SuperBetter

Today, I get to tell you about something awesome. Several awesome things, in fact.

About a year ago, I saw a random story somewhere (I've searched everywhere and can't find it. You'll just have to trust me on this) about gaming and how scientists were designing video games to allow gamers to assist them in solving some of the puzzles they face in their research.

Sounds crazy? Check THIS out. And THIS. And THIS. And THIS.

Those are all websites that allow you (yes, YOU) to play video games that address actual medical, social, and environmental problems, with the theory that gamers will approach the problems with a completely different-- and incredibly valuable-- set of strategic and problem-solving skills and goals than scientists, and possibly help unravel some of the greatest mysteries and most urgent problems of our time.

Think about that for a minute. 

And then think about this: last year, gamers were invited to play a game called FoldIt (you can see it in that first "THIS" link above), which AIDS researchers developed to try to decipher the protein structure of an AIDS-related virus, which had baffled scientists for 15 years.

The gamers figured it out in 10 days.

Before I move on to my main point, let me take a moment to flail and scream over this.

H-O-L-Y S-H-I-T!!!!!!!!!

This is the kind of thing that makes me love the world and everyone in it. There's plenty of crazy, horrific, vile, destructive stuff going on everywhere, all the time, enough to make you paralyzed with fear and sorrow and dread for the future or worse, and yet...

And yet...

There are people out there coming up with things like this. Revolutionary ways of looking at old problems. Games that save lives. Ways for people to contribute to breathtaking discoveries and world-changing developments without leaving their living rooms (or their mother's basements). 

Connection. Engagement. Contribution. Discovery. Life. We all matter. We're in this together. Everyone of us has the power to make a difference.

If you're not staggered by this, you're not paying attention.

_____

Anyway. So I saw that story and sent it off to a friend of mine who works in video game design and might be interested in such things (!!!), and that was that.

Until a few months later, when I happened upon a TED talk by Jane McGonigal, which I listened to only because I remembered that article I'd seen and how inspiring it was. This whole topic really struck me, for some reason-- the utter cleverness of it, the awesome fusion of skill and opportunity, the open-mindedness and creativity that lead to such an idea. 

I'm not even a gamer, myself-- I'm not really sure why I was so extraordinarily affected by this thing, but I was. It stuck with me. It made an impression.

So about a month ago, I was driving home from my session with Dr. Oz, and I turned on the radio, which was set to NPR. I had tuned in in the middle of an interview with Jane McGonigal, who I remembered instantly from the TED talk, so I left it on to hear what she had to say.

OMG, you guys. The serendipity, she keeps on coming. Remember when I said that sometimes I felt like things just kept clicking into place with this recovery, like the path keeps falling into my path, like I was living proof that when the student is ready, the teacher emerges?

Well. That's still in full swing.

Jane McGonigal was talking about how, in 2009, a year before her now-famous TED talk, she suffered a mild traumatic brain injury that left her bedridden and more hopeless than she'd ever been in her life. She'd been suffering for about a month when she decided to employ something that had helped her through other challenges in the past (like the depression that struck while she was writing her dissertation) (seriously, go check out that link and read the rules of Cookie Rolling): 

She turned her recovery into a game.

This eventually lead not only to her recovery, but to a whole new application of her gaming theories:

SuperBetter.com

SuperBetter is a game that allows you to customize your objectives, resources, challenges, allies, and rewards to help you achieve something important to you.

Most obviously, it can be used to help you recover from illness, injury, addiction, or depression. It can also be used for weight loss, exercise, school, and other short- and long-term life goals. I saw someone there the other day using it to prepare herself and her husband for having a child.

Here's what they have to say about themselves:

SuperBetter is a tool created by game designers and backed by science to help build personal resilience: the ability to stay strong, motivated and optimistic even in the face of difficult challenges. Resilience has a powerful effect on health -- by boosting physical and emotional well-being. Resilience also helps you achieve your life goals -- by strengthening your social support and increasing your stamina, willpower and focus. Every aspect of the game is designed to harness the power of positive emotions and social connection for live, feel, and act better.

_____

When I got home, I went straight to SuperBetter.com and started setting up my own "quest," as they call it. Because as soon as I saw it, I knew it would be helpful. I think it could be helpful to anyone with a goal. And I'll tell you why in a moment.

But first, here's their diagram to show you how SuperBetter works:

I borrowed this without permission, but I'm hoping they won't mind. This model was created by the fine folks at SuperBetter.com, to whom all credit, praise, and holy-crapedness must be attributed.

Some of the basic steps in the game: You set a goal and name it (you get to give yourself a superhero name, too, if you want). You identify obstacles, resources, milestones, rewards. You complete tasks that break down the quest into small steps that increase your strength, confidence, achievement, and connection to others. 

And you begin, however improbably, to move forward. And get better.

Now, here's the kicker:

As many of you know, before I had my daughters and decided to stay at home with them for as long as I could, I had a career as an executive-style coach for students at the beginning of their academic programs. 

The idea behind coaching for students is that it enables them to become more engaged, motivated, supported, and effective in achieving their goals, so that more people who attempt it will eventually graduate from college.

It was a very rewarding job. I was good at it. And what I did, essentially, was this:

Help people set goals and name them. Identify obstacles, resources, milestones, and rewards along the way. Break larger tasks down into smaller, more achievable ones. And remind them of their strengths, boost their confidence, join them in celebrating their achievements, and facilitate the connections to others that would help them further.

This is why SuperBetter spoke to me. This is why I'm recommending it so strongly to you, whoever you are, whatever you've got on your plate.

If you let it, if you're willing to truly engage, this stuff works. It works. IT WORKS. I've seen it work. I've coached hundreds of people through steps nearly identical to the ones described above, and I've seen the results, time and again.

It works.

These are hardly new concepts. You may have heard of SMART goals, a concept initially developed for business management but equally effective for personal use. This is a new and improved version of that, made accessible, motivating, and fun so that achievement is more likely (a SMART goal in and of itself!).

_____

So. I've begun my own SuperBetter quest to see how it enhances this journey of mine. I will report on my experience from time to time-- I'm sure it will get me thinking in new and unexpected ways, which always gives me good ideas for future blog posts.

And I challenge you to go take a look at SuperBetter.com yourself. Check out the tools they provide for brainstorming your own quests. We've all got things we want to achieve, and we can all use more support, more motivation, and more opportunities for success along the way.

What's more, we all deserve that. Even you.

Even me.

_____

I am not affiliated with Jane McGonigal or SuperBetter.com in any way, in case you're wondering. This endorsement is just coming straight from me as an unpaid enthusiast for things that are awesome.

Oh, and also! Speaking of awesome! Let's all help save the world, and go play some games at:
http://fold.it/portal/
http://eterna.cmu.edu/eterna_page.php?page=me_tab
http://www.urgentevoke.com/
http://worldwithoutoil.org/

Shall we?

A Mental Reboot

Well, hello there, fine folks! How is everyone doing today?

I've got some loose ends to tie up, a (seriously cool) resource to pass along, and some new threads to pick up and follow for a while. This will be a slightly disjointed post, with all of that to accomplish, but we're at another turning point, so turn we must.

_____

First, some final words about T and coke, and more words about how that all fits within the context of PTSR, according to the experts, and according to me... an expert of a sort, myself.

