Hoovering

What was it like when it finally ended?

I cried all the time. I'd be doing something, like loading clothes into the machine and suddenly I was sobbing into the laundry pile, remembering that his family hated me now.
I'd wake every night and actually sob, out loud, into the empty darkness.
I stopped eating and lost half a stone - try as I might, I've never found a diet quite like heartbreak.

I cried in the bath. I cried at night on the sofa. I cried in my sisters arms in the middle of Sainsbury's.

I'd cry at work in meetings when I caught sight of a wedding band or engagement ring on a colleagues hand. I'd cry as I cycled to and from work. I cried everywhere and all the time.

This sudden sharp grief took me by surprise. I was devastated to lose, not only him, but the ideals I had tenuously held, of 'family' and 'team'. Even now I can pinpoint my grief right there on that spot in my centre, that had wanted a family, that had wanted to be included.
I had loved his parents and his daughter and felt their loss as an ache of something I would never be included in again. No more riotous trips to the Hockey down the bay, where we chugged beer and hotdogs and his mum bought us all tickets to win 'the shirt off his back', no more would my son be surrounded by Lee's nephews and nieces, screaming in delight as the players broke into a brawl, wildly brandishing his foam finger above his head. All of it was gone, fading into silence.

There is a marketing strategy now, seemingly everywhere, that, like all marketing strategies, sucks the blood out of an idea until there is no more life in it. The idea of 'self care' probably has a few more miles to go until we are either bored with the concept or it looses all meaning; like saying a word over and over until it becomes senseless, hollow somehow.
You can buy 'self care' items on amazon; boxes of scented candles and bath bombs to stem your anxiety or grief. Self care manicure? Self care lipstick! Almost as if looking after your fragile mental state could be as simple as buying a blanket and watching Netflix one weekend. Your house, of course, would be spotless, you would look immaculate as you do your self care routine; cosied up cutely in a onesie or your activewear, not a hair out of place.  Hyggeing the crap out of life in an infinitely instagrammable picture of 'wellbeing'.

The truth about self care is its ugly, and mundane. Its doing practical things for yourself, like getting in the shower, doing the dishes or opening your emails even when they make you feel anxious and lost. Self care is feeling worthless or unworthy and doing the nice or practical stuff anyway.
So you gained a few lb's, but you don't punish yourself by eating like crap all the next day/week. You didn't get the job, pass the exam or win a prize for being best at relationships, doesn't mean you get to slope off to bed without brushing your teeth. Your car needs tax and MoT but the anxiety it brings means that you can't bring yourself to speak to anyone to ask them for help, let alone someone at a garage, but you do it, because you are the adult. You are your own parent.
My own self care, before self care was invented, was pretty much made up of allowing myself to feel.

I sat with the pain and allowed it to roll around me and never once pushed it away.
I'm not sure I've ever been as nice to myself, not in a bath bombs and candles kind of way, although there were a lot of baths involved because thats where I liked crying the most, but in an accepting of the feeling kind of way. I'd never done that before.

'It's ok to feel sad' my sister said 'you don't need to do anything about it'

And I didn't. I didn't push it away or try to numb the pain of it. Even though I was still wracked with the idea I was mentally unfit to be a parent, and that maybe I was the abusive one...

'No, no, NO!' came my sisters reply 'He was just trying to make to feel like shit, you are none of those things'

Gradually the voice of the people who loved me became louder and his voice diminished. I started to actually do those nice, instagrammable things, like buy flowers or cook up a batch of bone broth. I went out for sushi one night, another night I went to a gig on my own, running in to a group of friends I hadn't seen for months.

But every now and then Lee would text me. Or show up at my door with something that belonged to me. One time it was my house key he'd taped to the first card I ever sent him.

My sister and I agreed it was creepy as fuck, but that evening still found me crying again on my sofa, feeling his loss more keenly.

He did it all the time, just showing up at my door looking sad and lost.

'He needs to leave you alone Shiv. It's not fair him doing this all the time.'

And I knew it, but seeing him was all I could think about, every single day. It was as if he knew how long to leave it, how long before I started feeling alright again.

That place, of being deeply sad was one of the best times. It's not because I am a morbid depressive. Not entirely. But because I was the nicest I have ever been to myself, before or since.
I have never been so kind, never comforted myself in quite the same way, never needed to be as broken down as I was then. I just let myself be.

The gaping space he left, the feeling that I was the awful abusive one, the terrible parent who could not cope, the failure at life in general was terrifying. But In kindness I found my solace. I began to cry less at night. I began to sleep through. I began to enjoy the calm quiet of just me and my son again. I thought of my AM/FM radio often and bought a battery for it, listening to distant cricket matches and shipping forecasts, enjoying the 'click' of silence when I turned it off.



But in late May he just so happened to be driving down my street. Walking to pick up my son  saw him as he pulled up his car and got out.
'you look so good' he said
In his embrace I felt solid again. His lips meeting mine were like molten laver.

Static

It was like switching off an old radio. One of those ones with the volume dial that dims it's static into silence and finishes with a satisfying 'click'.

The noise that had been immense was suddenly gone. The spring light took on a golden glow and summer made an early appearance. How beautiful it all was in those days that tasted like the rosewater lattes I'd buy on the way home from work.

Our 'family' holiday. What a jumble of awful events that had been. Lee pitching himself against my 6 year old who acted out one too many times for his liking. Lee drinking himself into oblivion every night to be the scowling presence at the beach the next day. Lee.
He thought he'd got away with it; all that sourness. In turns he could be the sandcastle building, trench digging, milkshake racing, fun lover. The one who had money for all the rides and all the gum-ball machines. Even when I said enough.
Interspersing his over eager attempts were the empty silences. At one point, on a coach tour around a volcano, with him sat staring out of a window a seat away from us both, I turned to him;
'Lee, come on now, lets sort this out'.
And he was so grateful, 'Thank you for reaching out to me, I just didn't know how. I'm so glad I've got a girlfriend who wants to do that...'
But it was like trying to save a drowning man. One who, once dragged out, jumped right back in the sea.

Another time he was berating me for not being stern enough with my tired son. 'I get that you were pissed off with his behaviour Lee, but why are you angry with me about it?' I asked.
He slunk off somewhere without answering, to find a beer, and I'd picked my son up and held him in a crowded market square as the music blared. He was having a great time.
Lee and I resolved things that evening, only for him to stop talking to me all the next day.

I have photos of us all. My face is impassive in most. I remember them being taken and the feeling of not knowing why or what this silence was made of, but that it was as sharp and treacherous as the volcanic rocks at our feet.

The first day of our holiday had been warm, but then it got colder. March wasn't the right time, it seemed, to come to Lanzarote, and we divided our days between coach tours and the hire car, exploring the island. Black sand and vivid green life. Fire and water. Terrible wine from the vineyards. Gift shops and sandcastles. This is what I remember.





When we came home Lee was momentarily appeased. We'd been away, the pressure was off till the next time.
But it wasn't long before he'd wanted to start the whole process again. I remember telling him, one night after we'd just come home, that I was happy to go away again somewhere, maybe even as soon as Easter, but that I'd never go away without my son again. As long as he was young enough or willing enough to come on family holidays with me then that's what we'd do.
This didn't go down well. An argument ensued that ended with his muttering and sullen silences. But I didn't care as much any more. Even though it circled, still, above my head I knew that I wouldn't change my mind.


...days later: 'I was just surprised was all baby, when you said never. I felt like you were just ruling it out.'
'that's right. I'll never leave him out of a holiday again.' I said. Going away for a weekend was one thing. But I wouldn't be going on a week long trip without him. My resources would be spent on my family.


