abusive relationships

The Fear Prison

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It’s been one of those weeks where a number of seemingly unconnected events have been signs pointing me in a single direction.

I had a conversation with a friend on Monday (one which I will inaccurately paraphrase here) about the concept of a fear prison.  The concept as I understood it describes the moments when something becomes legal, permissible, even encouraged, but we are unable to embrace, accept or even explore it because we remain trapped in the FEAR of horrible consequences.  The fear remains, despite our logic brains reminding us that the actual danger has passed.  We can remain trapped, capturing ourselves into custom built, highly individualized fear prisons.  No amount of intellectual reasoning or reassurance from friends and family can truly convince us that the danger has passed, that we are safe and that the “risk” we perceive as insurmountable is, in fact, no longer a risk at all.  The fear prison is both irrational (because no actual danger exists) and extremely rational (because it exists based on threats which were at one time real).   The fact that it simultaneously FEELS real and is in fact not true, makes it a particularly challenging concept to work with.

As a survivor of abuse, sexual assault, family violence, relationship abuse and systemic discrimination and institutional violence caused by the very systems that were presented as existing to protect survivors, I have built a complex and sturdy fear prison.

This fear prison is the driving force behind, and explanation for, so many of my decisions and so many of the symptoms of PTSD which weigh down my mind, body and spirit.

Just under two months ago, my ex-husband signed court documents which were stamped and sealed by a judge, giving me sole legal custody of my two children.  In reality, this piece of paper opened the doors of a real prison.  It represented an actual, tangible increase in safety, decision making power and freedom of choice.  People in my life, knowing how long and hard I’ve fought for this piece of paper, celebrated for me.  They were happy and congratulated me for “winning” after a long fight.

I think many people are confused and somewhat disappointed by my inability to celebrate.  I don’t feel relieved.  I don’t feel safe.  I don’t feel like I have won ANYTHING.  I don’t find it easier to make decisions.  I don’t feel free.

I’m still caught in my fear prison.

The walls of the prison are built by a trifecta of related fears.

First, the fear that I can’t trust him and can’t trust the unpredictable nature of violence.  This is the fear that he might come back, that he might try to hurt me or hurt my children when I least expect it.  The fear that if I let my guard down and allow a feeling of safety to exist, that I will be most at risk.   This is entwined with a fear that if I allow myself to relax and feel happiness or relief that it will be taken away from me: swiftly, without warning and in a terrifying manner.  This is the fear that every decision I make, every plan I make, every step forward I take, everything I build can be taken away. That it will be MY fault it is taken away because I foolishly let myself believe I was safe.

Second, the fear that I can’t trust anyone.  The fear that if I’m honest with doctors about how I feel then they will judge me and find me wanting.  The fear that people don’t believe me about the events of my life and my experiences.  The fear that people find me annoying, whiny, controlling, and generally too needy.  The fear that if I open up, I will risk being hurt again.  The fear that honesty will result in terrible consequences and that I should be careful about sharing TOO much or needing TOO much because it might result in me losing my children.   This fear at a deeper levels is that other people believe that I am crazy, insane, mentally ill, hysterical or mad.

Third, the fear that rules them all, is the fear that I cannot trust myself.  The fear that I am crazy, broken, damaged and maybe delusional.  The fear that I can’t trust my own memories of the past.  The fear that I exaggerated or invented the abuse.  The fear that I’ve accused innocent people of crimes they didn’t actually commit. The fear that I’m making too much out of too little and that a “normal” person wouldn’t react this way, have these thoughts or these experiences.   The fear that all of the challenges, abuse and violence in my life have been either my own fault or creations of my own mentally ill mind.  This fear keeps me frozen, analyzing and picking apart all my flaws and potential flaws.  This fear fills me with shame and makes me feel worthless.  Or maybe I feel ashamed and worthless because of this fear.