In a comment on the last post, a friend said that he presumed that abusers didn't consciously intend to abuse, and wondered what went on in their minds-- we see so much about victims of abuse and how they end up there, but much less about abusers and what leads them to do what they do.

(By the way, do you read the comments on this blog? You should. I have some BRILLIANT regular commenters who bring all sorts of insight and perspective to the discussion, and I have to say that some of my own best insights often happen in my replies to them, illuminated as I am by their awesomeness. So. A plug for comment-stalking. Do it. And join in, while you're at it!).

Anyway. I'm glad this issue was raised, because it's important. I think the commenter is right in that most people probably don't actively intend to spend their days ruining someone else's life, but I have two things to say about that: 

First of all, it doesn't matter what their intentions are. Damage is damage, however it was intended, and taking their "intentions," both real and imagined, into account and forgiving behavior on that basis is a key component of the abuser/abusee dynamic. 

That is, quite literally, how it works.

Secondly, at least in my case, it wasn't true that T was unaware of what he was doing. I wasn't going to tell this story because it seemed, frankly, unbelievable, but I will tell it now to prove my point: you can't know or take responsibility for the intentions of others; you can only draw boundaries for yourself over what is acceptable and what isn't.

About a month after we broke up, T and I met for lunch in a park, presumably for some sort of relationship post-mortem. It was casual, pleasant, non-threatening. Fine. And then, T surprised me.

"I just want you to know," he said, "that this was a wonderful relationship for me. I feel better about myself now than I did when I met you. You did everything you could to build me up and support me, and it worked. In fact, nothing that went wrong was your fault. You were a great girlfriend. You did everything right in this relationship."

I knew that. What I didn't know was this:

"The only thing you did wrong," T said, "was put up with the way I treated you."

I actually felt sad for him then, and tried to let him off the hook. "Well, did you do it on purpose?" I asked him, trying to give him an out, trying to make it easier for him, even then.

He looked at me, and actually scoffed. "Oh, yeah," he said. 

Oh. Oh. Of all the things T ever said to me, I think that hurt the most.

So sure, sometimes abusers are sad, broken people doing the best they can and failing.

And sometimes, they are just fucking sadists.

Either way, it is not anyone else's responsibility to endure abuse without regard for their own well being, regardless of the intentions behind that abuse. It is not. Your. Problem. To solve.

So, that happened. And in a way, I'm glad, because it officially marked the end of any residual sympathy I may have had for T, and the beginning of my realization that I had, in fact, been in an abusive relationship and would probably need to deal with that. In that way, I suppose it planted my feet firmly on the road out of hell.

And it also freed me from any ethical quandaries years later, when it came time to write this all down in this blog: I've been leaving others out of this, for the most part, and trying to stick to things that are only about me. Should I keep this story to myself, too, out of consideration for the parties involved?

 Not on your life, pal. In fact, you're lucky I didn't use your real name.

_____

The week after T moved out, I went grocery shopping. I found myself standing in the cookie aisle, staring at the Chips Ahoy and the Nutter Butters, the two kinds of cookies we'd always had in the house-- T's favorites-- trying to decide which to get. 

I don't know how long I stood there. More than five minutes. Maybe more than 10. Back and forth, back and forth. Which to get? This or that? It had to be right. Which was right? I was anxious, frustrated, paralyzed. Unable to decide, unable to act. Which. Fucking. Cookies?

I wish I could convey the way I felt, standing there in the cookie aisle. It was a test; it was always a test. Cookies weren't just cookies, they were proof that I was capable, or that I wasn't, depending on T's mood. These again? I wanted the other kind.  They were a testament to my devotion. They were evidence that I still had some control over the outcome. 

They were everything. The cookies were everything. It was as if my entire life had lead up to this moment, and the cookies I chose would mean the difference between keeping it together and falling apart for good.

And then, like a lightning bolt from above, it hit me: I don't like cookies!

In the movie version of this moment, you would have seen exactly what happened next in real life: I lost my breath and doubled over, hands on my knees, gasping. It was as if I'd opened my eyes for the first time in years, only to find myself floating in outer space, a million miles from home. The full force of it, how far I'd fallen away from myself, hit me in that moment as it never had before or has since, and I could barely keep my feet beneath me.

I don't like cookies. I don't like cookies. I don't ever have to buy cookies again.

I made a lot of decisions over the next few years; decisions that affected only me, decisions that changed my life and helped me regain my footing, decisions that made me feel powerful, independent, effective, fulfilled.

The sweetest decision of all, though, was made in the cookie aisle of the supermarket on that fateful day. My palms were sweating, my knees were shaking, but my heart was suddenly, unfathomably light as I turned my back on those cookies and walked away. 

That was me. I did that. Wherever I'd been, however long it would take me to come back, I was there in that moment, right there.

And I wasn't going to be buying any goddamned cookies. NOT THIS DAY!

I WANT TO LIVE!

_____

So, what do the experts have to say about this? Let's start with Levine: 

"The perception of threat in the presence of undischarged arousal (trauma energy) creates a self-perpetuating cycle...This characteristic is precisely why trauma is  resistant to most forms of treatment. For some people, this self-perpetuating cycle keeps their symptoms stable. Others develop one or a variety of additional behaviors or predispositions (all of which may be considered trauma symptoms) to help the nervous system keep the situation under control."

So our bodies learn, after trauma, to keep us in trauma mode-- Fight! Flight! Freeze! All the time!-- because it keeps us from having to relive the experience and process the fear or sadness or anger or whatever other feelings would come (and, eventually, GO) if we let them.

Dr. Oz thinks this is how T slipped in under my radar. I was looking for a distraction from my own inner turmoil, and I found one in him. Processing the negative feelings he provoked in me would have meant breaking down the dam and letting all those other feelings in too, so I kept it all at bay and let T pile his baggage right in top of mine. 

That makes sense to me. It certainly explains what was otherwise a pretty extreme departure from my normal relationship dynamic. I'd been holding things off for too long by then, and didn't know anymore how to do anything else.

And sometimes, especially if we've been doing this for a long time and our PTSR is advanced, we need a little help maintaining the status quo. So we start to avoid things. Not only things that stress us out, but things that might stress us out. 

And then, as the boundaries of our tolerance shrink (as I've shown you a bunch of times in the diagrams in these posts ), more and more things threaten to upset the balance, so have to do less, avoid more, and try other measures to keep things steady.

This is where people start to do things like drink a lot, or take drugs, or over-eat comfort foods. Anything to keep the feelings at bay.

You might even be able to tell, according to Diane Poole Heller, where in your nervous system the trapped trauma energy lies by the methods you choose to self-medicate.

"If it is in the sympathetic nervous system, making you feel "wired" or hypervigilant, you are likely to turn to "comfort foods" that contain high levels of carbohydrates and fat (i.e. pasta, bread, or ice cream). You may turn to alcohol or sleeping pills for their calming effect. On the other hand, if you are feeling shutdown or lethargic from energy trapped in the parasympathetic system, you are likely to choose high-sugar foods, caffeine, or amphetamines for their stimulating effect."

Stick around long enough, and you can sample from both ends of the table in the PTSR smorgasbord. I started out trying to balance my parasympathetic overload with cocaine, and soon moved on to balancing the opposite swing of the pendulum with food.

