Slowly waking up… and waking up… and waking up…

I feel like I’ve been slowly waking up.

Slowly waking up, waking up, and waking up, a little bit each day, as if my brain and senses have all started over after a hard reboot.

It got so bad that one of my therapists would pause during sessions to just have me say a word that started with each letter…. A… apple… B… baby… C … color …

I couldn’t think.

My brain stopped processing complex information, and simple information as well. I was unable to get out any words at all sometimes, so she would just sit patiently on the line, and calmly breathe with me. I started skipping letters when handwriting or rearranging letters in the wrong order. My brain felt so distant, as if it were coming back from somewhere—somewhere that was very far away.

With everything swirling around me like a gigantic tornado, I was even unrecognizable in the mirror.

I literally did not know the person who was staring back at me, and it made me very uneasy to even look at her because she was a whole separate being and I didn’t know her.

I needed time.

Time to rest.

Time to regroup.

Time to learn how to walk, and talk, and eat… time to learn how to do absolutely everything again.

I had an injury that left me unable to walk for six months; then, when I was able to walk, it took me another three months to put my feet flat properly. I went through a period in which I basically stopped speaking due to grief for about three months, and every word that I was able to get out was like I was being choked at the same time. So learning how to walk and learning how to talk again were quite literal. Present day, I still struggle with these things, and I’m still working on it.

There’s a whole new person who came out of this, like a caterpillar becomes a butterfly, and I needed time to get to know her. This new person who emerged from the mess in which I found myself entangled came through so clearly that I almost formally greeted her.

Births, traumatizing losses of loved ones, and, by loved ones, I mean my eldest daughter in my arms, my lifelong friend to a self-inflicted gunshot wound, and my first cousin to an accidental overdose, all within a year and a couple of months of each other, and two of them exactly a year and a day within each other. If ever there were loved ones, they are definitely these three. Then add exhausting moves, insomnia, rage, unforgiveness, confusion, grief, madness… I had to let it all go.

I had to let it all go, because it was consuming me in a way that was taking me from myself, taking me from my kids, taking me away from things I once loved to do, taking me away from basic existence. It was devouring me, weighing me down lower than I already was, and that was lower than a hole in the floor.

**********

So to catch up on the saga that is Chris and I……… A.K.A. Victor and Nikki Newman/Ike and Tina Turner.

……… Two summers ago, I began a purge of everything that was tearing me apart.

And it didn’t come quietly.

It came with a scream.

A scream that came from my guts, standing next to my mother, in the garage of our family home, and here’s how it all went down.

**********

I was trying to fill the pool for the kids with the air compressor. It was such a hot day, I was already worn out, and the attachment wasn’t working to fill it up. We drove up from California, and had planned to stay a month.

I’m glad we were there when it, and by it, I mean me, had finally hit the threshold.

This is the point where I absolutely could not take any more, not—one—more—thing.

I held the air compressor hose; I held the pool. I was trying to hold the attachment because it wasn’t quite fitting, but I couldn’t hold down everything that had been festering in my insides.

Then boom, like dynamite, everything exploded, and I screamed.

I SCREAMED.

I screamed so hard, so loud, next to my mom, grateful for the air compressor and the bricks from the house drowning out the sound of my nervous breakdown. I had stayed so strong for so long that I was just done in that very moment. So I screamed until I felt better. I screamed and screamed again. I felt a release in my spirit. I felt emptied of all the toxicity that was Chris— all the black, all the darkness, all the ugh.

I screamed with all my might, and I remember it clearly to this day.

It came from so far down within me that I can barely articulate the words to describe it, but I must have said the words FFUUCCKKKK and MMOOTTHERRRFUCKERRR and FFUUKCCCKKINNNMOTHERFUCKERRRR about 362 times.

I quite literally dropped what I was doing and asked my mom to meet me in her bedroom so we could talk.

She absolutely did not bat an eyelash at what just happened because this was hardly her first rodeo with us kids. She let me do what I needed to do because she knew I had to do it, and why.

She understood completely.

She didn’t tell me to stop, she didn’t make a face; she simply stood there silently, with the support of a mighty warrior… true to her name, like Deborah from the Bible.

