THINK!

Every so often the demon hEX does something that literally makes me drop to my knees, throw my arms in the air, and thank the good Lord above for the magic of "divorce"!! (please note - this is frowned upon in public places)  One of these moments of giving thanks came the other night.

Once I was finished saying my thanks...on my knees..in my driveway...(apparently this practice just alarms the neighbors but I digress) I was overwhelmed with anger.  Pure, unabridged, totally adulterated anger.  I thought of several completely rotten things that I was going put in motion just to humiliate that rotten son of a bitch.  Then I was reminded of something I learned in an Al-Anon meeting.

THINK!

Simple, right?  Think.  Is my response to the  recent meanness of the demon hex

Thoughtful
Honest
Intelligent
Necessary
Kind

The first question I always ask myself "Is a response Necessary?" If I determine that a response is necessary, I begin formulating a response that is thoughtful, honest, intelligent, and kind.  At the end of the day, I am these qualities.  My actions should carry these qualities.  I'm not going to let HIS mean actions dictate how I behave. I'm going to THINK!

That's a really good point GT!!!!
While going Banshee on his evil @ss I'm sure would give instant satisfaction, sometimes you really have to look at "Is this even worth it to respond?"  Will your response wake his @ss up to reality and suddenly make him a worthy parent?  Probably not.  Will he take your reaction as a sign that you still care about him as he can still push your buttons and get an emotional response from you- probably.
I am calling this DGTFTS!  (Dont' Give That F*cker The Satisfaction)

My right to forgive or not to forgive...

It’s no secret that my ex-husband is a nightmare and I don’t like him.  Aside from the fact that I heard “forsake all others” and he heard “partake of all others”, he was abusive in every way one person can abuse another person.  The things that he did to me invoked a great deal of anger that I wrestled with for years.  I actively felt that the world did not owe him a single kindness and he should spend the rest of his life feeling as miserable as he made me feel. 

These days I feel that I don’t owe him a single kindness.  The rest of the world can make its own decisions.   If his life is going great, fantastic for him!  If his life is a train wreck, fantastic for him! I mean, his train wrecks are a source of entertainment for me much the same way Jerry Springer is for other people.  Overall, I really don’t believe I could care less one way or another.

So, when his first wife, wife 1.0, messaged me about needing to forgive him, I was taken aback.  I was wife 2.0 but sometimes I get confused because there was still a lot of anger there with 1.0.  Part of a workshop she is taking is about letting go of past hurts.  Fun stuff!:D  I gave her the requested information and went about my merry way.  But now my wheels are turning.  Looking back through some of my messages with her, neither one of us has any love for the guy.  Her dislike for him has been more passionate than mine but she is also a much more passionate person than I am.   Still,  I had to start asking myself “do I still hate him?” “am I sabotaging my future because of my past” “is there lingering bitterness that is poisoning my present”? And so on.

What I can say, for all of the hell that man put me through, “bygones”.  Seriously, “Bygones”!  I’ve stopped asking “why me”.  I’ve recognized that the demon nightmare forced me to be a stronger person than I ever imagined I could be.  I'll even thank him for that.  I don’t wish him any ill will, like I said “bygones”.   However, he is not the type of person I want for a “friend” or the type of person I want in my life.  And I see no reason to pretend otherwise.  I truly do not owe that man a single kindness.  As long as he stays out of my life and keeps his hands to himself, bygones.

Now, here is where my emotions get complex.  When I think about the trauma that man put my children through, I want to spit on him for the rest of his life.  I want the world to spit on him for the rest of his rotten life.  I’ve mulled it over and over in my head, I’ve twisted and turned it, I’ve tried to look at it from his perspective and I simply can not do it.  There is just no way I will ever forgive that man for the trauma he caused my children.  The images of my children’s tear stained faces the morning of October 1, 2010, are forever burned in my mind and on my heart. 

*long pause while I compose myself*

Even in writing this post.  Those first four paragraphs above, I felt nothing as I wrote them.  I chuckled over a few inappropriate jokes that passed through my mind, but I felt nothing.   In writing that fifth paragraph, my body got hot, my heart started racing, my emotions quickened.