Believing that others think you are crazy, that you can’t trust others and that you can’t trust yourself because you might actually BE crazy builds up an extremely secure fear prison.  A fear prison so strong, that no amount of reality, court orders, locks on doors, or distance can break down.

This fear prison can only be dismantled through my own healing process.  By gradually challenging my fearful thoughts and looking for evidence that my fears are no longer true or real.  It may be that some of the fears were NEVER true or real, but were creations of my abusers, projected on me and designed, plotted and crafted to drive me insane.

The path to “winning” is not in the court orders or external victories.  The winning is my stubborn refusal to give up.  The winning is staying alive despite the intense desire to die.  The winning is getting up each morning and living my life, in spite of the fears.  The winning is parenting and protecting my children each day. The winning is behaving as if I’m valid and sane, even when I believe I am worthless and crazy.  The winning is reminding myself that I am a good person and that only a very BAD person would abuse someone and gaslight them hoping they would kill themselves so they could be proven “right.”

In his mind, the only way my ex-husband can be proven right, be proven not to be an abuser, be proven to be righteous and a good person, is for me to kill myself.  If I kill myself it proves to him that I am, and have always been, CRAZY.   If I die, his narrative becomes the truth and my accusations become just the ramblings of a mentally unstable person, not to be trusted.   I will live forever just to prove him wrong!

There are reasons I have my particular type of fear prison.  I fear that I am crazy because I was led to believe this.  I was led to believe I was crazy by abusers who gaslighted me.  I was led to believe I was crazy by doctors who labelled me as borderline.  I was led to believe I was crazy by the police officer who never properly investigated my report of sexual assault.  I was led to believe I was crazy by the doctors and school principals who lied, under OATH, during my family law trial.  I was led to believe I was crazy by child protection workers who told me that I was projecting my anxiety onto my children and that I needed to be more neutral in my reactions towards my ex-husband’s transphobic violence.  I was led to believe I was crazy by family law judges, who denied that I had been abused (or denied that it was relevant to the custody arrangements).  The entire system, from the moment I was first assaulted (and even before) has been a set up to create in me the belief that I can’t trust myself, my memories, my body or my mind.

Breaking down my fear prison means trusting myself.  Breaking down the fear prison means living as if I am sane.  Breaking down the fear prison means that my memories are true and that the injustices I’ve survived actually happened.  Breaking down my fear prison means accepting that so much of the violence was completely and utterly out of my control.  That is TERRIFYING.   Believing that I was helpless to stop it and that it wasn’t my fault is terrifying.  Believing that I did everything I could and that I did my absolute best at every step and that I still was powerless to stop the abuse is terrifying.

But not as terrifying as the fear prison of believing that I am crazy.

I’m not crazy.

4 years out…still trapped

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Photo credit: http://www.katewmak.com/

This week marks the 4 year anniversary of the separation from my ex.  Four years since the night I told him it was over and I was leaving.  Four years since I made the biggest and most difficult decision of my life.  6 weeks later, I moved into my own home and started my new life as a single mother of two.

If I had known back then how difficult leaving would be, I would probably be dead.  If I had known 4 years ago that the court process would still be ongoing.  If I had known he was going to abuse my children and I would be helpless to prevent it.  If I had known that after four years, I would still be caught, living my life trying to prevent him from hurting us.

If I had known these things I would have stayed.  If I had known that leaving would become a marathon of epic proportions, with no end in sight, I would have ended my life.

In the past four years I have endured all of my worst fears.  I have had to face the fact that my absolute worst fear (my own children experiencing abuse) has not only occurred, but is ongoing and society refuses to step in to stop it.  I live with things I thought I could not survive and I live with them daily.

I’ve had to survive things that no person should have to survive and so have my children.  Leaving didn’t save me.  It didn’t save them.  It didn’t cure my PTSD because I’m still being abused by him.

Some days, even recently, I have wanted to give up.  When I started to feel as suicidal, as hopeless, as trapped and as depressed as when I was living with him, it felt unbearable.  Many days feel unbearable, but each day I survive.  I have to survive to create a safe home for my children.

