*Trigger warning - abuse & suicide
November 2022
I've been packing for a few hours by the time John, Nathan's dad, arrives to fetch him.
It's taken longer than expected. I'm unshowered and I've missed breakfast going on passed no lunch now.
I have, of course, cleaned the flat methodically as a part of our departure again. Perhaps I enjoy cleaning too much and am a bit too methodical about it.
Or perhaps I don't really want to leave so soon.
Part of The Accidental Theory: A journey to freedom
Read from the beginning >>
I'm nearly done with packing when John appears in the doorway unexpectedly.
He walks in and looks around casually, telling me that Harry is waiting outside as well. I don't want to keep Harry waiting. I look around the room, a little flustered, pointing out Nathan's stuff already packed and separated neatly against a wall.
John picks up a small backpack, glances around at the rest, and asks if what he's holding is the last of Nathan's things to take to his other home. He picks up the never used anyway skate helmet I point out and carries it out the front door with the backpack.
He ignores the rest of our belongings in full.
The subtle power plays and passive aggression have been going on forever and I no longer react to the behaviour.
If you are in contact with a high conflict personality, who uses these tactics, the most productive thing you can do is heal your own trauma so that you no longer react when provoked.
Accepting that you don't have the ability to control anything or anyone outside of yourself, focusing entirely on your own reactions and healing or learning to manage them is the only way you will find peace if you are unable to go "no-contact".
Labeling one person as the "abuser" and one person as the "victim" is also unhelpful and inaccurate.
Abusive relationships are chosen by both parties involved because of exposure to family dysfunction as children.
People will be attracted to these relationships in an unconscious effort to heal their childhood family dysfunction by re-enacting it. Over and over again.
The role of "abuser" and "victim" will also rotate in cycles as the "abuser" love bombs the "victim" when the "victim" has moments of trying to escape the situation and may become aggressive in their attempts.
Although one person will use tactics to maintain power and control in full, assigning blame or labeling people is often detrimental for the "victim", who needs to recover from their own trauma that has resulted in Codependence.
The only way to recover from anything or change the things that aren't working for you is to focus completely on yourself.
If a person with codependent reactions does not do this, because they assign blame in full to another person, they will probably pick the same "relationship" with a different person, even if they do get out of a currently "abusive" relationship.
So called "abusers" use emotional and psychological tactics to intentionally wear their "victims" down, make them easy to manipulate and maintain their power and control.
You are not "disordered" or crazy. If you have been exposed to mental and psychological abuse you will have PTSD and C-PTSD. The reactions of these types of trauma are the same reactions listed as many psychological disorders.
Due to misdirection by the medical fraternity for financial gain, people in dangerous situations are being misdiagnosed, medicated and sent back home to situations that are harming them further or killing them.
And children are being removed from loving parents and placed in unhealthy or dangerous environments.
This is a very common situation. Often hidden because of outdated beliefs and values regarding gender roles and stereotyping.
The ratio between men and women who have reported being in mentally or emotionally abusive relationships is roughly the same.
It is very hard to prove and there is not much education on this type of violence. Especially if there is covert narcissim in play. This type of abuse is very difficult to spot and these personalities are expert liars and manipulators.
There is, subsequently, little empathy or support for people.
Ongoing exposure to this type of abuse results in mental health challenges, or psychosis or, at times, suicide.
Education about what mental and emotional abuse consists of, the behaviours and reactions associated with both the abusive behaviour and the result of being exposed to it, and correct procedure to spot this type of cycle and manage it properly, by courts, police officers and private professionals, is vital.
This type of abuse is surprisingly common.
I smile as John leaves and carry on packing the last few items.
It'll be at least four trips to get all of this down to Harry's waiting minivan and I don't want to bother Harry to help. There's a narrow flight of steel stairs from the front yard, leading up to the apartment, and Harry's not as young as I still like to think I am.
It seems rude to ask.
I take the first load down, greet Harry warmly and shake my head when he asks if I need help with the remaining belongings. We start chatting and packing the car together.