He was determined to unsettle me somehow I think now. He tried a different tack and when, after much prodding and hints dropped I still hadn't uploaded all the photos of our holiday onto Facebook he started to pout.
He couldn't figure it out, why haven't you put them up yet? He asked. I'd had the good camera - the one with a memory card that wasn't attached to a phone. I was the keeper of all the evidence of our 'good time'.
He was full of it, everything we had seen and done, how great a time we'd had, regaling people with tales of the tragically hilarious evening entertainment; one night; a man dressed up as a very drunk Amy Winehouse, miming to 'Rehab'.
I sent him all the images on messenger, my days suddenly full of supply teaching, having decided that the creative route to making money wasn't going to cut it forever.


The long term idea had been moving in together. While running my own business worked in terms of tax credits and childcare, it would never have paid my half of the rent. Tax credits would be gone once we were cohabiting, so back to teaching I went, quite liking the change in my fortunes, though not entirely my son's reaction to breakfast and afterschool clubs.
I began supply right before we went away, signing up to a couple of agencies that then proceeded to call me for work almost every day. One of them I signed up to because of a job I'd seen advertised. They never tell you where the school is in case you go directly to that school and lose them their finders fee, but having applied I didn't hear anything at all.




Right before they offered me a long term, part time position, just before the Easter holidays, tired out with working and the constant drip, drip of his dissatisfaction, I told Lee I needed a break.
As he stood in my hall, upset with me for not publicising my enjoyment of out time away I realised with absolute clarity that I would never, NEVER, make this man happy. Not ever.
There would always be something he wasn't happy with, there would always be a new target to strive for, some ineffable goal with moveable posts. He wanted me to fail.


It wasn't a new argument this, 'when will you put it on Facebook' argument. He was annoyed that there weren't many photos of us together on the regular.' Look', I pointed out, 'Look around this house.' There were photos of us everywhere. 'How many photos of me and you do you have in your house?' The answer was none.
It seemed that the image he was projecting was more important than the reality. What everyone else saw and thought and 'liked' or commented on seemed to be his reality.


And so I told him, after his latest, 'I find it strange that you wouldn't want to celebrate the time we've had, almost like you're embarrassed of me' schpiel, that I needed some time to think about things. Three days. I needed Three days.


Click


All that had roared in my ears. All the pressure. All the static of a million different interpretations of what his weighted silences might mean. They grew quieter and quieter still, receeding into the dwindling distance until, click, and silence.


I'd three trial days at the school that week. I had ensured I had childcare, got myself to work and got on with my job in the silence that surrounded me.
My classes were noisy, chaotic and hard to crack. All of it was easier than negotiating with him.


Saturday morning came, and with it a push for a resolution from Lee. I wanted him to wait until my son was in bed. Later I said.

Within thirty minutes he was in my house. 'I'm not giving up on you baby. It's too much to lose. Its too important to me. You both are'

How did it happen? That he was suddenly in my arms and everything was ok again? But I didn't want that. I did not want that at all.

He left, thinking all was fine. He'd be back later he said.

But I messaged him, 'Lee, I'm not sure this is what I wanted , I'd asked you to wait. Im not certain anymore.'

And then later, I was trying to explain that I wasn't happy, that I didn't think I could go on and suddenly he was as vicious and frightening as a snake. His eyes, his mouth, full of hatred, seething and verbally tearing strips off me.

'I know what you are!' he shouted 'You are a controlling and manipulative, evil bitch. For three days you've left me hanging while I wondered and waited. Today you have lifted me up and shattered me down, twice.
'I've been writing about this bullshit you've been pulling all day and I can see you now. FUCK OFF JUST FUCK OFF, You are JUST like SUE! you fucking bitch'

And he drove off in his car with me in a panic running along side pleading with him not to go.
He immediately blocked me on all the social media sites he could, he got all of his friends, all of his family to block and delete me within minutes.

And he would not answer his phone. I was sick. Sick. Because I could see it too. I had left him alone for three days. I had made it up with him that morning only to change my mind. What sort of person was I? It was ME who was the evil, manipulative one... and for him to compare me to his abusive ex, the one who he'd told me was one of the worst cases of domestic violence seen by his counsellor at the time.
In a panic I rang my friend, I rang my sister, I rang and rang him.

'Shiv, just sit tight. I'm coming to get you in the morning'

He texted me to fuck off and leave him alone. I apologised, the words tumbling out of my trembling fingers. I'm so sorry, I'm so sorry.... Please talk to me Lee.

And he did. And he said sorry for saying I was like his ex. He hadn't meant it. and then he was round at my house again and we were drinking and I was sobbing and then we were in bed. And then it was morning, Easter sunday.
He made a treasure hunt for my son of all his Easter eggs as I lay, nursing a headache in bed.

'I feel a bit silly now, for getting my family to block you' he said.

He left in a text, having come round at midnight with a couple of bottles of wine inside him and one in his bag.

And then my friend arrived. 'We've made it up', I told her. 'I don't need to come'.

 'I don't care' she said 'You're still coming with me.'

I was ashamed of myself. For having a hangover. For breaking up with Lee. For letting him back in.
It should be over. It should STILL be over. I shouldn't have called him or pleaded with him. I should have gone to bed.

But it's a funny thing, when you are somewhere that people really see you. They really see you, not the one that keeps on fucking up, but the real one inside. They both knew that it was over and that it needed to stay that way.

And then it was over. I called him and told him. 'I can't see you any more Lee. It's really over this time.'

And for three months it really was.

False Archetype

Villains don't have twirly moustaches and tie their victims to railway tracks.
Victims aren't weak, sappy types, with a seeming lack of bones in their limbs with which to fight or run away.
But I have lain out the tarot deck of these unconscious archetypes so many times.
Here is the Queen of cups, gazing into her chalice; emotional, reflective, empathic.
Here are the lovers: their destiny entwined, whilst the air of communication moves between them their embrace is intimate, supportive.
And here is the prince of swords; the villain of our piece. See the cruel tilt of his lips, the sword drawn back as if to attack. Or, in another deck, he is the faceless master of puppets, driving those lost souls beneath him to push his chariot on.

But here the roles are easily defined, the archetypes play their one dimensional parts out of context of one another. My tarot reading is flawed. I didn't look beyond the face value of the cards, I didn't see  them in relation to one another.

The truth is a villain never looks the part, that is how he is so successful, so villainous. He strides onto the scene wearing a cape! He is Batman! He fights crime! Just as Lee dealt in the petty and not so petty criminals of his own particular Gotham, so too, did he respond to calls on his batphone, springing in to action at a moments notice. He was defender of abused children and battered wives. He knew exactly what the dynamics were with my son's father, he'd seen it so many times in his career. "he's such a narcissist" he said. It was the first time I'd heard the term. Lee was my hero, slaying all the jokers of my past. That is the truth I chose to believe anyway.

As for the victims, the truth is that they are often the strong, empathic, successful type. The kind of person you know you could call in a crisis, who would know exactly what to do. Maybe she is your bright and hilarious friend, maybe she is your sister who you secretly think is much nicer than you, maybe she is the woman in the playground who seems to have it all together. Maybe she is you.
The real truth is it could be any of us. Because if you think that a victim is 'weak and stupid' you won't see it coming. 'It couldn't happen to me,' you think, 'I am not weak or stupid.'

And you'd be right. But you'd also be horribly wrong.

Perhaps if we stopped judging ourselves and looked at the facts, the reality we lived in, rather than our narrow assumptions, we could save ourselves sooner.
'I am not weak or stupid, but this is happening and I want it to stop.'
Change the definition of a word and you change the limits of what it can mean: victim or villain can suddenly be anyone. Not the melodrama played out in flickering black and white films, but the real, everyday people around us.

Change the limits and suddenly victim can become hero. In the end, the only person who can save you is yourself.