Knowing the extreme amount of pleasure I can get from eating a donut or letting a huge cup of coffee cool off just enough that I can pound the whole thing in 30 seconds, just to feel the shakes, I'd say I haven't moved far beyond either stage.

Except, no, that isn't true. I've made great progress, in fact. I'll probably never be able to give up my uppers, but I use caffeine now, not amphetamines, and I'm happy with that.

And as for the donuts, well, I've mostly given those up, too. Since I first started planning the posts about T and drugs, back in May, I've lost about 22 pounds. 

I started doing Weight Watchers-- the structure and the math of it appeal to me-- and it's really helped me change the way I eat. What's more, it's made my habit of emotional eating very clear to me, and I am, slowly but surely, creating new habits in its place. 

I'm trying to create a sustainable way of living and eating and coping, now, because that extra weight has been holding me back from the healing I'm seeking through this therapy and this blog. I think that in a very real way, the weight has kept me connected to T. I thought, when I first began to work with a therapist about that relationship, that the weight would just melt away as I excised whatever demons T had left behind in my psyche, and when that didn't happen, I thought it meant I hadn't yet escaped his influence over my life.

This turned out to be partially true-- the weight did mean something held an influence over me that I couldn't shake, but it wasn't T. It was that car accident, that trauma that has never gone away. Somehow, that's easier to live with. Trauma is a big deal, and while it sucks, it certainly makes sense that it would have a lasting impact-- and one I can't blame myself for in any way. With T, it's not as easy to shirk all responsibility, and it was the ultimate humiliation to think that his influence was so lasting.

So in the race between T and trauma as the most powerful negative influence in my life, trauma wins. And T gets relegated to the place he deserves: a remote one. Firmly in the past.

I still like the idea of the weight as a metaphor, a physical representation of the burden I've been carrying. That burden is getting lighter, through this work, and I'm getting lighter too, literally, as I shed the fear and the anxiety and the pounds that have kept me victimized.

I don't want to be a victim. Not anymore.

_____

Whew. This post has gotten longer than I expected, and I still have a few more things to discuss. I'm going to ask you to tune in next time for those. And I'm going to make every attempt to get back to at least a weekly writing schedule, and more often than that as my schedule opens up (read: my 3-year old twins start going to preschool a couple of days a week!).

Now that these dark stories have been told, I'd like to return to some more real-time blogging about how the recovery is going. There are some interesting things happening, and synchronicity still seems to be working in my favor as incredibly prescient and useful things keep popping up in my path.

For instance, that great resource I told you about. I'm going to leave it as a hint for now, and use the next few days to explore it more fully before I tell you about it next week. Stay tuned for that.

In the meantime, let's all take this opportunity to check in with ourselves and the influences we allow in our lives. Are there any that are more damaging than supporting? Have we let a boundary fall that has made us weaker instead of stronger? Are there people or substances or forces at work to make us shine less brightly, censor our honest thoughts and feelings, or be anything less than our authentic selves?

If so: what are we going to do about it? Are we going to keep buying the cookies, or are we going to walk away, sure of our direction, and choose a different path?

Or maybe just a different dessert? Who's up for ice cream non-fat frozen yogurt? 

Anyone?

Back to Earth

So. Where was I?

Oh, that's right. High.

The stories of T and the drugs are so inextricably linked that by this point in both stories, it's impossible to tell them separately. My memories of both also feel the same way: anxious, uncomfortable, angry, desperate. So I'll wrap them both up together. 

In honor of the Olympics, which open in London today, we'll call this post the story of my back handspring double full dismount. 

By the time T and I had been together for five years, nearly all of my energy was spent on keeping up appearances. It's hard to describe the state I was in-- I didn't understand it then because I refused to think about it even for a second, as if that would somehow prevent my world from crumbling around me. 

And I don't understand it now, because I can't imagine ever allowing myself to be that helpless.

I did, though. I did allow it. It was as if that relationship had erased my personality and will, and left me an empty shell. I second-guessed everything I was going to say before I said it, which lead to second-guessing every thought, whether I'd intended to share it or not. In my effort to censor my words to prevent T from lashing out, it became my habit to censor my private thoughts, as well. 

I wasn't just keeping up appearances for others. I was doing it for myself, as well. I kept myself from even thinking about anything that would jeopardize the illusion of control I had over my life.

This kept me from focusing on the pain I was in, which was helpful in the short run, but it also prevented me from making any kind of escape plan, which was what I really needed to do. I couldn't. I couldn't go there. I'd spent such a long time keeping real-time awareness of my feelings at bay, I didn't even know how to access them anymore. It had become something that happened instinctively, at the pre-cognitive level. 

It was as if my reptilian brain, still convinced I was under threat (and correctly so, as it turns out), was short-circuiting my emotional reactions and throwing up defenses instead: shut down all but the most essential systems and GET THROUGH THIS.

PTSR: it's not just a reaction. It's a lifestyle!

I wonder now if any of this would have happened-- if my relationship with T would have progressed beyond the first volley of insults-- if I'd been stuck in the fight or flight stage of the fight/flight/freeze/submit response, instead of freeze or submit. Obviously, being stuck in those phases create a multitude of problems of their own, and if I'd avoided T, surely some other monster would have stepped in to take his place.

Because that's the way I see this now: the problem wasn't T, per se, it was PTSR and the way it had embedded itself so deeply in my neurological functions that it prevented me from making choices I would otherwise have made. It made me focus on the wrong things, unable to be proactive. Stuck in an endless danger loop, I had somehow lost my ability to act, where emotions were concerned, and could only react, react, react.

One of those reactions was my interest in cocaine. It smoothed things out, pushed the demons away, made the world seem less threatening, more fun. It was a blessed relief from the overwhelming tension of holding everything back in my day-to-day life. It was the only escape I had.

That's what scares me the most when I look back at that time. As Dr. Oz says, a drug only resonates with you like that if it's filling a need. Cocaine was filling a need for me that was even more profound than I thought it was. I thought I was just in a bad relationship. I didn't know I was fighting my own brain chemistry. I didn't know my body was already at war with itself, and cocaine was helping to lessen the pain it was causing-- and would be causing even if I weren't in the relationship. 

I didn't know the extent of the risk I was taking. I didn't know how dangerous the game really was.

So. Five years in now, still partying regularly, and noticing that it took more and more coke to get us high. A gram between us no longer did it. No longer came close. Two grams. Three. An 8-ball became a single night's supply for T and me, and even that wasn't getting the job done consistently as the stuff we got was often heavily cut with diluting substances. Vitamin E powder. Hell, baby powder for all I know. Whatever it was, it often made it hard to get a decent high.

Remember when I described the stages you go through coming down from an amphetamine high? One of the first phases you hit, when you've still got the drugs in your system but you're beginning to lose the euphoric high, is a really uncomfortable, anxious, irritable state. The first hint of this, at a party, is the signal that it's time for a bump to get you back into the fun zone. When the party's over, this stage is the hardest one to get through- the high is so close, so sharply absent, so regretfully faded, so easy to get back with just a little bit more, come on, just a little, just a little bit longer!

Well. You go through that stage on the way up, too. It's just that usually, you do another line before that anxious feeling kicks in, and you skip it entirely on your way to euphoria.

Unless, as I learned in that fifth year, the drugs you have aren't quite strong enough--or plentiful enough-- to get you there. 