While we're doing this, Harry looks up at John standing at the back of his big black Mercedes Benz. As we both watch him for a moment, John slowly puts the one-hand load he carried down into the boot of the car.
The moment suddenly feels stilted, incongruous and awkward. Once-upon-a-life-ago, I would've smoothed things out to hold up the pretense, in embarrassment and shame.
But, these days, I no longer try to smooth things out to detract from what is really happening.
Harry looks at me with a bit of confusion. He stares at me curiously. I make direct eye contact and smile wryly but casually carry on packing the car with him.
And Harry suddenly sees it.
I see understanding dawn as his expression changes and our conversation stops in full. A kind of knowing replaces the surprise in his eyes, as they clear, and his focus narrows into mine even more directly with a sober passing glance.
He says nothing more as he continues to pack the car and I turn to bolt back up the stairs, slightly breathless and sweating now, for the last load or two.
I smile and wave at Nathan as I head off because I see him watching me uncertainly.
He's hovering between the Mercedes and Harry's minivan, watching us work, clearly uncomfortable about not helping. Nathan's glance moves uncertainly from his dad back to us. But John now has his back completely turned on the obvious activity, nonchalantly looking at the entrance of the horse paddocks.
Nathan stands between us, his head turning left and right, as though he's checking to cross a road. And, even knowing what my denial may result in by me not validating the truth of the sham we're all awkwardly participating in, I only smile.
I don't say a word.
I've learned a reaction will cause retaliation of some sort in the future, you see, and it hardly seems worth the trouble these days. I also worry about Nathan being exposed to more childish not so healthy adult bullshit.
Nathan may get stuck in the middle of things and he needs peace and harmony more than anything. Especially after these last years. But Nathan still is stuck in the middle again anyway.
Because some things don't change. Or the chance of them changing is around 3%. Yes. Of course I did some research.
Information is power, after all.
I can see Nathan wants to help carry things but is afraid to say anything. I smile, wave and tell him to have fun in the happiest voice I can muster as I head back up the stairs for the next load.
While I'm upstairs grabbing the next round, however, Nathan appears at the front door and offers to help. I beam at him. I know it's not always easy to step up and do what you believe is the right thing. And it's even harder when it's a primary caregiver that you disagree with.
It took me fifty-odd years to say no to some of the shit my family was pulling that didn't resonate with the way I prefer to walk in the world.
I left it so long that it made me pretty sick, in fact.
Nathan waves goodbye happily as the Mercedes drives out the front gates. It's profound to see, when you're able to observe with some objectivity, the difference in human beings when their actions align with their core values and when they don't.
Nathan has transformed, from a frightened boy, to a confident smiling young man with just one decision. And by following through with action, despite his fear.
I checked with Nathan and he confirmed his father suggested he come up and help me carry.
It's quite astounding, if you take the time to be curious, just how much we actually create our own
realitystories from what we perceive to be true and not necessarily from any kind of "truth".I decided to leave this in as an example. I have a far better understanding of our reality now. Still.
As Harry and I head onto the open road he mentions, with some distaste, what he's just witnessed. I shrug and say it's always been that way and it is what it is. Harry shares his opinion about this and I laugh out loud.
These days, because I've taken the time to research and understand this particular set of trauma reactions, the behavior no longer bothers me much. It's also obvious now, with my physical appearance, glaring financial struggles and the stark contrast between homes, that there's something weird going on here.
I hid it well once-upon-a-miserable-life-ago but my honesty about the situation has led me here.
It's taken four years of being ignored, told I'm a liar and called crazy, but by standing in my truth and refusing to back down despite everything that came at, or left, me..
a "dirty laundry little" secret has become all too visible.
And my recovery, sense of humour and general joy for, and despite, the adventure I'm on is more than enough to make people curious. Some people, anyway. Those that aren't afraid of quite so many things.
Many people still avoid it and deny my reality by doing so. Don't get me wrong. Some people see it but don't want to see it, so they simply ignore what's right in front of them. Still.