When I came off citalopram for the second time I was ready; prepared for the fall out this time.
I'd put counselling sessions in place so that at least there would be someone to talk to this time and actually it was the most logical thing to do, in spite of me doing it for reasons not entirely of my own volition. Coming off the drugs meant that there was nothing softening the blow between me and the issues I needed to look at.

Every time I've had counselling I've started out by saying, 'Yeah, things were pretty bad but I'm actually fine now' only to be a snot filled mess by the end.
And also I've learned that you go in, talking about the recent mess you have found yourself in: Bad relationship, difficult job, whatever, and end up talking about the deep seated root of an issue that happened in childhood.
Thats how it was for me anyway.

I didn't know I was in abusive relationship at the time (which seems amazing now, how did I NOT know?!) so I didn't really talk about Lee. I started talking about my son's Dad and the difficulties there, the postnatal depression which had gone undiagnosed and the anxiety that still stalked me through the nights. Worse of late.
I didn't talk about my herpes diagnosis or the awful fights with Lee. I didn't tell her about how ill I'd been or that I was drinking way more than I should have been. I didn't tell her about the awful awkward silences that stretched out from Lee making him an impenetrable wall of righteousness. How can you verbalise something when you don't know that its even a thing. This was all just background noise, or as I've heard it described recently, 'the water I swam in'.

I started counselling just before Christmas and was vaguely unsurprised given the opening of old wounds and the lack of serotonin buzzing through my veins that everything, and I mean everything, made me cry.
I'd just weep for no reason, suddenly I seemed so fragile. I thought at the time it was an adjustment period, getting used to life after drugs. Lee supported this theory (of course) and told me that when he stopped doing heroine or crack or whatever it was that he'd used to cope with the reality of being his asshole self, that he used to drive home from work, pull up in a particular lay-by or side street, and cry his eyes out. Cry Baby Lane, he called it.
They've always got a story, haven't they? You are coming off anti depressants, Oh, well thats nothing, I gave up crack cocaine and still went to work. You are feeling a little overwhelmed by being a parent, well, they remember a time when all they could afford was beans and potatoes, for years... yes but thats probably because you were buying drugs with the housekeeping money.

I visited a good friend over Christmas, I hardly ever get to see her and when I do she is always full of warmth and kindness. But occasionally, very rarely, she will say something that pushes my buttons.

We had been there a little while and, having had lunch, we were sitting round the kitchen table just chatting and my son wanted me to play hide and seek with him. Honestly I just wanted to sit down and drink my tea and have a grown up conversation.

'you should have had more children,' she said, almost off hand 'he'd have someone to play with then'.

My immediate response was to make excuses, 'well, you know, I had to leave my son's father, you know what that was like and ... well, Lee didn't want more kids... the time as never right...you know...' my voice trailed off and I left fairly soon after.

But her words... they ate at me and ate at me. Everything it was connected to whispering in my ears. I'd wanted a family. I'd wanted a partner. I'd not wanted my son to be an only child, I'd not wanted to skirt around the edges of this family unit called 'normal' and feel like the outsider. I'd not wanted to 'fail' here.
I wanted that image, children adoring their father as he played with them (note, him not me... I'd be drinking tea somewhere), inclusion, connectedness, wholeness. Children all laughing together. I'd wanted that for us.
Or maybe, more accurately, I'd wanted that for myself.

It wasn't till just after Christmas, Whilst visiting another friend with my son again, him playing with her two boys while her partner stoked the wood burning stove that I started crying and could not stop.

The children had been playing board games on the carpet and it hit me; I'd never have this, I'd never have this 'perfect family unit' thing that I'd been wanting, because Lee wasn't interested in it. His relationship with my son at the time was one of distant tolerance, he already was very clear about the no more children thing... and he'd already said I shouldn't be thinking about more children whilst on antidepressants ('can't even cope with one without them?!')

I'd been getting my coat on, trying to get out the door but not really wanting to leave this perfect little scene. My friend, with her back to me was checking the stock in her pantry (she's one of the best cake makers I know). When she turned to say goodbye and give me a hug and I just dissolved in her arms.

Was it grief? Was it a sense of loss? I'm not sure, but I can tell you this now from a million miles away from that day: I am still single. It is still just me and my son. But our home is full of light and laughter, with a heavy dose of parenting thrown into the mix. I don't feel like I've got it wrong by not having more children or a partner to share it all with. Instead it's just very peaceful.
The other evening we'd had dinner and I'd fallen asleep on the sofa watching cartoons. As I blearily awoke he said 'I like it like this, when it's just us'.
They don't count how many siblings they do or don't or should have. Sometimes, like that time, all you have to do is be there with them and thats enough.

I promise, I will tell you more about the good things, and there are so so many. But I'll tell you all this  first, until it is done.

On the sofa that I'd been steered me to, back in another world, my friend tried to get me to speak.
I'm terrible, once I start, for being able to reign it back in. I could cry and cry about the world, everything becomes a melodrama (cue the heroine-throwing-her-limp-arm-across-her-forehead gif). I told her about the 'you should have had more children' comment. Everyone I've since told has taken a sharp in breath. 'Whatttt?'
And I told her I wished I'd just put that comment in its place at the time for what it was: a bloody stupid thing to say.
But I couldn't explain why, at her house of seeming familial bliss, I was having the shit triggered out of me.
Over the years there have been so many times we have sat, dissecting the contents of an argument or a misunderstanding that she and her other half have had.
Talking about is is just what friends do, and arguing is just what couples do.
The difference between it being toxic or not, I have come to understand, is that he loves her and her boys, he wants all of them, he wants everything that goes with family life, all the good stuff and the not so good, children sicking all over you in the night stuff. He isn't there to make himself look good, it's not about what he could gain as being seen as a 'family man'. But by definition that is exactly what he is. They argue. It doesn't mean anyone is walking out the door.

I think now, if I had said, 'your family is so wonderful and perfect and I just feel like mine is nothing in comparison', she may have started laughing.

After that, she persuaded me to stay another night. I hadn't texted Lee much since getting there, but I did tell him that I was feeling a little low and that I was going to stay another night.
His responses were kind of jovial at first, but turned hostile very quickly when I couldn't really say what was wrong. He was angry, I couldn't figure out why

'what's the matter?'

'I'm just trying to understand what is wrong with you'

Eventually he rang me, his hostility building until he was screeching down the phone...

'EVERYTIME YOU GO TO YOUR FRIENDS HOUSE YOU HAVE SOME SORT OF BREAKDOWN. STOP CONTACTING ME UNTIL YOU STOP HAVING FUCKING EMOTIONAL CRISES'

I would love to say that I didn't contact him ever again. That would have been a great ending.
'I didn't contact you because you ARE my emotional crisis. Asshole.'

My friend would have loved it too, 'Shiv, I hate seeing you like this, he's not being supportive, he's making it about him, always. Every time I see you there's something weighing on you. This is too much.'

But we'd recently booked a holiday I argued, what will I do? I knew at that time that I had to end things for my own sanity, but not how.
The holiday I'd saved for had been one I'd been meaning to take for years. At one glorious point I'd almost booked it for just my son and I. Just the two of us, just like I'd wanted to when I'd left his dad, penniless.
With all the money kicking around in the back of my cutlery draw again, I know, it just seemed like the least obvious place to leave a large sum of cash should I be burgled, I wanted to actually have some time away, enjoying the sun and just hanging out with my son. Just us.

But Lee had pressured me, texted, emailed, called me until I'd looked at holidays and booked it for all three of us.
I remember sitting next to him on the night we booked on line and asking him, 'don't you want to read the description of the hotel? I sent you loads of options Lee, which one did you like best?'
He hadn't looked at any of them, he'd left it down to me for once he said. now can we just book it?!
I'd also wanted to book it for later in the year, because I could back then, not being in full time work, and had wanted to go when it was warmer, but Lee needed to take his annual leave before the end of March so we'd found a cheap deal and pressed 'reserve holiday'.