In that case, you don't really get "high" anymore. You only get as far as "pissed off," the thrill and confidence of a coke-induced glow replaced by desperate anxiety and an uncomfortably-pounding heart.

Getting high became a crap-shoot, that year, whether because of the quality of the drugs we were buying or our elevated tolerance, I don't know. Probably a bit of both. Whatever the reason, it was getting harder for me to escape anymore, and as a result, it got harder to avoid facing the reality of my situation.

I still did it. But cracks began to form in my fragile facade. The tension within was becoming unbearable. Despite my efforts to hide the truth from myself, it began to bubble up into my consciousness: you have to leave him. You have to get out. It was harder and harder to push that thought away. 

I wish I could say that I came to my senses and dumped T, but I don't think I was capable of that at the time. I could barely take a step without permission by then. Instead, somehow, I started to turn off my inner censor.

I started saying things I knew would surprise T, or put him off. I started saying things that would force his hand, force him to make a decision about our relationship that I didn't feel strong enough to make. Things like I want to be married in the next few years. I want to have children. I want to know I'm on the road toward those things. 

I cringe at the memory. Don't mistake me: I knew I wasn't tempting him, or setting down an ultimatum. I knew what he would choose, in the end. It's just excruciating to remember myself being that passive-aggressive. I remember that it seemed like the only way to get my own power back: to force him to show his hand. I wanted to hear him say it. I wanted him to take responsibility for something. I wanted him to have to do something, instead of sliding by, using me, staying above it all while I scrambled to keep things together.

I hated him by then, and I didn't want to let him off the hook. I let myself believe that dumping him would be a gift to him, and he'd be able to get out unscathed. I don't know if that was true or not. I do know that it also, conveniently, allowed me to stay passive, even in this. I told myself I was taking the reins, but I think I was really just too afraid to make the first move.

I didn't do anything else. I just spoke my mind a little more often, small bits of truth, little shards of reality. This is how I'd like to see myself. This is what I want. This is what I need. I said them out loud.  And I waited. 

I noticed him looking at me out of the corner of his eye, sometimes, confused. I saw him frown to himself more often. I saw him notice. He didn't speak up, though. So I waited some more.

And then, one night, I snapped. It was late, we were in bed, and he was sleeping next to me. And snoring. I tried nudging him to get him to turn over, wiggling the mattress a bit, and nothing worked. 

So I opened my mouth and shouted, "SHUT UP!"

He jolted awake, said incredulously, "Did you just yell at me?!" and then stormed out of bed to sleep on the couch.

I slept like a baby that night.

The next night, he came to me and said, with satisfying hesitance, "I think... I think... it would be... better... for our relationship... if I... um...if I... moved out."

And I swear to god, I didn't miss a beat. My silent tongue unlocked itself, and I said, out loud, one more truth: "I think it would be best if we broke up and didn't see each other anymore."

He blinked. "What?"

I stared back at him, calm, calm. Finally, calm. "We should break up."

"That's not what I'm saying," he said.

."I know," I said.

In the movie version of this moment, I would have laughed then, and shown him to the door of the apartment, my apartment, my first apartment that was all my own before he moved in, never on the lease, using me for the space I would give him, knowing I'd give him all he could take.

Instead, I went to sleep, and he didn't move out then, or the next day, or the next week, or for three more months after that. I thought I'd made him take a position, once and for all. He immediately lobbed the ball back into my court. I finally saw, after all that time and damage, that he was more of a coward than I was.

_____

It took three months, but the end did come. The end of both stories happened at once: we went to a birthday party for T's cousin, who was turning 21. We'd had our ubiquitous 8-ball of coke, and despite doing most of it in a very short time, it hadn't done much but make me irritated and snappish and miserable.

T dragged me along from bar to bar, buying drinks for his cousin at every stop, pouring more alcohol down that kid's throat than I'd ever seen anyone drink in one night. It stopped being funny an hour into the night. It started to get disturbing when others joined in, buying him shot after shot, beer after beer, and he just kept drinking them, one after the other, while T and the others crowded around him, shouting encouragements.

I pulled T aside and told him to stop. "This is dangerous," I told him. "You're going to give him alcohol poisoning. He could die from this. I'm not kidding, you guys could kill him. And none of you are sober enough to get him to the hospital."

T looked at me with utter contempt and told me to stop ruining the night for him.

Shortly after that, T's cousin took one last drink, and then threw up all over the floor of the bar, over and over, sending patrons running for the door.

T thought this was hilarious. And that, I realized, was that. I was finally, unflinchingly DONE.

I went outside, got in a cab, and went home to finish the angsty come-down process on my own. I hit the worst of it just as I was settling on the couch in the dark, and I lay there for a while, waiting it out.

This was a terrible time for reflection on a major life transition, but that was what I did, and in my most hopeless moment, I thought, fleetingly, of just giving up.

This wasn't an unfamiliar thought, but it had never been a serious one. That night, though, something new happened. I thought it would be easier to just end it all rather than go through one more day, and instead of shrugging that idea off and moving on, I lingered there for a while.

You could do this.

You could do it, if you wanted to.

You could do it right now.

I realized with a jolt that this was more than a passing thought. Right here, right now, there are at least three ways you could do it within 10 feet of you. You could stand up and walk into the next room and get a knife. You could open the window and jump. You could wrap a belt around your neck. There are probably pills somewhere, pills you could take, and take, and take.

You could do this. Right now. You could do this.

It was no longer an abstraction, it was real. It was here. It was possible. If I just sat up, then stood up, then moved forward, I could be there within seconds, I could make this happen and then I could rest, and it would all... just... be... over.

And then, on the heels of that sudden certainty came a new one, just as real, just as true, just as possible: 

No. I want to live.

_____

The next day, I told T to get out. Two days later, he was gone.

I've never touched cocaine again.

And I have never, for one second, missed either one.

Whew. I'm glad that's done. I'll tie up the loose ends into a nice little bow for you in my next post, and I also have some more crazy synchronicity to tell you about that has lead me to a resource you may be able to use too, even if you don't have PTSR. Thanks for sticking with me on this dark road. I don't know about you, but I'll be glad to get back to the light for a while. 

Leave a comment, if you can spare a moment. I want to hear what you have to say, even if you don't think it will matter. It will. It does. If you're reading along, you're on this journey with me, and your thoughts count. I'd love to hear from you.

Quick Update: New Additions!

Hello to my regular readers, and welcome to new readers who have found this blog through the SCIRE PTSD Research page on Facebook!

I know I owe you the second half of the story I began in the last post, and it is on its way, but in the meantime, I wanted to point out the new tab at the top of this page: PTSD/PTSR Resources.

I'm starting a collection there of all the resources that are helping me on this journey, and I encourage you to suggest any books, workshops, or therapies that you know of or have used yourselves in your own struggle with trauma.

Thank you for your patience-- I know I left you hanging last time and I'll resolve that little cliffhanger very soon.

The problem, I think, is that this therapy is working, and I am beginning to feel my feelings more strongly, which throws my PTSR and avoidance defenses into overdrive and kicks my depression up a few notches, which in turn makes it really difficult to continue doing the things that make the recovery work, like writing and thinking and feeling. 

So. I'm getting better, which is making everything worse. If that's not an apt summary of PTSR recovery, I don't know what is.