I needed that moment.

I needed to scream and shout.

And I needed my mother to help me with whatever was happening to me, because something absolutely was happening to me, over a good chunk of time, and enough was enough.

So off we went to sit on her bed and figure it out.

We talked, I cried, I complained, I ranted, I involuntarily uttered eerie guttural sounds; I was completely unfiltered, literally for hours, until my nervous system reset and I was able to speak and breathe in a normal rhythm. And my mom let me do it, hardly saying a word until I came back around.

It was bad, and it had to get better, because there was nowhere else for it to go.

This — is the episode that started to bring my vision back into focus.

I had a choice to make.

This is the point, for me, where I recognized I could either go left or I could go right after crawling up and out of wherever I had been.

There was nothing else.

Nowhere else that I could go.

Nothing else that I could lose.

Nothing else that I could break.

Nothing left that I had to give, so, some thing had to give.

It was at least three or four years of pent-up EVERYTHING.

Then, in a flash, it was over.

The air was clear.

I could take a full breath in without feeling like I was going to crack a rib.

There was light in the room.

I made a conscious decision right then and there to accept God’s grace over me as I handed it all over to Him. God is no stranger to me, but up until that point, I had not given Him all the things that I was unable to carry; I was just holding onto all of it.

The unforgiveness that I had toward Chris was absolutely tearing me apart.

He did so much, said so many things, put so many hands, told so many lies, poured so much love, made me laugh, made me hate… He caused so much confusion and incomprehensible damage physically, mentally, emotionally, and financially, that my own body began to shut down. This one-year entanglement with him felt like a ten-year marriage—a ten-year marriage that I desperately wanted out of.

The right side of my face was always going numb; my eyes were always twitching; my appetite was either huge or nonexistent. I stopped dreaming the night my daughter became severely ill, having only a few dreams over all the years since, one of them being about Chris.

He was at our new apartment complex, grilling meat, literally just smiling at me.

I remember I began shaking, sccrreamingggg at him in my dream, ‘WHY the fuckkkkk are you smilingggg at meeee’ …. whyyyy are youuu HERE’?!

I kept shouting the same thing, and he just kept smiling, and grilling the meat.

It fucking terrified me.

And I mean, it terrified me so badly that when I woke up, my shirt was so drenched that it instantly made me cold as I peeled it off.

I don’t know if I mentioned any of this before, because my brain literally works differently now, but I may talk about something and keep mentioning it periodically in my writing through the years like it’s new news, but it’s fitting to mention here again because this is precisely what I’m talking about and where that ferocious scream originated.

My brain and body needed a complete overhaul. Everything was so overloaded and overwhelmed, causing some parts of me to slow down and other parts of me to speed up.

He was so hard to deal with, even more so after our break-up, that my body was physically malfunctioning, and like a defective robot, I was glitching out.

I began stuttering, bumping into things, reading from the bottom-right corner rather than the top-left corner, and I read a book a week, so that is quite a big deal in itself, and a huge symptom that I immediately noticed, and I’m still working to correct.

Sometimes I was able to eat; other times I wasn’t.

I couldn’t concentrate, and I couldn’t get restful sleep because he was keeping me awake by being up all night himself—slamming doors, turning on lights, leaving out the back door, and slamming it on the way out. He would also routinely jolt me out of sleep, with perfect timing, one second before I fell completely asleep.

Once very steady on my feet, strutting in four-inch heels effortlessly, I was now very clumsy and very prone to falling down, and I did it with regularity in Adidas. I couldn’t maintain my balance even in sneakers.

He kept the whole house awake—me, the baby, his mom, and our niece Emma. Even the neighbors were kept awake because he was in and out of the front and back doors, in and out of the car, and in and out of the shed—people randomly coming by at all hours of the night to the doors and bedroom windows, wrenching on the car at two and three in the morning in the driveway just outside their front door. It wasn’t like he never slept; he never slept.

My body was achy all the time. Fibromyalgia made my body sore to the touch. I felt physically weak. I was shaky and unstable any time I stood up. During another dramatic, blissful occasion, he stressed me out so badly that I got Bell’s Palsy, and I lost the feeling in half of my face for a little over three months. The episode he pulled was typical of him; a long story I will tell later, another thing that happened that I can hardly believe.