I think I got to Monday afternoon before I cracked and text him, saying that after what he'd said on the phone he clearly wasn't happy in the relationship and that we should sort out the holiday.

When I think about that now I realise that I was as capable of manipulating the situation as he. I passed him the reigns every time. Every time I thought I was in danger of being seen as crazy or unstable or horrible for ending it, I made it about him.
'You are obviously not happy...'

I can see me lying down on the tracks, passing him the rope. "be my villain" I'm saying, "so that I don't have to be the villain here".
If I could, I would sit down next to myself in the coffee shop that I was texting him from and say, 'Stop. Stop what you are doing and be really honest. You are not happy. You.'
And I'd tell myself that I wasn't bad for wanting to end it, but by sidestepping what had to be done and handing him back control I was certainly not being the hero.

But that of course is the victim-blaming part of myself. The one who would stop me speaking entirely for the shame of it. "you were weak and stupid" she'd think, when in reality we need so much compassion for ourselves to face down these things, not tough love.

I was given a book, shortly after my son was born, called Why Love Matters. In it the author explains that babies don't become strong, secure, well adjusted children by being left to cry it out. They can't physically toughen up or learn to cope alone. We have to fill up their well of need first until it overflows. We have to teach them how to calm down, take risks, self sooth and become secure by being their security; by being there and loving them.

Word to the wise, never give a new mother a book like this. Or that awful Gina Ford book... All the 'should' and 'should not's' of parenting can make a woman spiral into madness. Just saying.

But as for the love part, I think we need to be able to look at it all and say, 'It's ok. I've still got you', and fill up our own well of need till it overflows.

That day, as I text him after work, I was afraid. In the end the abuser doesn't have to work so hard because they have trained you to do the work for them. You have internalised all their negative reinforcements, they have conditioned you to react in fear and ignore your intuition. They isolate you from yourself.
Lee had been working so hard to isolate me from my gorgeous, hilarious friend. She is the person I once danced up and down Walcott street in Bath for five hours with. Back in my mega hippy days I'd been wearing Dr Marten sandals - my big toe has never regained its full feeling from dancing so hard on those airsoles.
She is the one I had traveled with to Egypt. Once, on a bleary eyed Al-Italia flight into Cairo, she mistook the bald head of the man sitting in front of us for a Panettone. The air hostess was bringing round landing cards as my friend was dozing softly - as the hostess approached and stood to the side of us, cards in hand, she opened her eyes and must have seen this slightly bronzed, moley head peeking over the top of the seat in front and jumped to a most wonderful conclusion: "they're bringing us cake!'.
Quick as a whip shed flipped both of our trays down and sing-songed 'Ready!' to the astonished air hostess, who slowly handed over the cards and asked if we needed a pen.


She is the person who, when she had her babies and couldn't go out of her tiny flat, microwaved highball glasses of mulled wine for us both and laughed at me as I manoeuvred every piece of the jigsaw into place with a self satisfied double tap. She is one of the few people that will make me laugh like a drain for no reason, maybe some tiny little exaggerated movement that will have us bent over and weak. And she is one of those people everyone loves. Really EVERYONE.

'I don't thing Lee likes her very much' I said to my sister on the phone
'Heh? What? How can he not? Everyone likes her!'

His efforts to undermine my friendship kept on falling into a blank void; I simply refused to acknowledge him. Every time he passed some comment, or implied I should be spending time with him instead, I parried so that it flew straight past me into nothing. But my seeming obliviousness was making him more and more irate. He was right; every time I saw her there was some kind of emotional crises, but it was coming from him, not me.

'I appear to have been dumped.' came his cool reply 'you will need to sort out the holiday and pay me back for my share'.

And I heard my friends words in my head 'Shiv, fuck the money. The money doesn't matter'.

But I couldn't let it go.
With the holiday booked in his name I couldn't see a way out. And so we went.

Holiday

A few weeks after we met, Lee's parents came back from traveling around Cuba. I have always wanted to go there, ever since I heard the Nat King Cole song of the same name. The untouchedness of it, the warm paradise of it, the old cars and 40's style values of it. Or maybe, actually, I just liked singing the song.

I didn't realise that if I said this idly to Lee he would spring in to action as fast or with as much determination as he did. But just a couple of weeks after Christmas he was in the travel agents, looking for deals.
It would be fair to say actually that he already had been in the travel agents. Just a week after we met he sent me a picture of holiday deals in a window in town. I didn't respond to it. I'd had an awful time with an ex once who pressured and pressured me to go on holiday with him and then was fairly awful once we were away. Never again I'd said. 

So when Lee started talking about a holiday I shied away from it in my head. I couldn't realistically afford it and maybe I really was the flakey dreamer who only wished for things, never actually did them.
I deferred a direct 'no' to instead changing the subject. There was just no way. Not a never, but certainly a not right now.

But for every excuse I could find, he found an answer...
'I'll pay for you so that you just have to pay for your son.' Or, 'you should have a holiday, you need it. I need it...'
and then, more persistently: 'lots of people go away without their children.' 'It's not normal to be so anxious about leaving them...' 'Why don't you want to go on holiday?!'
Gradually the campaign changed tack; from wanting us all to go away together, to just wanting to take me. I could not conceive of leaving my son in this country and flying thousands of miles away. What if something happened? I wouldn't be there to take care of him.

I knew that my thinking was flawed, of course I did; Children don't automatically die once their parent isn't there, but I think now that Lee deliberately tried to extract me from my son, just like everything he tried to strip away that supported or defined me.

His campaign continued with pressure.
Pressure always.
Appealing to my compassion, piling on the guilt, pointing out my flawed thinking, pointing out that my anxiety was ruling my life.

It seemed as if I were preventing him from having the holiday he needed. That I was being obstructive and ridiculous. 'I just want to take you away! Normally people get to know one another before there are children involved... this way we can spend some time on our own, doing just that'.

And what did he actually want? To take me away somewhere so I could relax? To be seen as taking me away?  He certainly made sure to tell everyone that he was taking me away.
But I paid. 'I'm not a princess. I'll pay my own way and then no-one can own me' I thought. But actually, weather I paid my way or not wasn't the point.
The point was that my self worth was so low, any compliment or kindness represented something I needed to pay back, to balance up the books. I always felt I was in deficit.
On an early date in a bar I bought Lee a drink. Standard. He was so 'amazed' he said. 'I've never been bought a drink by a woman.' I think I was actually flattered by that. I mean really, is that all it took?
And of course I liked being seen as that self sufficient person who doesn't leech of others.
But this was how he groomed me; by making mountains out of my good nature and my sense of propriety. No-one had noticed those things before, I wanted to bathe in the light of his recognition.

In theory, a holiday would have been great. But if you are bringing up a child alone, with no maintenance, on a very small income and a debt to pay off, the thought of it is no holiday at all. It is an added stress. What could I have done with that money? Maybe nothing other than to not feel worried that there wasn't enough or that I was spending money I didn't really have.

The pressure was gentle at first; like someone kneeding out a knot in my shoulder. I noticed that there was an area of tension I hadn't been aware of. I'd been carrying it around so long it was just part of my physiology and maybe it felt good to have someone easing out those knots of my tangled thinking.
I felt good admitting to my anxieties and shortcomings; no I didn't have the money, I didn't have the emotional security in myself to leave my son for a week.
But the knots of my anxious mind were slowly being turned into flaws before my very eyes. Actually why didn't I have the money? I worked, what was the problem? Did I need another job? Shouldn't I be chasing my ex for maintenance?
And, while we're on the subject, why couldn't I do what his sister and brother in law had just done and leave my parents in charge for a week?