Hold tight, friends. I am pushing myself to keep going. It's always immediately better when I do. I will get that post up as soon as I can.

Down the Rabbit Hole

It's been a strange couple of weeks since I wrote that last post. I've been inundated with comments, both public and private, from other women who have been through something similar.

Once again, I'm reminded that we're never alone, not really, and that so many more people out there can relate to our struggles than we dare to think.

I'm very grateful to every one of you who reached out, whether because you can relate to my experience with T or because you can't and now know that it can happen even to people who think they're immune. So many of you told me I was brave for writing this story. You were brave for offering your nods of recognition, your words of encouragement, your arms to link in solidarity. 

We are, all of us, brave for expecting more and better from ourselves and from the people we allow into our lives, and for doing what it takes to get the things we deserve from the world. 

And we all deserve to be happy, to be loved, to be accepted as we are. We all deserve to Live. Me. You. All of us. 

So. Thanks. 

_____

Of the six years that I spent with T, the fact that he was an emotional abuser might be the least surprising thing. Of all the strange paths I ventured down during those years, that one at least seemed to spring from recognizable traits of my character: I had always been a caretaker; I had always been conflict-averse; I had always been willing to suspend my own needs for the sake of others. My relationship with T was certainly a worst-case scenario of all of those things, but it wasn't, in retrospect, as out-of-the-blue as it might seem, if I'm honest.

No, the weirdest thing, the thing I'm more incredulous about as time goes on and the picture becomes clearer and more complete in the rear-view mirror, was the drugs.

Amphetamines, to be precise.

I had never been much of an experimenter, when it came to intoxicants. I hadn't been interested in any of that in high school. I didn't even try alcohol until college. By the time I started dating T, I'd developed a taste for fancy beers and had smoked enough pot to know I didn't care for it, and I thought I'd explored all the methods of getting high that I'd ever care to try.

T, however, liked speed.

He didn't do it a lot, but occasionally, when he had a few days off and wanted to record some music (he was a guitarist), he'd get some and use it to stay awake and focused. I didn't know much about it other than what I observed -- this was before the scary HBO specials had come out, depicting meth addicts as toothless, emaciated, scabby cadavers with a relentless need for one more high.

That might have scared me off, I don't know. Back then, at first, the thing that made me uncomfortable about it was the method of delivery. You snorted it. That made it seem like a whole other level of real, of wrong, of dangerous. This was what they meant when they told you to "Just Say No." 

At first, it didn't even occur to me to think about trying it. I'd never felt that I had to join in when the people around me did drugs of any kind in the past, and I didn't feel it with T, either. He offered whenever he had some, I said no, and things went on as usual. He said he thought it would be a fun experience we could share, but he didn't pressure me in any real way. This was early in our relationship, before he became truly mean, and I think my memory of how it all went down is true.

He didn't pressure me. I chose on my own. 

I might have chosen it because I wanted to prove to him that I was willing to loosen up and have an adventure. I might have done that. And he may have implied that at some point, my refusal to "share the experience" with him might be a deal-breaker. I don't remember it specifically, but knowing what I know about him I'd be frankly surprised if he didn't. But in the end, I did it on my own, nonetheless.

I'd seen him do it enough by then that I knew speed didn't do what I'd thought it would. I'd expected it to be obvious, that he'd be manic, talk too fast, move too frantically, jump from one thing to the next and act crazy until the effects wore off. 

But it wasn't like that at all. He'd do a line, and then he'd seem... happier. More vibrant. Confident. Focused. Awake. Not altered, exactly-- not obviously different the way people are when they've had a few beers or smoked a joint. This seemed cleaner, lighter, milder. It seemed like a state you'd actually want  to be in; one that made you better than what you were, normally.

The idea of snorting lines of powder still scared me-- I was a "good" girl, after all, and I certainly recognized a different league when I saw it. But after a few months of observing the effects of speed and seeing nothing at all alarming, I told T one day that I'd like to give it a try.

A few hours later, we were across the Bay in his older sister's living room, and I was being educated in the art of ritualized drug use.

They gave me a few guidelines and taught me some lingo: Try to notice if you're talking too much. It makes you want to talk a lot and it's bad etiquette to interrupt people and talk over them. Don't take more until you start to feel the effects wearing off a little bit. When you do another line, it's called a "bump." It stings a little, but only for a minute. It makes your eye water on the side that you snort it; people call it the "one-eye cry."

They showed me the small, leather-bound kit that T's sister had inherited from their father. From their father, yes. It folded open like a wallet, with slots inside to hold a small mirror, a vial, razor blades, a tiny spoon, a short, metal straw. They didn't like to use all the implements, as it turned out. The mirror was too small when you had an apartment full of picture frames to choose from; the rest didn't fit with the aesthetic they preferred at their parties. It was the vial that got the most use, and that night, it was full to the brim.

They showed me how to chop the crystals into fine, brownish-white powder, how to divide it into tiny lines-- not too big, they warned. This stuff is powerful. You only need a little at a time. They passed on the little silver straw; they used money to snort their drugs-- never use a $1 bill, they said. Always use the largest bill you have. Just because. It's cooler that way. How pathetic is it if $1 is the largest bill you have?

They passed the frame around, and I watched them each hold the rolled-up hundred to one nostril, hold the other closed with a finger, and snort up a line with a sharp, quick sniff, following it along the glass with a practiced movement.

And then it was my turn.

I still couldn't quite believe this was me, doing this, and I sat there with equal parts dread and excitement, and then I thought, what the hell, why not? and I bent over the table, put the hundred to my nose, and took a sniff. 

It stung. Badly. A sharp, piercing sting winding up behind the eyes; a dark, acidic burn in the back of the throat. I shuddered, rubbed away the one-eye cry, and waited, unsure of what I was waiting to feel, but hoping that I'd like it. 

A minute or two later, I knew: I didn't like it.

I loved it.

It settled over me like a glow. My heart lifted, my worries eased. I felt... lighter. Better. More excited, more focused, more articulate. Just more. More confident. More interested in everything. More alive.

This isn't the part that will convince you not to try hard drugs. It's the part that shows you why people do them in the first place. I took my first bump and I felt exactly the way I'd wanted to feel-- and hadn't felt-- for years. Awake. Alert. Emotive. Connected. Captain of my own fate.

_____

I've been thinking about writing this post for a long time now; have known I'd need to write it since before this blog even began; and this has been the part I've been most dreading to describe. Not the part about how it eventually went bad, but this, this part here, about how, at first and for a long time after, it was awesome.

It was so much better than I'd expected. I hadn't known it was possible, actually, that a drug could make you feel like this: not altered, not clumsy or sluggish or foggy, but this, THIS! This was what I'd longed for, after years of feeling exhausted and frightened and disconnected from my emotions. This was worth the danger, worthy of the ritual, better than anything I'd ever tried before.

That's what is so uncomfortable about writing about this now, so many years later. I still long to feel that way. I still totally get the appeal. If there was a way to achieve it without any of the down sides (and we'll get to those, of course, you know we will), I'd do it right now. Sign me up. It was a feeling worth replicating, that level of presence, of engagement.