My smile was crooked, my face was numb, and over the three months it took to heal, it also became very tingly and itchy. I couldn’t taste on that side. It was another awful thing that I was experiencing in addition to being constantly abused, lied to, pushed around, and made a fool of, then intensely loved all over, up, and upon. He’d fuck up, then beg my forgiveness. The cycle was so bad that I could feel it like a physical ring around me, I had a sheer feeling when it was going to come back around, and it always did.

The intermittent love-bombing was tiring and impossible to get through, because it, too, was so overwhelming. He would make my head spin with confusion. I’ve said before: he loved me and hated me, oftentimes within the same minute. But I couldn’t play like I was happy, and I couldn’t even play like I liked him. He made me snap over and over, and I was done. I was extremely vocal about my lack of feeling and connection to him. Not only was I vocal, but I also hit back. Once I knew it was on, it was on, and I refused to be the only punching bag. We went well past the point of no return, so every act was extreme and outdid the one before.

He was making me crazy, so I couldn’t help giving it back to him like a wild banshee. I found myself screaming to the point of losing my voice for three months. I didn’t even know you could lose your voice for months from a single screaming match, but I personally experienced it, so I know it is possible.

I found myself crying loudly as the water ran in the bathtub.

I also threw things.

I also broke things.

I slammed things around.

I bit my nails until they bled.

I punched in the door one time when he locked me out of our bedroom, and I had to get some of our son’s newborn care items. He was refusing and refusing and refusing to open the door on one side of the house, and on the other, I had a baby crying and crying.

I wrapped up our son safely in his favourite blankie in his portable crib in the living room, absolutely walked down the hallway, and absolutely punched the door in enough so that he opened the rest of it, richly calling me a crazy bitch while he did.

It felt like active combat, confined to the house. Everything was tactical, from the decisions I made to the clothing I wore, to the times I took a shower or bath. I couldn’t take the sleeping pills I needed, because I didn’t trust that I could be in a deep sleep around him.

The enemy was within the house, and that made it fucking awful.

It was inside the house, like a spirit that I was fighting, it was haunting…  the very house. Sometimes I knew where it was, sometimes it lurked in the shadows, but it remained within that space.

Too much had happened.

The deep loyalty and love I once felt was LONG GONE.

My mind flashed images.

My mind compartmentalized.

I said the words out loud to him, IIII FUCKINNN HAAATE’CHU.

Not loud, but detached, in an even and intentional tone, to which he was completely unfazed, not even a single blink.

So when I couldn’t fill the kids’ pool up for their summer fun day, it was entirely too much for me to bear. It was too much to hold down. That was it; I hit the ceiling with accelerated force.

I had to talk it out, bitch and complain, vent the fury that had a vice grip on me. And finally, I was able to let go. Whatever it was, it lifted, and away it went, floating off into what felt like a tangible distance of an actual place.

I had to part ways with the hate and unforgiveness I had for Chris, because that was the only thing I could do. Something that was shredding me—he didn’t even give it a second thought. He still doesn’t. He thinks about it, but not at all like I do. In fact, if his written story and my written story were compared side-by-side, you would think they were describing two different stories with two different characters altogether.

So there I was, all the way done, choosing to give it to God, because He is the only one powerful enough to take it away and make it better. No strangers to Jesus, my mom prayed, I prayed, we prayed together, I talked, I rambled. It was like everything turned into scrambled eggs, but with life, and in real time.

My mom specifically told me that unforgiveness only traps you down and blocks your own blessings because it’s not of God to harbor hate within us. And I believed her. I know, and trust what she could see and feel, that I could not. She saw what it was and what had to happen.

Now, mind you, I had lost my daughter in my arms through all this, but my nervous system was so disrupted by him that I couldn’t even grieve in peace and silence. I didn’t have a day where he wasn’t going completely berserk, in person or via text. He didn’t ever let up. One situation was so horrific that I was malfunctioning, and I’m talking about Chris. In the other, I was clinging to Jesus with all my might, counting on Him to keep my daughter with Him until I meet her at heaven’s gate, and feeling a peace and comfort about her, and a hope, that only Jesus can give.