And then, in March, we were visiting my parents for the weekend. Sitting having a drink with my Mum he brought it up again, Wouldn't it be so nice to go away somewhere, just us, because it's stressful, you know being a single parent isn't it? Such a shame that my son's Dad was such a looser, Hardly any respite there. (Ignoring the fact that my son was at his Dads that weekend).

My Mum, who had seen me at the worst of things with my son's father and had worried and worried and held her tongue even when it broke her to watch me struggle and loose almost everything, agreed that I needed a holiday and volunteered to babysit for the 7 days we would potentially be away.
Right away I was happy that Lee was happy, that he could see I was not actively trying to take away his chance of a break, but an uneasy feeling of no way out began to spread, my excuses diminishing before my eyes...
I couldn't just say 'No' still. I was not that woman back then. He was constant and consistent in his campaign. 'I just want to take you on holiday' 'You need a break' 'I really need a holiday and I don't want to go on my own' 'my job is so stressful if I don't plan something to look forward to soon I'm going to break'.
And the way was acting lately would certainly hint towards how stressed he must be. The growing awkward silences. The text messages that were ever so slightly 'off'. Not so that you could say 'there, look, you said this really shitty thing and I want to know why', but somehow, something in the tone wasn't right. As if there was absence of something without form.
Is that what co-dependency is? That you can sense something is wrong from miles away? You become so attuned, so sensitive, so fearful of rejection or an argument that when the air shifts around you, you are on high alert? Hyper vigilance I think they call it. I was anxious, not angry, about what was coming to me in message form but the way he, in turn, measured the content of my messages was nothing short of insanity.

I've since had interactions where the amount of kisses I put at the end of a message don't become a reason for someone to sulk. Or if I called someone babe, instead of baby, it wasn't the beginning of an argument.  He told me once, 'you only ever call me babe when you're angry with me'. I hadn't even thought about it. Perhaps I should have called him asshole and had done with it.
I have to be honest here, there have been times, during my digital career, I have wondered at the lack of someone's x's at the end of a message. Their sudden absence keenly felt: WHAT HAVE I DONE WRONG?! I'd wonder... DO YOU HATE ME NOW??

I've laughed over an article in the Independent that jovially stated 'ending your texts with a full stop is truly monstrous. We all know this. Grammar be damned, it just doesn't look friendly.' And so Lee's logic seemed reasonable, in a way.
He'd match me x for x always, giving me as much as I gave. Never was his affection given freely or without regard of my perceived investment. To him it was as if it were a transaction, not a tidal swell of admiration and respect that would wash fears and inadequacies smooth as sand. It was measured, metered.
Sometimes now I won't put Xxx or X or even x at the end of a message. It is a small freedom. Even more liberating is the fact that the other person doesn't care. It doesn't mean that we hate each other. It' doesn't mean anything at all. But Lee would monitor it, every little discrepancy; the minutiae of my response. He once pointed out that my 'kissometer was all over the place today, lol..'. but the observation seethed with his passive indigence. How dare I not be consistent in the amount of kisses I wrote at the end of a message. And so I monitored myself and made sure not to let anything slip.


Once we had the go ahead from my mum I tentatively agreed to exactly the opposite of what I wanted and he found a price around; £750 all in. I gaped and backed out right away. There was no way. I couldn't afford it but I kept looking for other, cheaper deals. His heart, however, was set on Cuba, and on punishing me for my non compliance...

'Probably for the best. I can see you heart wasn't in it from the beginning. I just wanted to take you away but the shines gone off it now and I feel a little silly'


I was sorry, I explained, but summer holidays and going away camping and my son's birthday... the cost of everything together... It wasn't feasible.
The truth was at the back of my cutlery draw I had more than enough cash to pay for the holiday, from the Christmas and Spring markets that were my livelihood at the time. But that's just what it was, a livelihood, not pin money. Everything was accounted for, books were done on time and kept up to date, stock was replenished and orders went out. What it amounted to was a very modest income that allowed me to be a full time, single parent, on hand, all the time.

Lee didn't see what I did in the same light as I. At the same time as he started dropping hints that I should come off the Citalopram, he started suggesting I look for a job here, or there.
But you are a trained teacher?! You could get a job like that! Think of all the money you'd have, you'd be dressing in Gucci going to work, lol... gucci though? Nope.
At the spring market he told me I should apply to do the job my business mentor was doing, going around, advising the other sellers on the market, talking about product development and the like.

'But I have a job Lee', I'd said. He sort of smirked. I remembered a conversation we had had early on where he told me he'd been telling his colleague about me, how I ran my own business, made my own money and took handouts from no-one.
I'd corrected him, the business didn't make that much money, though it looked very good from the outside, I still needed tax credits and housing benefit, my business was still growing and actually I had a job, I was a mother.

'Imagine if we combined our income baby, you on a teachers salary, me on my wage, how amazing would that be? Living together would be so much cheaper... all these couple in work don't know how hard it is. They are on (quotes combined salary) while I live off half that.'

'But Lee, It wouldn't be all your money if we lived together. My money would be mine. I don't believe in joint bank accounts, a woman should always have her own funds.'

I saw him scowl.


I capitulated about the holiday. After he sent me the text message about my heart not being in it and didn't speak to me that evening or all the next day I sent him an apology. 'I'm sorry, I just freaked out about the price' I told him. I was surprised when he was pissed off that I'd had my reservations, telling me that I was only coming up with problems, he wanted to find a solution. His solution.

And I can't remember the exact moment I said it, that I'd go, that I'd arrange my Mum to babysit and find the money. I don't remember, but looking back I am not surprised.
There we were in March, just four months in to knowing this man. Already I had fallen, for his charm, his intelligence and wit. He had raised me up every single day, telling me so how much he valued me, how beautiful, intelligent, creative, talented, driven... but already I was teetering on my pedestal as he challenged all the things I valued.
I saw my mental health in stark contrast to the 'normal' he seemed to represent. He was proactive, positive, solutions focused. He wanted to DO stuff, not stay stuck, going nowhere. I was negative, anxious, had no sense of proportion, needed drugs to feel normal, had to negotiate my child free weekends with an unreliable ex who paid me nothing.
He'd challenged my friendships, my livelihood, my faith, the very core of me, he had already given me herpes... Everything, on all levels, was laid bare and vulnerable. Pressure applied, just gently at first, for my own good no doubt.
He saw it as massaging out the kinks in my character. But it no longer felt good to unravel with him. He had me under his thumb and was pushing harder and harder.


Part of me was excited, but it was a terrible excitement that felt like fear. While we were away in West Wales he had dropped hints that the beautiful coral sands of our resort would be the perfect place for someone to propose...
It was as if the most beautiful sword hung over my head. I wanted this. Didn't I? But who was I anyway?
Certainly not the woman I'd thought I was as I'd set up my stall that morning before Christmas. There, when the mild winter air was soft and cool on my face, I'd felt solid and unassailable. But try as I might I couldn't find her anymore, she'd lost all her value and all her voice. Now she was an Echo to his Narcissus.


And what was that holiday like there in paradise? Was it relaxing? Exciting? Beautiful?
It was all those things with an undercurrent of hatred thrown in to curdle its beauty. Right before we had gone on holiday, Lee had broken up with me. for all of 12 hours.
He cried in my kitchen, telling me he'd made the worst mistake of his life and that I was the best thing that had ever happened to him.
Eventually, as we ironed things out, I said I'd go but 'please Lee, don't propose'.

I have a lasting memory of that holiday standing on the beach alone, crying because he wasn't speaking to me, my mouth full of ulcers as a thunderstorm threw its forks down along the coast miles away.
It was too hard not to wonder how my son was doing, it was too hard to maintain this brittle silence that stretched out as storms lay brooding on the horizon.

the first end

When he broke up with me in August it felt like a relief.

