Breathing, living moment by moment, day by day.

by Amy
(East Coast)

My insides are shaking. My hands are shaking. They don’t want to push the buttons or go in the right direction. I miss hitting the right key and have to retype. I don’t understand why my arms and hands don’t want to work right. It’s like trying to drag them through sand or muddy water. What is wrong with them?

All I know is I just have to keep typing this before I forget. I’m terrified my memory of now will be lost because my mind doesn’t hold on to moments or memories that are bad or traumatic. It’s a brain/body protection I’ve had since childhood. When my partner yells at me, he is merciless. He is scary, my whole body wants to shrink and disappear. I want to be invisible. I want him to stop glaring at me with such hate and saying the most horrible things to me. He yells that I am like my mother and I’m crazy a mentally sick person. And he doesn’t know if he can take it anymore.

I’m terrified I will be homeless and will lose my daughter. When I’ve tried to talk to him in the past to explain that he can’t speak to me like this, He told me that I could get the “f$#k out,” but he would never allow me to take my daughter. That I have nothing, no family, no money and he has wealth and a house and an income and lawyer friends and doctor friends. I won’t leave my daughter to this monster that he sometimes becomes. I was abandoned by my father at a young age and left by him to be terrorized by my mother, who liked butcher knives and enjoyed attacking me with them and other things.

He won’t stop talking now. I’m secretly trying to write this, trying not to be seen or draw attention to myself. He is just a few feet away, sitting in his chair, I’m sitting in mine. I know he knows that his outburst was not good, that’s why he now wants just to talk, like nothing happened. That is what he always does after he attacks me verbally. Its psychological warfare and he has the winning hand. All I ever have asked him is to be nice to me. To talk nice to me, to not cuss at me or talk to me the inhumane way he does. All my asking does is make him angrier. It's like a shark with blood in the water. He attacks me verbally with more ferocity. If I’m lucky when these outbursts happen, I can sometimes leave the room, try to hide; But he always follows me or comes looking for me.

This triggers my stomach to tie in knots to cramp unbearably. And I start shaking and feel cold. I feel terrified. My heart goes so fast that I’m dizzy. I have to sit and lean on something for support. My daughter is in the house, so I shrink into myself. Try to become less so he will stop, so it all will end. People say stand up to a bully. When I try, they just can’t understand the terror. I am now weak physically. My body has been beaten down from years of abuse from my mother while I was a little girl. Now those scars are raw and open, my body is like ground meat. Every moment of my life, day and night, I spend in severe pain, an open sore. I have permanent nerve damage from 3 shingle outbreaks and the most painful condition known to exist. Its called CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) and it is spreading throughout my body. I have to have major surgery in two weeks. Two surgeon’s are doing it. They are taking a part of my colon, appendix and anything else they find where cancer might have spread. I am terrified.

Earlier I was driving home with my daughter and him in the front seat. He called me mentally ill and yelled that I won’t answer his question as quick as he wants or in words, he wants to hear. I am trying to get home before I am physically sick again. We went to see a movie, but my IBS started, and I spent a lot of time in the bathroom while they watched the film. He knows this that I'm in pain and trying to get home, so I don’t mess myself. I have severe IBS diarrhea with severe stomach cramps and no control over when it will stop once it begins. I’m afraid my stomach will explode before I can get home and stay in or near the bathroom for the next few hours.

What he is doing is cruel. I have no money or access to cash. I have to practically beg for money to get milk or to have a little bit of money to have to do something with my daughter. We’ve been together for over 14 years. When I need something, he yells that he doesn’t have money. That we are going to be homeless. He screams if he thinks I’ve spent money, saying I have no money. He has only given me $100 check twice in all the years we’ve been together. My daughter and I don’t shop or go out. We only ask for the minimum. Because he gets so angry if he has to spend money. He always asks for his change back if he gives me anything to go buy milk or something small. It makes me sick when he says he has no money. He spends about $18 a week on the lottery. He has 2 cars, 2 houses with two renters, funds in the bank, investments in the stock market and a regular monthly income from his disability and he gets my daughters monthly check. The house we live in is paid off.

I have no advocate or family to help me. His mother lives nearby. She texts and or calls him several times daily, especially in the evening. She and her husband hate me. They don’t hesitate to show their disdain for me whenever I have to go over there. He is an only child. His mother feels sorry for him because he has to endure having me in his house, that he has to use his money so that I can live. None of them try to hide this. I don’t know what to do. I literally take it moment by moment, day by day. I breathe in and breathe out. I try so hard to show I am strong, I hold my head up and walk with confidence, trying to show no weakness for them to attack. I am a survivor.

My daughter's father has a traumatic brain injury from a car accident 20 years ago that broke his neck and back and many other bones. It put him in a coma. His brain was ripped apart. It’s a miracle he is alive, and he can walk. A good friend introduced us. When I first met him and his mom, they adored me and said all they want is a daughter and granddaughter. No one told me that he had mental problems. I found out while I was pregnant with my daughter.

He is like Jeckle and Hyde. He can be kind and supportive and then it can go the exact opposite. His mother does have mental problems. She tried to kill herself when she was younger. The gun took all her teeth, but she survived. He was raised by his grandmother.

I can’t work now because I am disabled with chronic severe pain from 3 shingle outbreaks with nerve damage and CRPS (Complex Regional Pain Syndrome) that is spreading. I have severe IBS that happens almost daily and last for usually 2 hours or more. I have applied for disability and been denied. I am appealing, but it is caught in the system. My lawyer said it could be up to a year before I know something.

I just want my story to be heard, maybe some advice. I want to know that I’m not alone. Thank you.