Understandably, the compiled abuse and stalking and slander from Chris was the Jenga piece that was pulled that was making me topple down. The weight of the grief of my daughter, the demands of caring for an extremely attached newborn, caring for my other children, my many students depending on me—all that plus Chris, my whole world went on the spin cycle.

But there we were, my mother and I, alone, the bedroom door closed, sitting on her bed, her helping me to figure out my life and my well-being. If I remember correctly, Schitt’s Creek was ironically playing in the background, giving us intermittent laughs, and suddenly I felt a little breather. A rush of warmth and comfort came over me, and finally things felt like they were lining up from the center. I felt like I was in a whole new place, a new world almost.

Where Chris was concerned, I let it be.

All of it.

I didn’t care anymore, but in a good way. I share a son with him, and that’s all we share.

I can only handle so much, I was completely stuffed to the max, and finally, there was room for other things.

I had cried, literally every day, for four and a half years, maybe even more. I didn’t cry about Chris because I was way past all that—always about my daughter—but he was the trigger that pushed me to the limit and up and over the edge to where it made me a different person altogether: someone being suffocated through despair.

And finally, it was over.

All done; I could see and feel a piercing of light, and for me, that was enough. There was a breakthrough—like being dunked under water during a baptism and emerging clean and new—and looking at the world and everything in it differently.

Kids resumed a fun summer afternoon in the pool and the sprinklers; I was able to get down some cheese and crackers, and that’s all I’m asking for. I don’t need fancy things; I need peace, and I need things to feel soft and safe.

I need things around me to be mellow and not maniacal.

A person can only stay stuck in fight, flight, or freeze for so long. In my experience, if you don’t make something toxic stop, that toxic something will make you stop.

So it was all done.

I felt like I was able to stand firmly once again, being held up by faith. I know that I don’t walk this life alone. I remember something my dear friend Marinda said to me years ago when I was in the thick of a secret adoption involving my niece and our neighbor… She said, ‘Lisa, you are so precious in God’s sight,’ and I have never forgotten that. It may rub some people the wrong way, but I’m a believer, and I believe what she said. No matter what, God saw, heard, and acted on what I was going through, and He fixed it.

He saw that my intentions were of a pure heart, He got us out safely, and He also got it to where we’re able to be civil when we need to. He has calmed everything down, settling the waters, just as He did during biblical times.

It took 11 moves, countless brawls, at least six arrests for him, around ten hospital visits for me, one premature labor, one painfully regretful termination of pregnancy, one car accident, four blackouts, two fainting episodes, one Bell’s Palsy incident, six therapists, about eight doctors, our two mothers, about ten court appearances, seven casts, around eight splints, three restraining orders, two phone calls with me cussing out his mom and dad, telling them all the things that went bad; it sounds like a terrible country Christmas song that should also end with ‘a partridge in a pear tree’.

But, it’s done.

I struggle to believe that this happened to me, even to this day.

I read some of what I write, and I sit there and read with great intensity, like I don’t know the details firsthand, like I don’t know what the next reveal is. I read it like some stranger, trying to make sense of the story before me. A co-teacher I confided in, told me, practically in tears, that she loved me so much, that she couldn’t bear to read what I had gone through.

My college professor asked me if she could feature my blog as a reference in her classroom since I had covered so much of what she was also trying to teach. I wrote my thesis, about Chris and his family and received an A+. I’ll never forget how uncomfortable it made me feel to be reading through the DSM-5, and reading it like it’s your own life, because it is. It made me sick to my stomach. It made me so mad, that I was the one out of the class who had the crazy to contribute.

I was the one with the material worthy of study and debate.

Time, has made room for forgiveness.

Spiritual discernment has made room for trusting beyond the hurt and misunderstanding.

I’m able to get up, I’m able to let things go, I’m able to see the one good thing in a pile of ugly things, and that is not easy to do. My heart feels soft again, as I borrow a page from my co-teacher Mrs. S’s playbook; she exudes a softness that translates into love, care, and safety, and that is so beautiful. I even told her, “Mrs. S, you’re teaching me to be soft and to embrace femininity after always having to be so tough,” and I was grateful.