I'd been away, working ten hour shifts serving coffee at a festival, with a good friend of mine. It had been exhausting, rain soaked and hilarious. We'd bitched and rolled our eyes at the undeserving hipsters wanting brandy coffees at 1am, we'd clutched each others arms when a very tall and very famous comedian bought one of her brownies, and we'd slept, in damp shifts, as the rain sleeked down, making getting out of the mire of a carpark a team effort.
All in all it was easy, and fun, though exhausting. I remember lying on the ground after we had taken down our tent and laughing about how I'd never been so physically tired in all my life. But for all the effort, it was like gulping down fresh air to be away from Lee.
Groups of marauding friends would stumble by with plastic tankards of cider in hand, giving boozy hugs and falling over, slurring about what they had seen and where they were going to get chips. during the day I'd sat by the main stage as groups of art-shoe wearing parents made barrages with their buggies, keeping the tides of children from disappearing into the crowds, or I'd browse the market stalls, looking at all the cowboy hats, wondering if I should buy one for Lee.

Being as far out in the welsh countryside as it's possible to be before musicians and hipsters alike disintegrate into a pile of ash or actually have to start fending for themselves, reception was pretty bad. And honestly I was happy for it to be that way. All around me were rolling hills, music, laughter and easiness. I knew well enough of the fresh hell waiting for me back at home.

He hadn't wanted me to go of course. Of course, what self respecting control freak would want their girlfriend to go away to a festival for a weekend when she could be spending it with him, away from all the sound and colour that blared in stereo around me.
In May I'd got an excited text message from one of my dearest friends; did I want to work at a festival for three days as a barrista? 'FESTIVAL!!! THE MUSIC SHIV! YES!'
'ohmygodImgonnagetafloweryheaddress....'
We were excited and naive. But mostly excited.

Lee had told me in some of our first exchanges that he had worked the bar at Glastonbury, Latitude and V festival, as part of a charity that raised money for probation services. He'd talked about how he organised the spaces for people every year, building from just a handful of volunteers at first, to more and more as time went on.
It was one of the things he defined himself with I think; being that sort of person who could enter the melee and thrive there, loving the atmosphere and excitement of being part of that scene.
That was very attractive to me. Someone who didn't want to pull me away from where the excitement was happening but to be part of it. Someone who wanted to have fun and join in with me. Good. Tick.

The year we got together he decided not to go to any of the festivals; coopting out his space to other volunteers. I thought it was strange really, that he didn't want to go, but figured that it was his choice, maybe it really was too tiring as he said. Maybe he needed a break from it for a year. I didn't question it.
I'd driven us both in the bright spring sunshine in my little red car and we stopped for coffee. It was warm, we sat outside and the sun shone in my eyes and on my skin at last.
I told him excitedly about the festival and the work I might be doing. Genuinely excited, genuinely expecting him to be excited for me.
'Well that's a bit selfish, don't you think?' he said, completely deadpan.
'Huh? Why?'
'I've given up going to any festivals and cleared my diary so that I can spend time with you is why and you're going off without even thinking of me!'

Generally I am so surprised when someone says something I'm not expecting that I don't challenge it at all. My thoughts go on mute, as if the sound of any objection is trapped behind glass, mouthing at me from far away. I've learned now that this is a dissociative thing - anxiety will literally shut parts of your brain down. I've also learned that this is a symptom of ADHD and very common in women, but back then I couldn't respond, or challenge, or articulate anything at all.
I just thought, how strange, I didn't ask him not to work at Glastonbury, I didn't know he was doing it for me...
I questioned myself, was I being selfish? As far as I could see we spent time together, it wasn't always plain sailing but I was trying my hardest. Wasn't I?
By that time I had already paid for a September holiday we would be taking to Cuba. My mum was on hand to babysit my son for the duration. This was a big deal for me, I was pushing the anxiety of being thousands of miles away from my boy to the back of my mind because I knew that if I didn't give him this one little thing he was asking for - a week away with me on our own - he would break.
I was afraid of what would happen if I said no.

But in this particular instance I would not back down. I was resolute. I was going to work at that festival and my mum was going to babysit.

'It's amazing how you can find childcare so easily when it's something you want to do, but when it's about spending time with me you don't even bother.'

I reminded him of our imminent holiday, and the fact that over easter we'd been away to West Wales together.
'If I hadn't pushed and pushed for that it never would have happened. You don't prioritise me. I can take being your second priority, that goes without saying (meaning my son), but I won't be your third'

Walking down the main drag at the festival explaining Lee's insecurity to my friend it seemed as if the excuses I made for him fell on to dead air... he was sent away to boarding school at 8. He felt his family didn't want him. The girls (his sisters) stayed with his parents but he was shipped off.
I understood that this is something you never get over. He'd told me that there were boys there as young as 5 crying in the night for their mothers. I though of my son, his wriggly little body climbing in to bed with me at the first chance he'd get, and even on those nights I blearily took him back to his bed, he knew I was there. Lee didn't have that luxury, he was very much alone...

... inspite of this I could feel my friend mentally biting her tongue. Was this any excuse for the way he tried to control me? I was becoming uneasy, unsure in the silence that didn't validate the excuses I made for him but only made them seem flimsy somehow as they hung in the air between us.
Sometimes your friends are the islands of sanity when everything else turns on its head. She didn't need to say anything. I already knew what she thought though she never voiced it. What she did was allow me to talk, to stay connected and grounded and to hear myself.
When someone who loves you listens, they reflect you back. In relation to their constancy, you can see where you are at, or where you are not.  You can hear yourself. It's not about advice they give, though that can be vital at times, it's that they know you have the answer, and even if you don't have it in your hand right then, they love you all the same.
Of all the things she has ever done for me, and there have been so, so many over the years, I think the fact that she listened to me saved me in the end.

Lee's messages were scant that weekend. Mine were too and I didn't try and smooth out the barbs that appeared between the words he sent. I was away for just 3 full days. When I returned home that night, muddy and exhausted and elated I didn't text him till the morning.

All he replied was, 'Are you going away again tomorrow?'

I was taking my son camping with a group of musicians for four days. I go every year. He loves it like I'd always known he would when I was child free and went there as a teenager. Children running in a field like loons, watched over by everyone there. Musicians singing and laughing round a camp fire. Unequivocally this was home to me.
Of course I'd asked him to come with me. But he had a 'proper job', he couldn't just 'take off'.

Yes, what's wrong Lee?

No reply.

And then I found that he was now single on Facebook. He hadn't told me to my face. I told him that he should let me know what was going on . On the phone he ripped into me. He was livid that I hadn't bothered being in touch over the weekend, said that I had been selfish for going, as if on some jolly, not to work and earn money. He told me I was sketchy and unreliable and a heap of other things he'd been saving up and saving up. He said I should be able to read the signs of how unhappy he was, not make him explain himself, and that he just wanted to be in a happy, healthy relationship. And then he told me he couldn't stand coming last on my list and that he was done. Done.


I didn't protest or tell him that I would change. I didn't actually know what more I could give him without loosing myself completely. And I was devastated, I couldn't even imagine how this pain would unfold in me, though I was sure that I would be able to grieve once we were safely in our field, our bags hitting the ground as reality kicked in. I would be able to cry there.


But then of course he realised that his plan to make me sorry and humbled hadn't worked. He started bargaining with me, couldn't there just be some leniency, couldn't I just be more flexible in future, to make some plans that included him, for once, please?
Please could he come over and drop my stuff round, please don't give up on me, I'm sorry I said hurtful stuff I didn't mean, it was misplaced anger. I'm sorry baby, please...