Apparently, some people just feel like that all the time, naturally, without any therapy or emotional work or drugs to aid them. They just, you know, feel their feelings and experience life as it comes, and they are powerfully happy and powerfully sad and powerfully content and powerfully there in every moment. They don't have to learn how to decipher their own brains,  or how to react to stimuli, or how to be authentic, even if it means being uncomfortable. They just are where they are, and feel what they feel, all on their own.

Fuck those people. How do you do it? Tell me how! Tell me!

Ahem. Okay, I'm kidding. Sort of. I know that some of you reading this are "those people," and I am heartily, buoyantly glad for you. Sincerely. 

Just... don't take it for granted, okay? It seems like it would be really easy to take being where you are and feeling what you feel  for granted.

Don't. It's not a given. It's probably not even all that common, come to think. You know people like me, every one of you, and you know people less like me, people who need substances to get anywhere close to here, now, or who think they do, anyway, and you know even more people who don't even know that this is what they're missing, this ability to just be and feel, they only know that they're unhappy and they're missing out on their lives and they have no idea how to fix it and maybe never will.

I used to be one of those people. I used to all of those people, maybe. And now that I'm not anymore, now that I do know what's missing, and can see the gap between what I'm like and what I'd like to be like and spend all my time trying to figure out where to put my feet in order to position myself best for the leap to the other side, I'm just sitting here thinking that if I ever make it, I don't ever want to take that simple, precious thing for granted.

I want to be. I want to feel. 

I want to live!

_____

Well. My first experience with amphetamines was with speed. Crystal meth. It's a powerful high, and a lasting one. A little goes a long way. Later, we also included cocaine and eventually switched to it completely because it was easier to get. The stuff we got was usually fairly diluted and the high was never as strong, never lasted as long, and may have had a lot to do with the way this story ends. But I get ahead of myself. 

Back to the beginning. Speed.

We were quite "responsible" about it, believe it or not. (And I'm being only partly sarcastic here-- I do believe that it's possible to use drugs relatively safely and responsibly; I do not believe that all drugs are categorically bad or wrong. Most people I know have had great experiences on various kinds of drugs, myself included, and this is not a "Just Say No" sort of story. It's more of an "I Played With Some Serious Fire For Some Seriously Unexamined Reasons And Am Lucky That's The Only Story I Have To Tell" sort of story. There are many kinds of drug stories, and this one is mine.)

Anyway, where was I? Oh yes: responsible. We were, in our own way. We were sort of nerdy about it. We'd choose a night where nobody had to work the next day or the day after, so we'd have plenty of time to come down and rest up before we had to go to work again.

We'd eat a big dinner. Speed and coke take away your appetite-- it's almost impossible for most people to eat anything while they're on them. But it also makes you very thirsty, so we'd stock up the fridge with water and juice and protein drinks, as well as beer. You know. To keep ourselves nourished and hydrated. We weren't crackheads. 

Then we'd get the party started. We'd all get nice and bumped up, and sometimes we'd just talk. About anything. Everything. Incredibly focused, articulate, exhaustive discussions that would last all night. Literature. Politics. Religion. Child-rearing. Whatever it was, we were passionate about it, if only for that night.

More often, though, we played music. T would get out his guitar, and we would sing songs we loved. Or his sister would write lyrics, and I would create melodies and harmonies, and we would sing songs we wrote ourselves. We made some pretty good recordings. I was way too shy to sing in front of people under normal circumstances. I still am. But I do have a great singing voice, and the drugs gave me confidence.

We'd keep it going all night, bumping now and then to keep the high, our voices hoarse from talking and singing and talking and singing. It was fun, productive, creative time. And their tradition held that the party was over as soon as someone noticed aloud that the sun was up.

That was when we'd stop, put away what was left over for next time, and begin the slow, angsty decline. Back to Earth.

Coming down, if you've never experienced it, is tedious and irritating at best, and at its worst can be truly nasty business. When that first endless night was over, T told me you're going to feel... sort of... low. Kind of depressed and bummed out. It's like all of your worries come to the surface for a while. But you just have to keep reminding yourself that it won't last, it's just part of the trip and it will be over soon. After a few hours, you'll be back to normal and you'll be able to sleep then.

This was all true, especially with speed. The come-down was long and slow, and you passed from confident comfort to restless angst to irritated depression to deep melancholy to hopeless self-loathing to resigned exhaustion, and then you feel into an uneasy sleep for a few hours, and woke up feeling mostly right as rain again.

That process, by the way, is why people sometimes try not to come down at all. As I said, with speed, it can be ugly. T and I never did it more than one day at a time, once a month at most but probably averaging less than that, but his sister used to stay on it at varying levels for days and weeks at a time. She used it to go to work, she used it to feel normal. She didn't exhibit any of the recognizable signs of being a meth addict, but she was one all the same.

This is important, I think, because it gave me a yardstick to measure myself against and come out ahead. I think I thought, somehow, although I don't remember ever thinking it overtly, that the fact that I didn't have her problems meant that I wasn't in danger. I did heavy drugs occasionally, under carefully-controlled circumstances. You know, with juice and protein drinks.

Nothing to worry about!

Looking back, the yardstick I should have been using was a different one altogether. I started using drugs with people who were deeply vulnerable to addiction, who had a long and full family history of drug use, drug addiction, drug overdoses. They were addicts themselves, with varying dependent relationships on a multitude of substances, some more obvious than others, some more troubling than others, some less controlled than others. They had enormous tolerance and could take in huge quantities before getting drunk or high.

And I was keeping up with them, line for line, every step of the way.

This went on for a few years, partying all night every few weeks, maintaining a decent job and straight-As in grad school the rest of the time. I didn't tell my friends about it. I still couldn't quite believe I was doing it, let alone enjoying it the way I was. But those nights were significant, in those years, for several reasons.

They were the only times I felt at peace, if only for a few hours.

They were the only times I felt confident enough to sing and write music, something I loved to do and which would become inextricably linked with (and ruined by) the sweaty, anxious, heart-pounding muscle memory of an uneasy coke high for many years afterward.

They were also the only times in our entire six years together that T ever told me he loved me.

So the long nights continued. We lost our speed connection (serendipitously, I think) and switched exclusively to coke. It took progressively more to get high, and was progressively harder to get as high as I wanted.

But it was better than nothing. And it was fine. For a few years, it was fine.

And then, quite suddenly, it wasn't.

_____

To be continued...

Through the Looking Glass

My car accident was the turning point in my life for a long time-- the event that marked the line between Before and After. I thought that was how I'd always define myself. I thought it would always be the worst thing that ever happened to me, and everything would fall into those two categories: Before The Accident. After The Accident.

I suppose it was inevitable that I would someday go out and create myself a new dividing line, but if I'm honest, I have to admit I didn't see it coming. I didn't know what to watch out for, then. It never occurred to me that I was vulnerable to more than blind chance on the highway. I didn't know the dominoes were still falling. 

_____

It started with a boy. 

It ended with him, too, but that comes much later. Six years later, in fact. What happened in between is very important, and very hard to write about. I can feel myself shrinking away from the emotional experience of putting that time in my life into words. I want to write around it, as much as I realize that not only this post but the very journey I'm on has to dig in and pass right through it if I'm ever going to get where I'm trying to go.

The road has led me here because it's the only way out. Forgive me if I drag my feet a bit.

A year after college, restless and unsure of what to do next, I packed my belongings and moved 500 miles away to San Francisco to live with friends, apply to grad schools, and Figure Things Out. 