I’ve had to re-learn, re-build, re-love, re-move, re-pair, and it is a day-by-day, sometimes a minute-by-minute process.

But even a smidgen of progress is progress, and if it takes baby steps, then it takes baby steps.

It took me more than four years to even stop waking up in the middle of the night in a panic because it took me a few seconds to scan the room in order to remember where I was and exactly when I was.

Chris is in recovery from addiction; I’m in recovery from Chris.

I’m thankful that I was able to get through the forgiveness that was required; hard but so necessary.

The old has been chiseled and chipped away, leaving something clean, brand-new, hopeful, and free of the stronghold that Chris figuratively and literally had over me.

When I shed those 330 pounds, my shoulders stopped hunching over.

My headaches began to subside.

My sleep cycle has slowly improved as my circadian rhythm finds its way back from the danger zone.

I don’t wake up out of a dead sleep screaming that I’m traapppped.

I appreciate that the softness of our home helps in healing our very spirits.

I’m thankful that there is no one disrupting our sleep and the calm and gentle routine of our home.

I love that I can leave my bag out by the sofa, or kitchen table, or bedroom, and no one is going to steal from it.

I love that the house stays clean, and always smells inviting.

I love that our home is the one place where we are completely comfortable—especially me.

So, as I slowly wake up, and wake up, and wake up, I’m glad and grateful that I am doing it in such lovely surroundings. At home, it is cozy, nearly spotless, and comfortable. At work, it is my favourite escape—the one place where I always have a sly and steady grin on my face, because I am just so happy to be there. I may be there for the kids, but in reality, they are there for me—repairing my heart, one kiddo at a time.

It was rough.

It was rough, but now that it’s over, there is room for love, room for relaxation, and room to stretch and grow. There is room for hope, for looking forward.

I shake my head in disbelief that this story is true, that so much of it hasn’t even been written yet, that I’m the one it happened to, how it felt to have a baby at the same time I was being dismantled by the father. I think about it all, until I write about it all, get it out in a very personal way, inhale, exhale, then move on from obsessing over the details.

Thank God that ‘relationship’ is over.

We, meaning he, is learning how to co-parent, and I mean only recently. FINALLY, he has given a few hundred dollars for his son’s support, and bought him a pair of shoes. I even held them up in one hand and said, ‘Behold, the first pair of shoes from Dad.’ I made a big thing out of it because it was a big thing. Up until now, I have raised our son alone, because Chris has come and gone so inconsistently that I never tell my son he is coming until he is literally down the street and about to arrive. Chris flakes out so much, and I told him, no more of that. Either be there as the father that he needs, or just stay out of his life, because him playing double-dutch with his relationship with his son—those days are OVER.

OLD HELEN; IS GONE. (*if you get this reference, you’re definitely my people!)

No more games for him to play; I will literally call my mom and tell her this falls under the “I need help!” category, and not the “I need to vent” category.

We will raise our son peacefully, not for me, not for Chris, but for our son, which I have pushed for since the beginning. Christian is so innocent, and vulnerable, and deserves both of his parents to be at their best in order to properly care for him. And when one of his parents is falling short, it is up to the other to help with the situation, because ultimately he is the one affected by it. I don’t care about me; I don’t care about Chris—I care about Christian.

Thinking back, it is true that he was a victim of domestic violence before he even came into the world. He was experiencing it while in utero, and that breaks my heart. I remember cradling my belly, begging God that he would be okay—to help me, to get us away from this whirlwind. I refused to put up with it, and I was deteriorating by the day. The more I resembled a dish rag, the younger Chris appeared.

I have spoken to Christian’s doctor at length about our ordeal, and thankfully, she said that one good parent is all a child needs, and she knows I go above and beyond for him. I stopped that cycle of abuse quick, fast, and in a hurry, because there was no way I was going to allow the baby to grow up in such a hellhole.

So off I went—with three bags, the baby, and $1.51 in my bank account after filling up my gas tank—and I remember it like it was yesterday.

Ever since, it has been one slow, yet purposeful day at a time. I nursed Christian in the backseat of my car; now, I get to cook for him and have meals at the table to enjoy our home-cooked meals over each other’s company.

