Doing time…

It’s been a whole week again since I last braved leaving my cell ( I mean home)… I live in a approximately 12 by 12 room. Recovering Agoraphobic, which for those that are not in the know what that is, brief description: it’s not the fear as many have lead us to believe of wide open spaces, it is actually a mixture of a thousand fears. Imagine if you will getting huge electric shocks every time you left your front door. Even going up to it, come to that. Pretty soon you wouldn’t go near that door for fear of that shock, pain, just the thought of it. Then you stop trying. Plus you really do believe you’re going to die at any moment. Adrenaline courses through your veins, your heart races, miss-beats… you can’t breath, your head swims, eyes go out of focus, you body drips in sweat or you’re freezing cold, sometimes both. You feel you will vomit or, worse, you need the toilet right then and there. It will brook no argument. Imagine all this and ten times worse. I’ve barely touched on it.

But after twenty five years, countless failed attempts and so much hard work, I did it! I swear at times I thought I couldn’t and nearly gave in, then for roughly about 18 months I was free once again. Not only that… I also survived 35 years of hell in a controlled marriage. Many said how brave I was, how amazing. I didn’t think I did anything spectacular. If anything, far from it. I thought I should have gotten over it earlier. I was angry, frustrated, bitter there for a while, not only with myself but those who didn’t seek help for me. And this just wasn’t, isn’t me. I sent all these emotions packing many years ago, but I felt I had allowed myself to be locked up, chained… my life wasted, frittered away so easily by someone who just wanted a lackey, a servant, power over another, as I was the only point of control in his life. And when I say ‘control’, I don’t say this lightly. My every move was mapped out. I was allowed privileges, I wasn’t allowed life.

But 18 months ago I took those important steps to freedom and it was hard, arduous, and, at times, I wanted to back out. Many times it was just too hard. I didn’t have the strength, the conviction. I just was too scared to fight this plus other things going on around me. It felt like I was taking on the world and its dog. I left everything behind… all I had known, all I cared about. And here I was living this scary new life with just one thing holding me up: love! Two people’s support is all that kept me going when I tired, felt beaten… that was Jesse and my daughter. I leaned on them so much when I thought I couldn’t go another step, Jesse my light in a dark cruel world, my heartbeat, a source of warmth in the cold, and Becky: my daughter, my friend, counsel, a gift from long ago to walk beside me on this journey.

Now back to recent times after coming back from Detroit and that whole debacle, I’ve stayed here in my room, my prison. I did go out to the coffee shop or grocery store most days, or just for a walk locally round a small park. All that was before. Gradually, due to ill health and depression, my world grew smaller. It has gotten so that I barely leave these four walls. Imagine when you do venture out being watched, reported back on or the very thing you escaped: the horrors of your abuser following you, knowing exactly what they are doing , still that controlling hand on your reins, still pulling them tight, so your every move is fearful. Watching over your shoulder constantly, you feel hunted. This isn’t the nervous mind talking, this is real. The dangers are real, so no more escapes to my little coffee shop where I sat in the warmth letting the coffee slowly swirl through my brain and do that delicious thing of waking my brain-fogged mind… no people watching, just seeing people, hearing their voices, saying hello, goodbye. Although I’m not a people person this did bring me some relief living in my own head.

Also I loved sitting outside, the sun upon my face, even for minutes, sometimes an hour, just to feed my need of being close to nature. Even on the coldest, wet days it charges my batteries, smelling the earth. Touching trees are as important to me as food; it’s a need, a must, but I’m denied these now and slowly, bit by bit, I’m robbed of every last thing I worked so hard for. Can you imagine yourself being shut in a small room, the curtains drawn to keep the cold out, seeing no daylight, feeling cool breeze, the nip of winter chill upon your face? And not only that, there’s no end in sight. I feel chained. I’m more tied up than ever. When I do go out, I run the very real risk of being followed. Even seeing my therapist was interrupted. And, no, there isn’t any help to be had. It’s treated as a minor thing. I’m so sorry to sound bitter but when you worked so hard to free yourself from something as debilitating as Agoraphobia only be shoved back in the shadows again, I cannot help but feel that emotion I had long ago controlled. I’m at the mercy of someone’s lies. They hold all the cards and I’m punished for wanting something we all take for granted… life.

JESSE’S RESPONSE:

I have watched the love of my life deal with the demons in her life with helpless despair since she was assaulted in Detroit. As we are on video chat 24/7 to assuage one another’s anxiety issues, I see and hear everything that happens to her. I pickup the silent sobs when she lies and tells me everything is okay. I see the torturous pain in her face as she struggles through another nightmare. I hear her struggle with a disrespectful, lying son who should be affording her every courtesy and comfort available but, instead, has no affinity for trying to understand her issues. (I hear every conversation she has and know of what I speak.) I hear and see the twisted gargoyle form of her abusive ex as he tries, like all cowards do, to intimidate her, knowing that his face, his voice, the foul stench of his body odor trigger more nightmares, more anxiety. My stomach wrenches as she entertains thoughts like being such a burden that she should walk away from us.

My world, my life resides there in her small town in the form of her. It is maddening that the very agencies existing to help victimized women have such a cavalier attitude toward my love’s continual victimization. She is the sweetest, kindest, most faithful person one could ever hope to meet while her ex is a vile prevaricator, a philanderer, a bully. Her gargoyle-esque Lucifer has his flying monkeys reporting on her whereabouts constantly and calling her names when they pass in the streets that I would never utter in mixed company. It is small wonder such paranoia is evoked. And I must watch on from the sidelines when every instinct in me is to attack the source of her discomfort with brute force.

All I can offer is the love she has never known… and being the man she has never known. I am with her every step of the way and am bound and determined to prove to her that this love of ours is forever and real. I am not going anywhere. I truly believe that when she is, at last, back in my arms, it will be the beginning of a new utopia for both of us. She is, without doubt, the love of my life.