It was five years after the accident, and although I didn't know it, I was well into the short-term effects of PTSR by then, and beginning to show some of the longer-term effects identified by PTSR guru Peter Levine, as well: I was already familiar with disconnection and deadness; depression had begun to seep in; exhaustion and avoidant behavior were to become the themes of the next decade of my life. 

In my current therapy, I've been able to look back at my late 20s and, instead of feeling like what happened then was the cause of the depression I've struggled with in my adulthood, I've been able to see all of it as a symptom of something that was already well-established in my psyche and in my habits. 

This has been one of the greatest gifts of the recovery process. Sure, it's uncovering the depth and breadth of the grip of PTSR on my life, but it has also taken a lot of power away from the events and instigators of that time. They're just a few pieces in a much larger puzzle, instead of the whole picture.

I don't know why this is such a relief, but it is.

This will probably make more sense if I actually tell you what happened, yeah? 

Okay. Once again, I'll start at the beginning.

_____

It started with a boy.

We'll call him T. That is not his first initial. It doesn't stand for anything. 

T was smart and funny. Charming. Handsome. We met through my roommate.

He had a sad story, as people often do. He was a little damaged. And he liked me.

That wasn't unusual, incidentally. I was accustomed to being liked by boys.  I was pretty and flirtatious, I was smart and sharp-witted, and I was a genuinely nice girl, if a bit too naive for my own good. I'd always had a lot of admirers, and was sure of myself in relationships. I knew my boundaries and had no trouble holding them. I didn't fall for peer pressure. I didn't play games. I didn't have sex before I was ready, much later than anyone I know. I dated nice, respectful boys who took "No" (and "yes") for an answer and who showered me with affection, and got it in return. 

I knew what I was doing, in other words.

It seems important to establish that before we proceed. That was who I was Before.

So. When T came along, things progressed in the usual way.

He was a nice guy, talented, full of promise. We enjoyed each other's company. We had fun together. As time went on, I learned more and more about his tragic past: the months he'd spent caring for his dying father, the remarkable prevalence of addiction and abuse in his family, his missing childhood memories, his hidden sorrow. He needed someone who understood him. I wanted to be that person. Seems harmless, right? Lots of relationships begin this way.

I'm not sure when or how it started. The small jabs, the subtle undermining. He often said, in the beginning, that I hurt his feelings with my sarcasm, that I threw him off with an unexpected reaction or comment, that he felt like I was attacking him and he didn't know how to defend himself against me.  

I was horrified by this, of course. I'd never been accused of such things in my life, and began to question my own behavior. Was I unintentionally cruel? Was I insensitive? How could I act so callously toward someone who had been through so much?

I began trying to protect T from himself, in small ways-- or at least, that's what I thought I was doing, as much as I thought of it consciously at all. I started to change little things about myself-- the way my wit tended to be sharp and sarcastic, the way I tended to be spontaneous, the way I liked to debate issues and argue my opinions for the intellectual exercise, because he didn't like those things (at least, he didn't like them in me. He liked them quite a bit in himself, I failed to note) and I didn't want to see him sad or hurt. He had enough to deal with already, I thought. I worked hard to create an environment where he felt comfortable, because he shut down or withdrew when he got upset.

And if he did that, how could I help?

None of these changes seemed large, in the moment. That part is important. It was all very small, insignificant stuff. Keeping a teasing remark to myself, because he didn't like to be teased and got upset, for example. That wasn't a compromise of my values, right? In fact, I'd come to see that the way I joked around-- however benign-- was actually mean, and I'd be a better person if I didn't do it. Especially to him. He deserved my consideration, after all he'd been through, after all he'd endured at the hands of others. If he didn't like to be teased, well, who could blame him? 

In fact, I began to realize, I'd been selfishly assuming that my sense of humor was harmless, that I was generous and considerate of others, that I voiced my opinions respectfully and compromised well, that everyone took my jokes the way I intended them and that I never hurt people's feelings unintentionally. But I found myself constantly blundering with T, overstepping boundaries I'd missed, causing distress when I'd meant to comfort or entertain. 

And in this context, somehow, it began to feel like a character flaw. I was not the person I thought I was. I began to wonder how many others I'd hurt in this way, but who weren't as intimate with me and didn't risk telling me to stop. He assured me there were others, that I did it all the time and didn't notice. I believed him. I wanted to take better care of him, of everyone.

I wanted to be a better person for someone who needed it. And also, if I'm honest, I wanted to keep him from getting upset with me.

Because that's how these things really happen, isn't it? This is how women-- strong women, intelligent women-- end up with abusers. It's not because you're weak, it's because you think you're being strong for someone else, and you're willing to make some sacrifices if you can protect him from himself; from the reactions he can't help but have.

And if you get yourself caught up in doing all of that, it's really just a very short slide down that slippery slope to the point where you're working to keep that environment non-threatening to him to protect yourself from his reactions, because he doesn't shut down so much anymore when he's upset-- you're inside his defenses, now! you've made progress!-- but rather, he turns his anger on you. 

Or maybe it's not even as cut-and-dried as that. It's not like he flies into rages or punches walls (or, god forbid, of course not, punches you). (He would never! It isn't like that!). It's just that things are more difficult when he's upset. You find that it's easier just to keep him from losing his temper or being uncomfortable or being disappointed or any of the number of things that set him off. 

It's just... easier. Easier if you go along with whatever it is he wants, whatever it is that will keep things stable and steady. Easier to keep your opinion to yourself and let him call the shots. He's going to call them anyway; why prolong the conflict by digging in your heels? That will only bring on one of his Dark Moods. The silent treatment. Derailed plans. Cold distance. Slammed doors. Condescending remarks. The implication that you have failed as a girlfriend, as a person. The subtle, relentless pressure to give in. 

And again, the changes are small at first. You go to the restaurants he wants to go to, because he never likes your choices and becomes increasingly more irritated until you just ask him where he wants to go, wanted to go all along, where you'll end up going, of course, because you always go where he wants to go. It's just a restaurant. No big deal. Not worth fighting for that.

You buy the cookies he likes, even though they're not your favorite, because he hates the ones you like and it seems silly to buy two kinds, and a waste of money, as he never fails to point out. But they're cookies. Not your integrity. What could it possibly hurt to compromise?

You hang out with his friends, and you don't mind, because you like them and they like you, and your friends make him feel unwelcome, he tells you on the drive home sometimes, and then every time. In fact, you always do the things he wants to do, go to the places he wants to go, because he doesn't like the things you like and you don't mind indulging him, so what's the harm? 

You wear the clothes he likes to see you in, because he lets you know when he doesn't find your appearance pleasing. Sometimes he even goes shopping with you and picks out things for you to try on and model for him, and the other women in the shop think it's so cute, he's so interested, their boyfriends or husbands NEVER shop with them, and look, he has such good taste! 

And you think it's cute too, because he really does seem interested and it's fun to have his attention like this; he's in such a good mood when you let him dress you and direct you like a paper doll; and when you start to notice that the size you've always worn is getting too tight and you need the next size up, well, you figure it's because you're 26 and you couldn't be tiny forever-- you're just getting a more womanly shape-- and anyway a size 8 is still quite small, more than reasonable, and you have a long way to go before you have anything like a weight problem so you'll just watch what you eat a little and walk more and it will be fine. 