It’s crucial to help people and support them in exiting abusive situations, but we have to stop perpetuating the destructive myth that “just leaving” is the solution.  We have to stop perpetuating the myth that “just leaving” will solve all the problems.  If your abuser is the parent of your children, you can never “just leave” because you are forced to interact with them on a regular basis until your children are adults and possibly longer.

Of course I had to leave.  I wouldn’t have survived there much longer.

Of course it’s better for my children to have a happy, healthy mother 50% of the time rather than a dead mother 100% of the time.

Of course I made the right decision, the only decision.

Of course there are a number of things in my life that have improved since leaving and I’m grateful for them.

But that doesn’t make it any less painful to look back over 4 years of struggling to fully extricate myself from narcissistic abuse.  4 years of betrayals and incompetence by every major social program I’ve interacted with (CAS, legal, court, police, hospital, school).

So let’s support domestic abuse survivors to leave, but let’s also support them for as long as it takes after.  Let’s recognize and acknowledge that the abuse does not end the moment she walks out the door.  Let’s support survivors who regularly doubt whether or not they should have left, because the legal process is so traumatic and inaccessible.  Let’s support survivors who have to co-parent with narcissits.

Create a community of support circling the survivor and keep it in place for as long as she needs it.  Because she will need it, especially at the times she feels as bad, or worse than she did in the relationship.

So this week I mark 4 years down, a life time of healing to go!

Mystery.

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I’ve spent time over the past few weeks reflecting on the roots of my abusive relationships.  What I try very hard NOT to think about is the answer to questions like these:

Was any of it ACTUALLY real?  Was there every REALLY any love between us?  Were they lying to me from the start?  Were the entire relationships just elaborate gaslighting schemes design to facilitate abuse?

It’s quite painful to cope with the potential truth that my entire marriage was abusive. It’s sometimes too difficult to believe this.  It’s too difficult to hold that truth in my mind for more than a few moments.  If none of it was real, the loss becomes immense.  I can’t go back in time and re-live my children’s first  years with a non-abusive partner.  I might never know what it feels like to parent a child with someone I truly love and respect.  I won’t get my 20’s back.

Sometimes I search my memory, grasping for pure memories.  Moments that weren’t tinged with discomfort or abuse.  I try to find some moments to hold onto that feel REAL, where we were both happy, genuine and authentic.

Sadly, I can’t find very many.  I remember a lot of distance.  I remember a lot of me questioning myself, changing myself, adapting myself, trying to fit in with what I thought I should be.  I remember me hurting myself, starving myself, judging myself, disassociating, making excuses for him, and blaming myself.

I remember being alone.  I felt alone. I was alone.  I remember the isolation and desperation of post-partum depression and the loneliness of parenting two young children without much help.

I wonder if I ever really knew the man I was married to for a decade.  Today, I can accept that I never did.

I can remember one genuine moment.  It was in the hospital, after my first child was born.  We were tired and happy.  New parents.  It was the first night after her birth, before he went home to sleep for a while.  We were singing a ridiculous Hugh Laurie song that we’d both found amusing over the weeks before the birth.  I remember laughing a bit, holding the baby in my arms.  I think that was real.

But maybe it will always just be a mystery…

the truth is hard.

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I owned a set of fridge poetry magnets when I was 15.  They were stuck on the fridge in the house where I lived with my parents.  When I was 15, I wrote this poem with fridge magnets about being sexually abused:

Time together

Alone with thy soul

There is always my body.

 

I smile at nothing

But desire

Fire craving winter.

 

Take when you want.

I could never

Disdain it enough

to break your heart.

 

the truth is hard.

In my 15 year old mind it was clear what the poem was about.  It was direct, it wasn’t even thinly veiled.  The double meaning of the word “hard” was intentional.  To me it was a message, it was a cry for help.  It was an attempt to communicate that all was not well.