He traumatized my children.  And he traumatized them simply because his life was not going the way he wanted.  I will never stop hating him for that.  I don’t let that feeling get in the way of my life now.  But I hate him, for the trauma he caused my babies I truly hate him.  And before everyone gets up on the “forgiveness” soap box, think about these few things:

1) part of what stemmed from that day was his court ordered enrollment in an 18 week Anger Management course.  At the end of which he wrote me an apology letter.  What I pointed out to his anger management coach is that in his “heartfelt apology letter” he eloquently apologized for a bunch of crap that he did while we were married.  The events that led to him being in that class, the trauma he caused my children, were not even alluded to in his “look at me, I’m sorry” letter; and

2) how would you feel about the person who caused unimaginable and irrevocable trauma to your child? Think about it, can you feel the anger?  Now explain to me why I should feel differently just because that person is their “dad”.

I don't hate my ex-husband. I do hate the father of my children.  Like so many other things that have grown from my experiences these past several years, that feeling is a part of me.  It doesn't define me.  And frankly, I’m good with it.

This amazing entry was chilling in our "Drafts" file.  I could not let it linger there as it proves what a strong, beyond awesome woman the Good Twin is!  She writes what I'm too chicken shit to say.  She's been a source of strength and laughter throughout my separation and divorce and even came to my divorce hearing and held my hand as I was shaking out of my skin.  Not only that, she's my best friend, emotional soul mate and wine sister extraordinaire! 
I so frigging love you!!!!

-

Expiration of Protective Orders and that Mindset

My words were rather vicious to Captain Wonderful the other night.  Granted, he was being "a guy" and I had warned him that I was in a bad mood.  But my words went from normal irritation to vicious.  And I don't like that.  He didn't seem to like it either.

I've spent the rest of last week trying to figure out where that viciousness came from. I would get vicious like that with the hEX, but I had to.  It was part of how I survived being an obsession of the demon hEX, I had to learn how to be vicious. But CW? Our entire lives, has never been anything but wonderful to me.  He's always been a true friend, he's always shown me how much he cares, How could I ever use such vicious words to him? Now, I've been so focused on the remorse and WTF Good Twin? from this that my anxiety seems to have settled down. But I am not and will not be a vicious person.

In mulling all of this over in my head I had thought about life before the protective order and how I never knew which demon hEX I was going to get, the one who spewed venom or the one who sang prose.  In fact, rather than his name in my phone is says DSM-IV-TR 301.83, 312.30 [last name].  These are the codes for borderline personality disorder and impulse control.  I honestly believe he has these things.  I used to believe he was just your typical drunk who was abused and therefore felt the world owed him.  In all of my therapy trying to sort myself out after being married to him, I started thinking that maybe he has this borderline personality disorder thing. I researched and I brought it up to him once and asked that he look into.  He said it sounds a lot like him and he would look into it but that was also when he was trying to move back in with me, he is great at blowing smoke up people's arses!  When I got a smart phone last year, the phone contacts linked with my e-mail and it changed his name on e-mail, which I didn't notice...he did.  He sent me a message saying the he didn't appreciate "DSM-IV-TR 301.83, 312.30 [last name]".  After I got done LMAO (karma can't get me for this one, I was trying to keep my nickname for him private! The blender is safe!!!!!), I replied with something like "it's a good thing the pictures didn't link too, I'm guessing you wouldn't like the donkey's ass where your head should be". (DOH! The blender bit it!)

 "Good Twin how would you like it if I called you something other than your name" I suddenly flashed to one of the few times I tried to date before CW, there I was having dinner with my date and some friends when DSM-IV-TR 301.83 walks over and calls me a "whore"...moments like that are probably partly why I have actively avoided dating until CW came along...I also have a huge fear of romantic relationships...wonder why?....but I digress...

The point of that little side trip is that I never knew if I was dealing with the sane or the psycho DSM-IV-TR 301.83 and I always had to be ready to go from sugar to shit in a second if I was going to survive whatever he was throwing at me.   But CW isn't DSM-IV-TR 301.83, am I secretly trying to sabotage my budding relationship with CW? WTF Good Twin?

I was in my krav class the other day and the instructor stopped us mid-drill.  "Take a knee" he says.  "I am not seeing the 'I want to live' mindset in your faces.  Look, someone attacks you, they are in a mindset.  They don't care about you or your life (pointing to me) or the lives of your children.  That is the mindset they are in and you need to match that mindset quick if you are going to survive that attack".  Now, I love this instructor.  He is a police officer, he is happily married, has a daughter about my daughters age and he teaches krav (I believe he teaches because what he sees everyday wears on him and this makes him feel like he is doing that much more to stop bad things).  He had me running drills holding two tombstones (punching pads, they look like tombstones), he has me practice being attacked in the event that I will be holding my babies.  Trying to land an effective knee or kick while holding a tombstone in both my arms is not easy and my kids are a lot heavier, but one way or another the three of us are going home at the end of the day and he is training me for that!  Again, I digress....

