Wow, Wavy, you've got me on a roll! Hope you guys don't mind...
Now I enjoy just everybody I meet. He hated mostly everybody, from politicians to local political party people to the federal government to friends to family. He criticized everybody, sometimes blatantly, sometimes subtly, digs here and there, insults here and there, and he hated what I did most of all. But as I think about it, he often praised me, which suckered me into wanting his approval, then wham, he'd go after me again. His love for me wasn't emotionally stable or secure, even if some of it was genuine, which it was.
Now I am around real people with real genuine emotions and hatred is rarely one of them.
The Southwest Airlines ad pops into my mind: "You are now free to move around the country." I am now free to move around the "emotional country". Writing that paragraph above makes me realize how emotionally constricted I was before. His chaos, drama, abuse, destructive emotional mindset, all those controlled the emotional atmosphere in our lives. When we flew to a foreign country in the Caribbean for vacation once, he caused such a verbal ruckus on the plane that the police were waiting for him when we disembarked, ready to arrest him, and I felt that I had to get him excused by convincing the police that he was out-of-control because of his blood pressure, and a very sick man. I did, and that was true, but it was just one sentence in a life story of living in emotional negative drama.
Even when he was happy, even when his wickedly funny sense of humor was on top, or his intellectual prowess on display, fascinating me about some topic or another, deeper lurked the spectre of his displeasure. I was never relaxed. It was just a matter of when.
I am free from that now. I am a happy person. I live in a normal emotional space. I feel a normal range of emotions. More and more, I am leaving behind the fear of impending doom of one sort or another.
Since I have had to be in frequent contact and see him as we fix up and try to sell our co-owned house, I have fallen back into some of the old patterns, the fear, the anxiety, the emotional spine-straightening, fists balled up attitude "I know what's coming and I won't take it anymore"... The old games of "keep her emotionally off balance", "draw her close with good behavior, then wham, attack and threaten her" are back in action.
My life is free of that, and soon, with no contact again, I won't ever have to be in relationship with someone like that again.
This makes me wonder if eventually, when I am really free from him, if my body symptoms will release. I have lots of health problems, some of them auto-immune diseases - including rheumatoid arthritis, fibromyalgia, depression. I have been feeling so much better when I am No Contact with him and those triggers aren't present.
But beneath that is the lifelong pattern of being physically and emotionally poised to defend myself against verbal attack and abuse. It was the story of my childhood, too, living with my father who was a powerful executive and a miserable alcoholic and abuser most of the time, but a loving father and positive role model just enough of the time to keep me emotionally hooked.
Maybe now, after the overt threats are removed, I will eventually be able to calm down internally and not subliminally expect to be attacked. I used to dread phone messages because I expected that someone would criticize me. I am finally starting to realize that this just doesn't happen very often - people mostly like me and are happy with me.
I am starting - just starting - to realize what living in an environment of emotional stability could be. Wow!
Sorry for posting so much - don't mean to hog the thread- but this topic just set me off on a wave of self-realization.
ShootingStar1