Reading back to my journal from 1996, it was clear that I knew something was wrong.  I can hear myself trying to justify X’s actions, trying to defend him, trying to believe that everything would be alright.  I can hear myself blaming myself for not being comfortable.

Less than 1 month into the relationship with X:

May 2, 1996

“He moves very quickly though, and is very persuasive when he wants to be.  That worries me a little bit, because he’s very forceful. I think that if I said no and meant it he would respect my choice…X turns into this totally different person when we are alone. He talked me into going under the covers.  At first I felt really uncomfortable…he can be so different, his different personalities are very drastic.  Like Dr. Jekell and Mr. Hyde…it worries me a little…the intensity of it scares me.”

May 7, 1996

“I’m not sure I understand X. He can’t seem to behave in public. He always wants to be physical with me, even when it isn’t appropriate.  I’m going to have to tell him that holding hands and kissing are OK in public, but anything farther isn’t.  He also doesn’t always stop right away when I ask him to. It’s as if he doesn’t believe I actually want him to.  Then he apologizes a lot after and seems to feel guilty, but he does it again…I’m sure after I talk to him he’ll act more appropriate.”

I wrote a lot about how it was my fault that I wasn’t comfortable.  I wrote about being too worried about other people’s opinions of me. I wrote about being seen as “Ms. Perfect” and struggling to live up to those ideals, especially when I didn’t see myself as perfect at all.  I wrote about the sexual relationship as a conflicted way to challenge people’s ideas that I was perfect, but really I was filled with guilt and shame about what was happening.  I couldn’t possibly be “Ms. Perfect” because if people really knew what was going on between X and I in private, they would be ashamed of me and hate me, the way I hated myself.

Looking back on it, I blamed myself for the abusive behavior of another person.  I thought that I was doing something wrong.  I thought his parents would hate me, my parents would hate me, my friends would hate me, and that generally everyone would think of me as a slut if they knew the truth.

So I didn’t tell anyone.  I didn’t tell anyone for 5 years after the abuse ended.  When we broke up, we started being “friends” and I fell into the deep abyss of anorexia.  The whole trauma which set this into motion was essentially erased, my hurt abused self was replaced by a frail skeletal figure, drifting though the halls of our high school, detached from everyone.  In order to make the abuse disappear, I tried to disappear.  I almost succeeded.

5 years later when I met my ex-husband, I fell into the same patterns.  I convinced myself it was my fault.  It was my issue that I wasn’t comfortable with the sexual stuff.  If I tried harder and was less depressed he would change his behaviour.  I blamed myself a thousand times more than my abusers every blamed me.  I abused myself a thousand times more than all of my abusers combined.  This is what trauma does to a young person.   By the time I even considered talking about the abuse, I was already caught in a second abusive relationship.  I never really had a chance to heal.

It wasn’t my fault.  I believe that abusers see vulnerable people like me a mile away.  They see us and they target us.  They know that we are less likely to fight back.  They know they can exploit our tendency to blame ourselves. They know they can build empires of abusive lies on the backs of our low self esteem and desire to please.

It wasn’t that I didn’t know I was uncomfortable.  It wasn’t that I didn’t know I wanted the sexual abuse to stop.  It wasn’t that I didn’t recognize that my boundaries were being pushed past and ignored.

It was that I blamed myself for the transgressions.  This was due to a mixture of the abusers gaslighting and confusing me, and my own lack of self confidence and self esteem.  My desire to please others was pre-existing and abusers knew they could use it to their advantage.

I didn’t scream or fight back because I believed it was my fault.  I felt so much shame, that I didn’t want to create a fuss.  I wanted to disappear and be invisible.  I turned to anorexia as a coping technique and a way to take up less space.  I tried to shrink my guilt and shame.  I tried to decrease the dirty feeling, by decreasing the size of my body.

I blamed my body because in my teenage mind, if I didn’t have a body I wouldn’t have been sexually abused.