Later that evening, after he'd wrangled his way in, he stood in my kitchen, crying his eyes out, saying he'd pay me back all the money I'd paid for Cuba now that I wasn't going, and that he'd been such a fool.
I laid it out for him, exactly how he'd been behaving, how he made me feel, how sick and worried I'd been when I got ill, how he had frozen me out with his silence, his hurtfulness. I told him that when he stopped speaking to me for two weeks after I'd suggested he'd given me herpes it had made me feel awful and completely alone, like I was at fault for suggesting that it might have been him.
I reminded him that he'd been drinking that evening, having been out with a friend from work, I was sober.
I told him that when I didn't want to have sex and he accused me of withholding affection and of being emotionally abusive, that actually it was him who was the manipulative one, because no meant no and sex wasn't a bargaining chip.
I told him how I felt when he had sent me a message with a picture he had taken of his diary with all the days I had spent with my son, all the days I had spent with my friends versus all the times I'd spent with him.
I told him that my mum, my friends, my sister worried about me because of the strange silences that stretched out from him every time I wanted to do something on my own.
I told him they thought that he was being controlling and that actually, some of the things he did were quite controlling.
I told him too much.
At the time he was so sorry, I don't think I've ever seen anyone so completely sorry before, for everything. He accepted everything I'd said and agreed with it all. Work had been so unbearably stressful, he hadn't had a break for 18 months and he realised he shouldn't have put the pressure on me to go on holiday with him, he should have taken himself off somewhere.
He told me that he would make use of the in house counselling service. That he should have, but just hadn't because he just didn't see that he needed it till now. But working with the rapists, pedophiles, drug dealers, the manipulative awful people every day was taking such a toll...
Please, please can we try again?
And that evening I felt validated and heard and hopeful that now he saw my side of things, things would actually change. Even so, I said lets just see how we go, lets sleep on it.
I held him as he wept that night, sobbing that he just felt so bad about himself. That he couldn't believe how he had treated me.
But I woke in the morning and the air felt different. There was something off. I think the words I'd said were ringing and ringing around his head.
I'd made him feel so ashamed of himself, so awful and low. It's not what I wanted him to feel. I just wanted it all to stop - the controlling behaviour, the monitoring of everything I did, everyone I saw.
In the morning light I could already feel him rejecting everything I'd told him. Pushing it away and re-galvanising himself against any flaw that I might name.

The pressure began again, was I going to go to Cuba with him? I'll take out a loan he said, and pay you back. I'll get my sister to come with me, or my daughter. I just need to know for sure you aren't coming. I don't think I can get the money back, oh god I'm so stressed about it. I'll pay you back by friday... I might have to pay you in instalments.

It wasn't till after I'd agreed to go to Cuba, and try and work things out with him, that he told me his entire family were furious with me for saying he was being controlling and for making him feel so bad. I'd given away too much, confessed what I thought of him and he resented me for it. It was now part of his arsenal that he would twist back on me later.

He was good at what he did. Very, very good. All through our relationship, when I'd been unsure about the things he'd said or done, he accused me of being inconsistent, sketchy, flakey. Too emotional, too unreliable.
'I've never had anything like this, you are so up and down. I just want something easy and straightforward. I just want to be in a happy, healthy relationship'

I certainly was affected by things, way more than a normal person I supposed. I have a tendency to withdraw and think about things. To need my space to decipher what is mine and what isn't. I saw it as a flaw back then. Maybe I was too inconsistent. Fragile and sensitive.
How could I take him back only to push him away again. Everyone will think that I am the crazy one. They'd know that I was the crazy one then. Cuba loomed on my horizon and with all my heart I did not want to go.

subtext

All the in-jokes, the messages back and forth with a million kisses at the end, the I love you's and reassurances. All the heart swelling declarations that made my chest feel fit to burst and my limbs weak with wanting him.
I don't ever want to do it again.

Maybe one day there will be someone who comes into my life to stand calmly by my side, without fuss or clamour. But it won't be the awful fall from grace that happened too quick and shone too bright in crackling neon; a sick light born out of neediness. Blindly I fell.

Lately I've let myself re-read the nearly two years of messages that we exchanged. It's an ongoing stream of need and reassurance. Pretty much as you would speak to a child who has woken from a night terror, confused and still dreaming, their sweet limbs heavy and coated with a sheen of sweat... 'Shhh, shh... I'm here, I love you, shhh shhh... it's ok'.

And then the parents amongst you will know that you will lie in the darkness of your own room, unable to sleep again, full of adrenalin and the knowledge that you have to be up in 4 hours... 3 hours...

Now I can see the sinister subtext. And I  can remember things too. They swim into focus again as I read and I'm back there, but watching from behind sheet glass.
It is waking from my own night terror and being unable to sleep, the questions turn in my head, over and over as the hours creep by...
What was my agenda in all this? Did I twist and demand? Did I pressure and expect? Did I abandon, ultimately? Did I?

There is a lot to be said for letting it go. I've read blogs that have advised against the rehashing of the story, over and over to understand, or to voice indignation and ire. We, the left behind, are gathered here today to rant about the terrible thing this person has done to us. We are outraged! We deserve better treatment! We are victims and we are baying for blood!

Except that we won't ever get it; the apology, the clarity, the recompense. These things will evade us until we forgive ourselves for putting ourselves at risk. We are disempowered whilst we shout about our victimhood and mourn who we once were.
Whilst we stand and point at whats been done 'by that person over there' we aren't looking at the person who is still here; the one we abandoned.
And so we should put it down and move on and lead our best life...
I agree with all of that.

However...

When you are in an abusive relationship, the cavalcade of events; the things they say, the things they do, how those things twist back on you and shape you into something you were sure you were not, actually, becomes such an onslaught that you forget. To hold it all in your head would be to descend into madness.

I look now to accept what has happened, not by simply saying 'the past is done, c'mon kids lets skip along...'
I have to remember and grieve first. The awkward awfulness of it is that I walked right into that relationship without a backward glance and see that answer is yes; I did twist his meanings to suit my agenda. I did demand too much of myself. I did bend to pressure and not listen when I needed to step away. Ultimately yes; I did abandon myself. Yes. Yes I did.

I dissociated myself from all that happened, even as those things were happening.
Back once again with the cognitive dissonance - I reacted to the person he had told me he was, not the person he was in reality.

And I can see that I wiped my memory clean. Every. Single. Time.

Something would happen that was uncomfortable or upsetting; something that did not fit into this image I had of Lee. He'd say something or do something that would make me do an internal double take.
And all I would do is look past the facts or the incident to the fake icon I had of him in my mind. 'It's done, forget it.' he'd say. And we'd move on.
Of course it would happen again, and again, something different, something much worse this time.
And I'd find myself again, standing at the alter to this imaginary deity in my mind, whispering my rosary... 'it's done, forget it.'

And thats how it keeps on happening. Because we don't shout about it... We don't screech our breaks and say, 'you have done this and said that and I am fucking out of here, asshole'
We don't connect the dots. And then all of the things that happen are isolated events, like some terrible constellation that leads us away from ourselves.

'According to the New York University Medical Center, chronic stress resulting from emotional abuse or any other kind of trauma releases cortisol, a stress hormone which can damage and affect the growth of the hippocampus, the main area of the brain associated with learning and memory. This leads to mental diagnoses like depression, anxiety and PTSD.'                                                            click here for neuroscience!

It's amazing. We literally forget the abuse. Time after time. And thats one of the reasons we stay.

Years ago, whilst I was doing a masters in art history I read an essay by Julia Kristeva called, 'Powers of Horror'. At the time I was writing about what happens when people are forced out of the context of their homelands, due to famine or war and how the disparity between previous and present experience creates a kind of 'break' in our internal narrative.
Her essay discusses the language we have, the one we are born into that we come to navigate the world with. If we had no language to understand the world around us, then we would be lost in it. Language is our map, if you like.