In thinking of all these things...at 3am...I think I got vicious the other day because I am dusting off the memories of life before the protective order.  I'm dreading the expiration of that piece of paper and if I have to go back to life without it, I need to get back into that "mindset".  More proof that I haven't done a good job of preparing my emotions for this transition.  Mentally, I know what to do if the harassment starts again.  Physically I'm in the best shape of my adult like and I train to make sure I know how to defend against a physical attack.  Emotionally, I need to figure out how to deal with this or I really will start to lose my calm, peaceful life.

Why I needed a protective order after my divorce and what happens now?

Since the hEX and I separated, he has teetered on the edge of sanity.  I don’t mean the normal strife that goes with a separation and divorce.  I mean because of his harassment, alarming behavior, aggression, etc., I felt like a prisoner in my own life.  If it wasn’t him blowing up my phone spewing venom and prose, it was friends who had heard from him and were scared for me and my kids.  If he wasn’t driving by my house while leaving me threatening messages, he was showing up on my doorstep with new girlfriends in tow.  You never knew when storm demon hEX was going to hit.  Back then, I actually cared and wanted him to be healthy and happy.  Back then I would weather the storm in hopes that we could rebuild a stronger life, a life that would withstand the storms and we could live in peace.  What I couldn’t see back then was that the storm wasn’t an external force pushing him into scary, destructive behaviors.  The storm wasn’t childhood abuse or too much alcohol making him behave this way.  What I failed to see was that HE was the storm. 

Then came the wonderful and awful day that the Court issued a 2-year protective order.  This beautiful piece of paper that says for the next two years he is not allowed within 500 feet of me!  I walked out of that courthouse and for the first time in years, I exhaled!  Then I went home, collapsed on my bedroom floor and cried.

What’s with all the tears?  I was just handed my life back and I had no idea of what to do from that point.  You see, he had his court ordered alcohol assessment, his anger management classes, a whole wealth of programs and support to help him.  Where was my support?  Where was the program that was going to teach me how to breathe again, how to lead a normal life again?  When you spend so many years living in ‘survival mode’ you forget how to just ‘be’.  And no, it’s not just like riding a bike.  If you actually survive living in ‘survival mode’ for so many years, it changes you.  Once the ‘survival mode’ button is pushed, you are already not the same.  Once you come out of survival mode, you don’t breathe the same as before.  Actually, you have to learn to breathe all over again.  I had no idea how to start breathing again.  How do I rebuild a life for me and my kids?  Again, where were MY programs and support?  It was just me.  Me tearfully clutching that piece of paper and two little babies who needed me to be okay. 

When the crying subsided, I heard a voice, the Mad Hatter voice, “you’re stronger than you give yourself credit for.  You got this!”  With the support of my amazing angels, my wonderful family and friends, I have rebuilt my life.  It is a good, quiet, blissfully normal life.  I’m no longer “that woman” that everyone feels sorry for.  People no longer ask me how I'm doing with a sympathetic head tilt.  My house is no longer “that house” on the street that the police are always at.  And with the protective order getting ready to expire, I’m feeling very threatened.  I am feeling like my blissfully calm life is threatened. 

You know how structures are built differently in areas that are prone to earthquakes? Or floods?  The possibility of that structure having to withstand an earthquake is something that is taken into account when the structure is built.  What my heightened emotions and anxiety has shown me in the last few days is that I rebuilt my life without reinforcing the structure to withstand the day that protective order expires.  How am I supposed to handle having to be in the same room with him now?  How am I supposed to handle watching him drive away with my children as opposed to leaving them with my ex-mother-in-law for visitation? 

I study two different styles of martial arts.  I train my body to be prepared in case he or anyone else dare attack me again.  I have read tons of material on dealing with harassment, training my mind to effectively handle these situations.   But my emotions are dreading that day he is legally allowed access to me again.  I wish I had a class, a program, a book, that will teach me how to make this transition and maintain my quiet, stable life. 

In the writing of this post I’m starting to feel traces of calm.  Now there is this little voice in my head…I think it’s coming from my heart…and it’s saying “I make the path.  I got this!”