And he starts to say things about going to the gym, and about the things you like to eat and like to wear-- he's been doing that for a while now, come to think of it-- but you just laugh it off. You're not sensitive, your style has always been a little outlandish, and anyway, you could always stand to cut back on sugar, right? You're not a teenager anymore.

And then, later, when you find you need a size 10 and he refuses to bring you things any larger than a 6 or an 8 and keeps insisting that you should be able to fit into your old size-- it's not that small when you compare it to other people, really, is it? An 8 is almost double-digits!-- well, you have to agree because if you're really honest with yourself you'd much prefer to fit into that size 6, you have always been thin, fine-boned, with wrists so tiny that watch bands hung from them like bangle bracelets and a waist you could almost fit your hands around. 

You had a fast metabolism as a kid, hypoglycemia, you had never imagined in your life that you would have weight issues, you had never given a second thought to the way you ate, you'd always gotten plenty of exercise and were reasonably fit but now with your back issues it's harder to feel strong and you don't have the mobility that you used to have and anyway you're so tired all the time that you just don't get around the way you used to, can't bring yourself to care about it, can't find the motivation anyway. 

You begin to eat in secret, because he gives you dirty looks when he disapproves of what you're eating-- you eat too much sometimes, you really do, and you should be more disciplined about it but you're just too weak-willed to keep yourself from indulging-- and it's just one more way that you've changed yourself to keep him from reacting in ways that are hurtful and the worst part is that the more you do it, the harder it is to hide-- you're carrying 20 extra pounds, then 40, then 50; the number on the scale is higher than you ever dreamed it could be with your build; your size 10 becomes a size 12, and 14 is looming in the near distance--and the more hurtful his comments-- or even his pointed silence-- about your burgeoning weight become.

And you deserve that, don't you, really, if you think about it? You're the one who's sneaking candy bars and fast food and always having dessert and spending too much time on the couch and not even trying to go to the gym. It's your own fault. You've brought this on yourself.

He's not saying these things because he's cruel. He's saying them because they're true.

And there you are. A once-strong, independent, spontaneous, confident young woman who no longer believes she deserves to be admired. Or respected. Or cherished. Or even heard. You no longer trust your own opinions or decisions. You no longer think of yourself as attractive or independent or strong. You look in the mirror and see a stranger. You don't recognize a single thing about yourself. You don't know how you got to this point.

You just know it's no one's fault but your own.

(I mean I. Me. Mine. This is my story, but did you see how I slipped out of first-person POV back there, for the worst of it? That was unintentional. Apparently, I can't help distancing myself even now from the way I felt, the person I became, the things I did and said to get by during those years. I've been staring at that section for a week now, trying to rewrite it from my own point of view, and I just can't bring myself to do it. I don't want it any closer than a very long arm's length away.)

Anyway. Once I'd accepted the blame for what I'd become, the rest of it just washed over me like the tide, just as inevitable, just as relentless. Every birthday, every holiday, every vacation, every event of significance to me-- my acceptance to grad school, my 10-year high school reunion-- were particular minefields, filled with explosions of inexplicable anger, accusations, demands that shifted the focus of attention from me back to him. 

I began to dread celebrations. I began to dread everything, really, because they could come at any moment: the endless, back-handed comments, dropped like grenades at precisely the right moment to keep me forever off-balance, forever ashamed.

On his ideal woman: Holly Golightly from Breakfast at Tiffany's is the perfect woman. She's so free-spirited and cool and outgoing and social, and always ready to party. She never takes anything seriously. She just likes to have fun. She's, like, the opposite of you. No offense.

On the way to a party... no, on the way to every party: Are you ever going to wax your facial hair? Doesn't it bother you? It's really noticeable.

Over dinner, while on a trip to England: All guys really want to date supermodels. They just lower their standards to what they can get.

On graduating from my MFA program: You're not really a "Writer." You're just someone who likes to write things occasionally. It's not 'who you are.' If it were, you wouldn't need to go to school for it, it would just be something you woke up every day wanting to do.

By the time we'd gotten to the point where he could lob gems like these in my direction, I was beyond answering back. I responded to it all with silence. I felt hurt and angry, of course, but the days when I might have defended myself were long since past. 

I rehearsed in my head a million times what I'd have liked to say, calmly, firmly, murderously, leaving no doubt about the consequences: That is the last time you will ever speak to me that way. Do you understand? I told myself a million times that next time, next time, I'd open my mouth and say it.

I didn't. I never did.

What I did was this: I didn't let new acquaintances-- coworkers, classmates-- get too close. I avoided people who knew me well, who knew me before, who might see me and be shocked at what I'd become. My family. My closest friends. I didn't want to disappoint them-- they'd always thought I was so strong, so together, and now it would be obvious to everyone how weak I was, how out of control; a freak, a waste, a failure.

I didn't want to let anyone down, so I began to avoid not only people, but situations where I might be forced to answer questions I didn't want to answer: 

First, it was: What happened to you? I was convinced people would see what I'd become (fat, sad, exhausted, ugly, ashamed), compare it to what I used to be (thin! fun! purposeful! confident!), and want an explanation for the ways I'd failed to live up to my former promise. The fact that nobody ever asked me this-- and never would have, not like that, anyway-- never registered. I assumed it was all anyone could think when they looked at me. It was all I could think when I looked at myself.

And then, the slightly-more-complicated dip beneath the surface: How did you get this way? It was another question that never came, of course, but it lurked in the background of every thought, every moment of every day. I never, ever acknowledged it consciously, even to myself, but I was beginning to suspect the answer to this question and even though I spent all my time trying not to let the words form in my head-- you know how, you know who-- I was judging myself harshly for having let it happen.

After a while, even the simplest, most rote question of all-- How are you?-- became one I couldn't bear to hear, even from those who knew me, who loved me, who I knew on some far-away level would never judge me if I blurted the real answer, even if I collapsed in a heap at their feet and begged them for help, even then.  

They say abusers isolate you from your family and friends, and they're only partly right. You do plenty of that work-- most of it, even-- all on your own. So that feels like your fault, too.

My fault, I mean. It felt like my fault. It all felt like my fault. I hated myself for staying with him, even while I couldn't admit the reasons I should leave. I hated him for the way he treated me-- I did, although I never admitted it to myself-- even while I cut myself closer and closer to the bone, just trying to make him love me. 

Somewhere along the way, I'd given up everything, everything I'd ever valued about myself, for that.

I never sought therapy during those years, even though it became clear at some point that I was deeply depressed, because I knew I'd be judged for being with him, knew I'd be advised to leave him. I was able to see that very clearly-- as faulty an assumption as it may have been--  without ever articulating to myself why that might be true. 

There was no way to win, no matter what I did. I had become my own abuser, really-- I found ways to take up where he left off from every conceivable angle. It seems now, even to me, that this had to have been unbearable, that surely I would have seen it and protected myself, taken steps to get myself to safety.

I didn't, though. As dissociated as I was, it was easy by then to distance myself from reality. It was easy to trade in the pain I felt for the only alternative I could imagine, the only one that didn't require me to face what I didn't want to face: feeling nothing. 

Nothing at all.

_____

I'd like to say this was the extent of what happened during those six years-- it's more than enough, isn't it?-- but it wasn't. 

This story will continue...