When something terrible, awful or horrific happens to us it falls outside of our everyday understanding. There you are going along, things are happening as they do, the words that we have for the life that we live are reeling themselves off on the ticker tape of our minds... 'breakfast... tired... coffee... work.. car... car... wait what?!' Something unexpected happens that you have no experience of and therefore no language for. A car crash for example.

All you have is the pure emotion of it; the horror or the pain, but in its unexpectedness it falls outside of our every day language.

We don't have the words for it. We stumble into a blank abyss and there is nothing there to catch us.
What we have to do is tell and retell our story until we finally understand and contain what has happened within the words we have at our disposal. To put that experience on the map.
Until we do it is an unnamed, frightening thing. Psychologically, if we cannot describe, articulate or even consciously understand this thing that has happened, then we walk around with a gaping hole that cannot be filled.
It threatens our very identity. Our map is blank and we are lost.

If you cannot come to terms with what has happened in an abusive relationship, because there is such a cognitive dissonance and stress that you have forgotten everything, then you walk around in a dissociated state. You are not yourself, you have become outside yourself, someone other, an onlooker, a stranger.

And so, whilst I am aware that I have to ultimately forgive myself for letting it happen, first I need to remember what happened. To painfully step back into my body and find the words for it, so that it becomes my story that I tell from inside me, not the looming blankness that swirls, always almost out of reach.

I thought it was sweet, I thought I was falling for the sharpest, funniest, most intelligent and kindest of men. When he told me he felt vulnerable I wanted to reassure him, so that he knew he was safe in my hands, that I found his vulnerability endearing. I felt that it was a pathway to intimacy. If you can be foolish, unguarded, open then you can really connect with someone, for all their flaws and insecurities. I saw it all as a positive.

So I scroll through our story and I see, a week in, that I have a pretty good idea this man wants too much, too fast. After our kissing date, but before he took me out to dinner, the texts saying 'I Really REALLY like you' had begun to make me uneasy.

I said as much to him, that maybe he was looking for more than I had to offer right now... and his reply, as nothing much as it was, seems to have been enough for me to carry on seeing this man. Perhaps I only wanted to be reassured, not really to step back at all.

Perhaps I really did just want to have fun. But we always know, we always have a clue what this person is, or isn't. And they will tell us to the letter. Honestly, it's not a trick. There's no NLP or Derren Brown wizardry about it. Everyone you have ever been with will have told you exactly who and what they are, and you will have seen it and, in my case, ignored it.
It's not the things they say, thats far too easy, it's what they don't say, its what they do or don't do. Its the gaps in the conversations. What people tell you about first are the things that define them -
what they talk about, the words they use. Be still and listen. Be unflinching and look.

This was a heady time of diving in, of writing love songs, of being bombarded with flattery and attention. It was delicious and I didn't want it to stop. I did not want to listen or look, I wanted to fill that need in myself that I had felt so keenly for so long. I wanted to belong, to be a part of a family, a team, not on the edges as a single parent, but as part of something that I could lean into when the wind howled around me. Here came Lee, and with him so many possibilities, so much admiration and  attention.
Here was a man who did what he said he would do, who turned up on time, who took me to dinner, who respected my boundaries (I thought) and acknowledged me. 'You're an amazing mum, you're doing a great job'. How much did I need to hear that? 'You are so beautiful, talented, creative, funny, thoughtful and kind'. That kind of flattery is hard to resist, especially when you don't already know those things in your bones. If you did no one would be able to ever take them away.

Just imagine, someone pays you a compliment. They think they are giving you something; like a form of exchange.

'You are really beautiful'

You say, 'I know, right?'

If this person has no agenda other than to acknowledge this fact, they will probably be surprised, but ultimately pleased. Here is a beautiful woman and she KNOWS it. High five sister, that's awesome.

If this person has an agenda they will feel aggrieved. They've 'paid' you a compliment. Now you 'owe' them something. A debt of gratitude, a thank you for noticing or taking the time to say it (even though you never asked for it), your time... something unspoken. The balance book is out already... Your creditor wants payment... with interest. Your interest.

In a manipulative relationship like the one I found myself in this 'love bombing' phase set up a debt of gratitude. And because I didn't feel worthy of it, I knew I was incapable of repaying the debt. I was only grateful, and then fearful of it being taken away. He had 'given' me this idea that I was all the things he said I was. I owed him big time.

But the only person we owe anything to is ourselves. We owe it to ourselves to know our worth.
You don't have to be an asshole about it. Someone says you are beautiful, you say thanks, but you don't then feel like you owe them anything for acknowledging it. And then, if they suddenly turn the tables and say, well actually you're not that pretty really, you haven't lost anything at all. What you've gained is a reason to walk swiftly away.

In December Lee's 20 year old daughter came home from touring with a band. She had been the nanny to two of the band members toddler and had been on the road for months. She was tall and striking. At 15 she had been a model.
Lee, who saw the had gained a few lb's on the road referred to her as 'a massive fatty'. 'Poor girl' he mourned. But I don't think she actually cared, and I don't think he said it because he cared about her.

It struck me that here was a man who could not unconditionally defend his daughter. He wasn't loyal or trustworthy. He wasn't on her side, he was on his. He was proud of her when she was skinny, but mocked her behind her back, to someone he barely knew (me).

Lees unending stream of flattery towards me was fragile and conditional. His words sat like shiny marbles on a moving surface.
From being beautiful and near perfect, I lost my value when I put on weight before our big holiday to Cuba. Sitting on a catamaran in the blazing sunshine with a group of people heading out to paradise island (because our hotel complex wasn't paradisey enough, we'd joked) on walked a girl, the image of perfection. She had long dark brown hair in a plait, a tiny taught body and a bright red bikini. Baseball cap and ray bans and cutoffs. She was drinking a can of coke and smoking a cigarette. He leaned in to offer his lighter.
Behind his shades I saw his eyes slide to her again and again on the boat that day. It wasn't the looking at her that I minded. If Jon Snow himself strolled down my street my head would not stop itself from turning as he walked by. That much I know.

It was that he was giving me the silent treatment, pretending that there was nothing wrong.
 'You ok Lee, you're a little quiet' *Shrugs*, 'yeah, of course' *doesn't look at me, doesn't reach for me, doesn't really want to be with me at all.*
His eyed slid to her, and then to me and that pedestal I'd been on went crumbling away.

There are no days

I justify it this way; It's not revelling in self pity, I'm writing down the things in my head so they don't have to roll around there, crashing and clanging, with their jumbled time line swinging from sweet to sour and back; colouring everything that was once good with the grime of what came later.

For me it is finding a voice and diminishing the monsters that lurk in the silence. Now that I have started I cannot stop. there's more and more and more and if people will judge my me for my weakness in this then all I can do is show my hand again. What I kept covered so long has begun to crumble in the light and I couldn't put it back if I tried.
I was ashamed of having Herpes. Ashamed that I didn't take better care of myself and impose boundaries. Before that, I was ashamed of being depressed and taking Citalporam, before that I was ashamed that I had taken out a loan for someone who was never going to pay it back. And even before that I was ashamed of my skin, the psoriasis that welled in ugly plaques all over my body.

But it does you no good, this shame. It makes you scuttle from one disaster to the next in darkness. This is what I am. This is what I have and what I have done.
At the very least I am proud of myself for saying it.

My son told me this morning, sitting up in bed; 'There are no days. Every day is the same day, it's just the name that changes. The name of the week day or the name of the month. There is just darkness and light. Nothing else really changes at all.'

When I recovered from the shock of what came out of my baby's mouth I realised that it's true always. There is no good or bad. There is just the stuff I did in reaction to the stuff that happened. It's me that gives it a name. That decides to judge my actions as good, bad, weak, immature or responsible. And so it's not for me to judge, just to write. I'll leave the naming of what I've done to you.

There are no days.