I had to study with a crying baby on my lap; now I’m not only a teacher, but I’m also a REALTOR®. I passed my exam on the first try, and have been floating on a small cloud ever since.

Christian found his groove for school in the first grade; he is reading absolutely everything in sight. His two amazing teachers (Ms. G and Ms. H, we love you to pieces!) helped him find his way, and I couldn’t help but spoil them with gratitude and small gifts throughout the year. That kindness and love have been harnessed and reciprocated, and Christian benefited so greatly from being in their care. He is now homeschooled because home is where he is most comfortable, and where he is thriving because Mommy is able to help teach him along with his online teachers.

Everything is settling down, and things are slowly returning to some semblance of a life.

I love that things are uneventful—normal days of work and school and taking care of everything in a peaceful rhythm.

I’m writing again, painting again, decorating again, reading for as long as I want to, whether in the bathtub or not. I’m learning to be patient with myself as I heal, because the mere quiet is something I’m still learning to navigate. Things were always in a state of upheaval, so now that things are calm, I am trying my best not to panic.

Stepping away from Chris opened up the space I needed to finally breathe and rebuild on my own terms.

Over the past several months, I’ve poured my energy into creating things with real purpose—things that feel good and remind me to keep going.

I got lost in all of this.

I became unrecognizable.

But slowly, I’m finding myself again, settling back into my own being, catching my bearings one baby step at a time.

Closing this chapter of my life hasn’t been about finding a neat and satisfying ending, but about deciding to let go of certain things and hold on tight to others.

Rebuilding has been the greatest act of self-love that I could have ever chosen. I could have left all the broken pieces strewn about; but I didn’t. I grabbed some Krazy Glue and sent up countless heartfelt prayers.

I’ve picked myself up piece by piece, little by little.

I’ve had to choose a peaceful path because it’s what is best for the son that Chris and I share.

With the final words spoken, and the last door closed for the very last time, we turned in opposite directions, leaving behind our shared past, only leaving room for co-parenting our son—the amazing, kind soul in which we created out of a deep, passionate love that Chris and I shared; however brief.

I do believe that the love Chris and I once shared all went into our son. Chris and I may have gotten almost everything wrong, but the one right thing—our son— is the best gift I could have ever asked for. When I look at him, I see all the love that was once there

Present day, I’m focusing my energy where it truly belongs—living a life that feels authentic, grounded, and safe. I’m doing a lot of reading, I started writing again, I play loud music and dance around the house when I clean. No more upset stomach, no more itchy hives across my chest. My splitting headaches have subsided, I’ve stopped being clumsy due to severe stress, so I’m not falling down anymore. It’s pretty profound

how much the wrong person can affect your life, your health, and your sanity; it’s a silent and slow killer.

Choosing the wrong person in your life, can literally be detrimental to your health. I never really understood that.

I’m thankful that things are finally going in the direction in which God is guiding us. He takes the guesswork out of it, and I’m just trying to stay calm, follow Him, and trust whatever it may be, because He will always handle it.

Baby steps, focusing on the glimmers, not the triggers, and understanding that there will always be bad things, but that doesn’t equal a hopeless life.

It has taken me years, tons of bumps, bangs, bruises, and BS, to finally get back up, say a prayer, crack my neck on the right side, and get going. I can’t curl up into a ball, under a weighted, mental-illness-grey blanket and stay tucked away in my bedroom closet, sobbing with grief all day like I want to. I need to keep my faith strong, my body healthy, and my wits sharp, because failure isn’t an option. I have to keep going for everyone who depends on me, especially all the children under my care, including my own.

But I’m so relieved, that at least things with Chris have settled, just a bit, and then a bit more; he understands I’m on his side of being a good father. It’s strange how the relationship between father and son is so different from that between the ‘almost’ husband-and-wife relationship that we shared.

We’re all able to spend time together that doesn’t end with the cops being called, take brief road trips to my mom’s since she is all of our safe spaces, and my central nervous system is slowly recovering, while my physical injuries are healing, slowly and steadily.

Slowly and steadily… Once a foreign concept; now, something I truly embrace.