I see it in their eyes. Their discomfort. Their dis-ease. They can see something isn't right. They even know what it is. Some of them. But, often, people are too scared to acknowledge more than this. They see it briefly...
and then pretend they haven't seen anything at all.
Its safer for them, I guess. Hell... I still pretend it's not happening some days. Or hope that things have changed.
Until the next time something happens to remind me that some things only have a 3% chance of changing.
I share the past few years with Harry. A natural disclosure after his shock at wtf just happened at the farm.
I move on to my experience of our courts and police force after that and he listens in mildly stunned silence. We all know shit like this happens. Of course we do. It's just that we rarely hear it from someone it's happened to in person.
I find this strange, these days, after hearing so many stories from so many people it's happened to in person.
It's hardly uncommon, you know.
It's just not spoken about that often because it makes people uncomfortable. And when people are scared they react badly. And, mostly "they" are right about the messenger being shot. It's far easier to silence a someone than it is to deal with a silent, but deadly, epidemic.
Harry sits through the disclosure of what's happening in our judicial system and police force silently. Every now and then he looks sideways at me and shakes his head sadly.
All he says, when I'm done, is...
"You're an amazing person and you're a very strong woman."
I'm not so sure I am. I also made a right mess of things before I knew when and how to fight. But I was angry and I was outraged. I was deeply in love and I was trying to protect my son. And I am educated and I am resilient. And I am resourceful.
I guess the combination of these things turned me into enough of a crazy bitch for them to listen a bit at the end. It was too late by then anyway, though.
It's also taken me almost three years to recover from the lengths I had to go to, to finally receive that one small admission, from the Department of Social Development, that something not so good maybe happened around here.
And what good has it done us anyway?
*crickets
Yet I was still lucky in many ways.
I've said this often as I've told parts of this story to people over the years and I'll say it again now...
If you're not fortunate enough to be privileged, educated, preferably self employed because time to wait, financially a bit okay...
and if you can't afford a shit hot, shit expensive attorney..
and you are still living in an environment in a relationship like this...
with the current system in place, and the current training and resultant standard practice because of it...
you will probably never be able to extricate yourself from anything at all.
Never.
It is kind of Harry to say this of me. But I'll say this again as well...
I'm not a special or unique snowflake. ― Chuck Palahniuk, Fight Club
Every human being in recovery is a warrior. Every human being trying to rebuild their lives, and themselves, after a toxic relationship is fucking strong.
And you wouldn't quite believe how many people reached out privately after I began to share honestly, by the way. People DM'd me that I never expected to, to share their own secrets with me. People I never would've guessed were having any difficulties at all.
A silent epidemic.
Yet hardly anybody seems to be educated on how all of this actually "works".
Not even the authorities and professionals who are supposed to be helping people.
Harry also adds that I'm looking far better physically than I was when he picked me up from Somerset West.
"I can say now that you looked... " his voice trails off as I interrupt him to agree I was super stressed out. "You look very different now." He smiles. "More relaxed and healthier."
I can tell he wants to say attractive but he's too old fashioned and respectful to step over any invisible boundaries. His sensitivity makes me feel safe.
After I mention my recovery from addiction as well, because it's an important part of the events I've been sharing, Harry opens up too. He shares about the struggles with addiction of someone close to him. And the impact it's had on his life. We talk non-stop until we arrive at the three-month summer-long stay.
Harry helps me offload the car and heads off. His hand waves out the window, through the dust, as he drives off down the now dirt road.
I'm that far away from the city and town life now. Dirt roads. No streetlights. Mountains circling a small village, next to what must be the most pristine beach I have ever visited firsthand in the Western Cape.
Standing next to the collection of what is left of my once overly responsible life, I look around me in awe.
I take a deep breath in and sigh it out audibly.
I am here.
Hardened Dreamer
Mother
Peaceful Warrior
Determined Dancer
and Stargazer
still...
Beyond fear is freedom
And there is nothing to be afraid of.
To Life, with Love... and always for Truth!
Nicky Dee