Ghosts and Monsters

I feel weird today.

Over the last year, I've felt so much myself, so much back to normal, and here I am back in the doldrums of not knowing what to do with myself and having no motivation. Back in that place where I have to watch TV and read books and do everything I can to try not to think about him. I'd thought it was over, but it wasn't, and now it is, and I feel weird.

Not like when you break up with someone - no tears and heartbreak. More like a scabby heart that you've had a little pick at.

If I do think about it, I feel really sorry for Steve, but at the same time I know that this is exactly what he would want, it would be his hook back in. I don't know what it is about him that one incident of him being pathetic and useless and self-destructive, and I can almost forget all the trauma and the horror. At the same time, I can't recognise him as the person I spent the good times with - I can't imagine a time when I would have been in love with him. The strange, trauma-bonded, Stockholm-syndrome-type love - oh yes, I remember that all too well; but before that, the normal sort of romantic love - I know I had that once, but it was so long ago.

That photo at the top of the page - it's one of the first I have of us together because I didn't have a digital camera at the time. But it's from about two years in - I can tell from the ring he's wearing. Rings we got after he cheated the first time. And THE POSE! I probably don't need to point that out.

Writing this has helped - a lot. I've realised that when you have been owned, you don't need motivation yourself, because your motivation has been the other person and what they want for so long. You forget your own self, so it is no wonder that having that interaction with him has thrown me back there.

I remember when he had beaten me, I would want to hide because I felt like I was somehow to blame (I eknew I wasn't, rationally I know I wasn't, but emotionally that was the overpowering feeling). Oh, I'd force myself out (usually. There was one day where my son didn't go to school because I couldn't face taking him), but inside I was cringeing.

Even from only having spoken to him, I feel like that again - and this time it is true, it IS my fault, because I chose to speak to him, knowing what might happen.

The monster was only in my head. But the monster will always be in my head, ALWAYS. Seeing Steve for what he is doesn't change that monster. It's one I need to keep in its box. But first I have to put it back in.

So when I've written this, I'm drinking that last cup of tea, putting on some clothes and doing a workout. I'm getting back into a routine, I'm forgetting about a person who is beyond help of any kind, I'm forgetting about the things behind the sun, the monsters under the bed and the ghosts inhabiting my heart.

This mood is just a shadow of where I have been before. The sun is coming out.

But not today.