Dammit the Flashbacks

So with people all around me getting pregnant and having babies lately, I think about the time when I was pregnant and when Steven was young.  What should have been a really joyous time in my life - wasn't.  I mean, in many ways it was, but in so many ways it wasn't.  It had nothing to do with Steven, or my desire to have a child - I most certainly wanted a child of my own!  And I thought I was in a loving relationship, with someone I could build a future with and have a couple of babies with, and live happily ever after.

We all know that the fairytale ended, hell it never really even began.  I saw more and more of the true colors of James when I was pregnant - it was the first time he put his hands on me.  He poked me with his finger so hard it left a black circular bruise on my chest when I was about 5 months pregnant.  He threw things, had tantrums frequently, and put his fist through our glass top coffee table.

Once, he came in drunk and was pissed at me about something, and when he was coming after me to hit me, he almost knocked Steven's bassinet over, with Steven in it!  I think Steven was about 3 weeks old. 

I had a little meltdown in the car when I got home tonight, thinking about how I didn't really get to enjoy my pregnancy with Steven, or my maternity leave once he was born.  I had no support from James when I was healing from childbirth and trying to adjust to being a new mom.  He never got up with Steven in the middle of the night (thankfully Steven slept through the night from almost the very beginning, or at least until 4am or so).  I had to do all the cooking, all the cleaning, and the child care in the 8 weeks I had off before returning to work.

And I'll never forget the first day I went back to work.  My dad was flying back home so I had to take him to the airport.  I was crying because he was leaving, and crying because I was leaving my new baby at home to go back to work.  I had nursed Steven when I got up, and he went back to sleep.  No sooner had I arrived at work (an hour late or so because of having to take my dad to the airport) than I received a phone call from James, screaming at me that I couldn't have fed Steven because he was screaming and carrying on and he wouldn't take the bottle.  I bought a different kind of bottle, went home, nursed Steven, and went back to work.  It was a frequent occurrence, that James would call me at work, screaming the accusations at me that I didn't feed Steven, because Steven would be hungry within 2 hours of me leaving.

The more I thought about all this, what I missed out on with that whole experience, and what I went through, what the kids went through, I just got really, really upset.  Our home was so unstable and James loved to scream and yell, that Steven became a very frightened, timid child because of it.  Thank heavens I got Steven away from that bastard.  Steven's still timid at times, but thankfully he's really come out of his shell in the last 8 years or so.  I don't even want to think about what he would be like if I hadn't left James.

Because I'm Worth It

When you've been in a relationship with an abusive person, they tend to beat you down, not just physically, but mentally and emotionally.  They control you, belittle you, make you afraid of anything and everything, and take away your self-worth.  For whatever reason, you give them the power to do those things, as they cannot do that without your relinquishing the power to them.

Once you get the nerve the leave the relationship, you'd think that you'd take back all that power and things would be all hunky dory and you'd feel good about yourself again.  WRONG!  At least, not in my world.  I've been slowly, ever so slowly, taking that power back and working to regain my self-worth. 

It's been a little over 8 years since my divorce, almost 6 years since I've even spoken to that demon, yet I still have those feelings of inadequacies, the low self-esteem, and low self-worth.  I never went to a therapist after the divorce, and I know I should have.  I've thought about going to one now, to hurry up and deal with all the feels and hurts and everything.  I just don't want to expose the hurts to someone in a professional setting.  They don't understand me, there's not really enough time in the day for me to spill it all out to let someone who doesn't know me try to help me.  Maybe I'll change my mind one day, maybe I won't.

I deal with it by the occasional blog here, and by talking about things with Brian and sometimes Steven.  I think Steven is still dealing with some of what he experienced, but he talks about it when something comes up.  I talk about it when things come up, but honestly I've been so happy the last several months that I haven't felt the need to discuss it.  I did have a talk with Brian about it on Christmas Eve, spilled some tears and worked through whatever aspect of the memory that surfaced.

Yet I sit here, shedding tears now as I write this.  I don't normally say I hate people but I hate that son-of-a-bitch. I hate that he did this to me. I hate what he took from me. I hate that I'm struggling to take back all that I lost emotionally. I hate the fucking scar on my face where he pushed me into a door after a fight, where I was trying to leave the house to get away from him because I was afraid he would kill me.  I hate that I get emotional when I think about it, talk about it, write about it.

Sometimes it just doesn't matter how good you have things.  The evil shit inside ruins it.  And that's why I let it out - in tears, in words.  And the photo above, if I were to speak to him today, that's one of the many things I'd say to him.  But he is not worth it.