There are mornings that greet me with a dull ache in my heart. Today is one of those. It always starts of with me not being able to sleep throughout the night. When I do eventually fall asleep in the not-so-early hours of the morning, I am eventually woken up by the sad realisation that “he chose her over his family”. This numbing thought pierces my fragile heart, and in response the voices start chanting in my head…
“You were not good enough”
“You will never be happy”
“He is giving her all that he could never give you”
“She is his soulmate and you wasted 20 years of your life”.
As soon as these voices start, I have to jolt myself back to reality. He has been gone for 6 weeks now, and with the exception of the mornings like today, I truly have never felt so peaceful. This is MY reality – I am free. I am so used to being a prisoner of his words that at times I struggle with the concept of freedom. The other day it hit me like a tonne of bricks that for years I have been thinking in his voice. This is a weird concept to try to explain to one who has not experienced narcissistic abuse, but the way I see it is that he constantly made declarations over my life and eventually I assimilated these as truth and began to think and walk in that “truth”.
“Emancipate yourselves from mental slavery. None but ourselves can free our mind” – Bob Marley.
My greatest battle is with my own mind. I have to learn to think in my own voice (which I am still learning to identify) because it was silenced for so long! It really is a back to basics journey of healing. I am supporting this journey by eating well, working, worshipping, praying and exercising, and I must say I feel a certain lightness and warmth about me. The one thing that has stood out for me is that I don’t miss him at all. There is not one day when I wake up and wish he was still here. I am not naive enough to believe that there won’t be bad days, but mature enough to know that I’m grieving 20 years of my life. It is a real loss of life as I knew it but I don’t want it back. It can stay dead. I look forward to a new life. In the meantime I embrace the sad moments when they come, journal, talk to a friend, pray and worship myself out of the slump.
On Wednesday I took the decision to block him off my WhatsApp because he just won’t stop texting (hoovering).
“Hoovering” is an emotional abuse technique used by narcissists and other manipulative personality types to suck their victims back into a relationship with them because they’re running low on their narcissistic supply. (https://www.yourtango.com/2016285104/12-big-signs-someone-you-love-hoovering-narcissist)
I have found this to be extremely uncomfortable for me because I literally have to talk myself out of believing whatever bullshit he is spewing. I do not respond to the texts but that has not stopped him from sending text after text. There is such a long way to go until we get to the legal process of ending our marriage, and I was trying to avoid antagonising him as much as possible. Especially because we do have a daughter and I would like for us to be able to co-parent her in a way that will be beneficial for her.
However these six weeks have taught me that he has no interest in parenting, let alone in a healthy manner. I’m actually beginning to believe that all he cares about is ensuring that I don’t have the time and space to heal and move on. I wish I could understand why he constantly sends me texts when he left me to be with his girlfriend. A lot of the things he does don’t make sense to me, and it’s such a relief to know that it’s no longer my responsibility to try to figure him out. I’ve done that for 20 years and it almost drove me insane, literally!! BLOCKED!!!
So yes, I woke up today and felt that dull pain. It’s called grief and it’s ok to feel it. The trick is to not get stuck there. I have let it out through writing this story and guess what? I already feel so much better. I will now worship and pray before I get started on my day. I know it will be a good one because I am free!!