Crying Alone while Eating Chicken

I often tend to avoid getting personal, but I've been reading a book recently and one of the recommendations is to journal out your experience.

I sit here, a month and a half from divorce, and stare at the text on my phone:

"Please do not text me anymore. I don't give two shits about your finances or timeline. Just leave me alone."

I'm getting ahead of myself. I'll come back to this because let's start at the beginning. I write this down in hopes of moving forward with healing, and ... here I am a writer on vocal: let's journal together. At the very least maybe I can help someone else in a similar situation?

Here's the book:

Let's start with some simple facts:

Fact 1: I am a very empathic person. I was told repeatedly as a child I was "too sensitive" and would often have people warm up to me too quickly for comfort. Being an empath means I can feel strongly what those around me are feeling, but it also means I can be taken advantage of for doing so.

Example: My dad had a brain tumor when I was 7 years old. In my early 20's, it grew back, but it took my parents 3 weeks to tell me versus my siblings. I asked, why did you tell them and not me?

"Well, we didn't want you to cry."

Fact 2: I was in an 18 year relationship that was mentally and emotionally abusive.

I saw the red flags. I saw them very quickly, even. I tried to end the relationship mere months into it, I wasn't happy, and I was told:

"Have you considered you're not trying hard enough?"

I was vulnerable, my empathy kicked up a notch, and I was caught in a web of slow destruction. I was young and I had only experienced relationships that never felt right. Maybe I had, indeed, not "tried harder."

[Brace yourself for examples]

Example: I started applying for master's degrees early in the relationship. I had always liked the idea of moving to Seattle and on a whim I applied for the University of Washington. I came home and told him and his response was, "Why would you do that? You didn't think about me at all. I can't just up and leave. You need to retract that application."

Example: I bought a necklace I really liked. It had a little witchy charm on it, rainbow glass, etched symbols. I wore it for weeks until the day I was told, "that necklace makes you look like a faggot."

Example: My dad gave me an antique monkey grinder for my birthday. My friend Pete happened to be a piano tuner and, since the grinder was out of tune, I invited him over to see the piece. We sat and talked about it until my partner, out of town, called and asked what I was doing. I told him.

After a lengthy phone call, I was never to have friends over again when he was out of town.

Example: I was required to take my partner to the airport because if I didn't, "I didn't love him." It didn't matter if it conflicted with my work schedule, my health, or anything else. Upon his return he expected the house to be clean; I would reserve time to put dishes away, wipe the counters, and clean like any other day. As he entered the house he would wipe each surface, delicately with a pointer finger, and make sure to show me what I missed.

Example: He went to the gym without me once and someone hit on him in the locker room. He came home and told me about it and, when I didn't get upset, he got mad at me.

Example: While driving home from a friend’s movie night, he pulled over to berate me because my friend touched my leg. He berated me until a police officer drove by and stopped to intervene and ask me if I was okay.

Example: If I referred to my parents or siblings as ‘family’ or my childhood home as ‘home’ I was a bad person because he ‘was my only family.’

Fact 3: A narcissist will always be attracted to an empath, but they will never love them for who they are.

Honestly, rehashing this is already putting strain on my heart.

I stopped being able to open up.
I was afraid of breaking the rules I never knew existed.
Everything was my fault all the time.
Nothing was ever good enough.
When I pulled away, he reeled back in.
Arguments were hours upon hours of confusing circular rehashes.
I was given the silent treatment until punishment was determined.
I was promised a future I found more and more less likely every day.
I felt crazy and alone and sad and scared.

Am I a perfect person? No. I certainly had my issues, but I always listened to reason. I always apologized.

I rarely got apologized to.

In 2022 I decided to take my life. Somehow, some magic way, I had enough friends left to break through and tell me exactly what I needed to hear exactly when I needed to hear it. This itself is its own story filled with wonderful friends and loved ones. (LOVED ONES! I'm loved again and most the time even by myself!)

I went to therapy and finally opened up the pandora's box of emotions I had hidden away. I admitted things I was unwilling to admit. My abuse finally showed itself; it was real, not made up. I wasn't crazy.

When we separated, much like most individuals suffering this kind of abuse, I still remembered the good times. I still wanted to be friends. We even sat down and he listed out things he felt I had done to hurt him and asked for an apology and, though they were misconstrued, I apologized because I wanted to end things on a good note with the friend I knew was inside him.

(FRIENDLY NOTE: If you think you are suffering abuse from a narcissistic person, do not confront them over it. Go to your therapist or call 988. Find a private place and watch Dr. Ramani Durvasula's YouTube series on narcissism.)

A month later he told me he would never be my friend, we could only be acquaintances, unless I apologized for all the things I had just apologized for, word for word.

This was my lightbulb moment.
He could never be my friend because he never was my friend.
My apologies would never be enough.
He needed punishment and there was no punishment good enough for me.

I finally chose to walk away. I let myself begin to heal. I dusted off the empty holes in my heart I had for loved lost ones and I loved again. I loved wildly and unsparingly.

I stopped taking antidepressants, cut my anxiety medication in thirds, and halved my high blood pressure pills.

Things were complicated for a while, I found myself in temporary housing while I figured out how to be a middle-aged homosexual again. I've learned so much about myself already.

I decided to buy a house! It's really cute and even though I won't have much furniture I cannot wait to have a big old house warming party.

But I discovered I was not yet removed from the mortgage on the house my ex and I had together. I need him to get a document from the bank, he's the only one with legal access, and I only have so much time.

So, I look at my text response again. It's a response from me pleading for this document one final time, for my fresh start:

"Please do not text me anymore. I don't give two shits about your finances or timeline. Just leave me alone."

Okay, so, yes... I am crying alone, while eating chicken from a box, in a hotel far away from home.

He spent 18 years controlling me, demeaning me, making me think I was insane, but Carl said it best in Dungeon Crawler Carl:

"You’re not going to break me."

Not this time. Not ever again.