entire night before so I didn’t sleep much. Then the actual morning of, he got up and picked up where he left off. I ended up leaving with anxiety so bad that I was shaking and physically sick. From there, he obsessively called me on my work phone because I don’t answer my cell at work; it’s something I don’t do because my energy is solely focused on my 22 Kinders. He called me so many times during the first week I was there that it cost me that high paying job and executive position (thankfully that setback only catapulted me into an even more wonderful teaching opportunity).

They kick you so hard when you’re emotionally down that sometimes you actually physically drop; all of it unprovoked and undeserved. It makes your knees weak beneath you.

They don’t care if you’re sick, pregnant, grieving, or listening to a bible sermon; nothing stops them from inflicting torment. Nothing stops the complaints or constant chaotic attitude.

I was strong-arm-shoved down the stairs when I was 9 months pregnant, and it didn’t matter that I was carrying his first-born; he still kicked my feet out of the way so he could close the door. Thinking back on it now, I’m surprised that he came back out to help me up; perhaps only coming to do so because I was yelling at him and cussing at him and he’d rather help me up than have the neighbors think he’s anything but a nice guy.

Even as my daughter lay in the hospital in critical condition for six weeks before she went home with Jesus, my phone would go off with a message calling me names for ‘being out with some dude being a whore’. He didn’t care that I was about to, and did, lose my baby, my eldest child, my soulmate. The calls and messages still kept coming, day and night and wee hours of the morning. I had to change my phone number during this time because he would call at 3, 4, or 5 in the morning, making me jump up with fear that it was about my daughter. It has barely been 4 months since the day that cracked my heart in half, and he still continues to message me the most ugly lies and the most enraging false accusations.

I was resting in bed listening to one of my favourite Christian speakers, and he came in the room saying ‘turn that shit off you’re getting brainwashed’!

He just doesn’t stop, full-well-knowing that I am in such a state of grief that I’m having trouble getting out of bed. I’ll take a shower, and curl back up into my spiritually Zen space.

Being in this type of ‘relationship’ is so exhausting. It drains your energy, your drive, your patience.

There is never a down moment. Something is always happening. You’re constantly having-it-out. You can never be yourself; creative and thoughtful. You are pulled down into their negative vibration. The mood could be serene one minute; the next minute, words and hands are being thrown from both sides. His because he is who he is, mine because I can’t deal with who he is. We have fought so badly that our foreheads would be smashed together; and from that closeness, I would headbutt him over and over. He still wouldn’t release me from his vice-like grip.

I went to the store yesterday. My anxiety was so bad that I had to call my sister. I told her I couldn’t breathe well, my heart was pounding, and I was having a sudden panic attack. I told her I didn’t know what was happening. She then reminded me that when I was with Chris, I would call her crying, because he would be calling me and harassing me about my whereabouts. She said that I called her while I was cleaning my car because I had gotten a call from him saying that I better get back ‘right the fuck now’. Before she made that clarification, I hadn’t even thought of that very important fact of what I had been subjected to. I was in and out of that store with lighting speed and didn’t even realize that it was because every minute of mine had to be accounted for, otherwise there would be hell to pay.

Everything is confusing, frustrating, and ultimately, hopeless, when you’re trapped in a ‘relationship’ like this. Nothing makes sense. Nothing ever gets fixed. It just keeps going, and going, and going………