Yes, I just arrived at work. This is what I'm talking about, the apathy getting a little out of control.

All right then. I'm still waking up. Had an embarrassing moment at the bank this morning, the one where I only have a checking account... I couldn't cash my check because there's only $41.00 in my checking account, and that wouldn't cover the check I wanted to cash. Oops. This never happens to me. I always have worked two, three jobs and although have never actually been ROLLING in money, I didn't really have to budget too much or hold myself back from spending. Now I'm not even spending-- I haven't looked at clothes or jewelry or ANYTHING-- and I'm still in the poorhouse. Oh dear oh dear.

It will get better, at least I have some confidence in myself around that. I'm a survivor, intent and committed on getting what I need. So somehow I'll do it.

By the way, if you're broke, or ever been broke, or just want to read a funny book, go get THE BROKE DIARIES by Angela Nissel. I laughed my ass off reading this book. And you'll like it too, Diarylanders, because it's actually based on a real-live web diary of a broke student, and all the crazy ways she provides for herself.

Last night I worked for CF. Luckily, she was out skanking around, I imagine, terrozing the city-- Godzilla-like-- so I didn't have to deal with her personally (I think she actually might have had a date! Unbelievable!). It really doesn't matter though, because once I go into that office, it's as if I've entered some kind of vortex that sucks the time out of my life. I've never been able to go in there and just complete what I needed to do in "a couple hours". That's because dear old CF has a bad habit of asking people to "do a few things, I left them on your desk" and the "few things" turn out to be a huge stack of unrelated items that she's just too lazy to do herself. It's irritating, annoying, and makes me want to cry. That's why I had to get out of there. And everytime I would try to reitify what our original agreement was, for example, "We talked about my doing XYZ, not 123," She flies off the handle, starts blaming and accusing whatever needs to be done as my responsibility. This woman never takes responsibility for anything; if she told you the story you'd think everyone done her wrong. She is a walking, talking, blaming machine. And I can't leave anything undone, because then she won't pay me. She holds all her employees hostage like this, until they get sick of her craziness and leave. I'm the person that's been there the longest. I probably only lasted as long as I did because IN THE PAST (I would like to believe I don't have it anymore) I have an affinity for suffering. But look at me anyway, I quit over a month ago, I still haven't been paid and I'm still doing shit for her.

Yeah, I could just say fuck you I'm outta here, etc., but then she'd bad mouth me to every contact I've made in this community and I will never be able to get decent work that I like... I can barely survive in my typical artistic manner as it is, without having the added stress of being blackballed. Everyone looks up to her, because they only see the pretty face she puts on in public. They don't know about the evil that lurks beneath.

So that was my conundrum. Knowing the truth but having no witnesses, no one to validate my own reality, about what kind of treatment was going on. Somehow, it evolved.

Everything is just a pattern anyway. If you grew up in an abusive household, chances are you will be in an abusive relationship. If you grew up with parents that didn't pay any attention to you, chances are you will be attracted to the same kind of life partner, and spend your time trying to make that person see you.

So even CF is part of my pattern. My parents were both pretty narcissistic, and never really bothered to find out who I really am. So why not? I go out in the world, I date men who criticize me like my father. I work/live with women who are so wrapped up in themselves, they feel the need to control me or define me as they see fit.

God the worst relationship I ever had was with a guy named Derek. How I ended up with this guy I don't know. He was not attractive at all, he was overweight and had very bad skin. We worked together when I was about 20. At first we just used to talk, you know, at work, and I thought he had a nice enough personality. Then he was all up in my face saying, "Listen, I like you," I really didn't know what to do because I was actually in love with another man that had just moved out of town (he wanted me to come and live with him). But I guess I was so afraid of making someone angry at me, and thought if someone liked me I had to like them back. That's how starving I was for attention! It felt like Derek was the caveman who came and dragged me by the hair: "Listen, I like you!" Nobody asked me if I liked him... I just became his girlfriend.

He was incredibly manipulative and controlling. It was all about him. He was verbally abusive too, but I wasn't aware of it at the time. He would tell me to shut up when he didn't like what I was saying. He would tell me I was stupid and made bad choices when anything I did inconvenienced him. Even though he was 20 lbs overweight, he would criticize my body. His anger scared me, so I kept a lot inside. I tiptoed around him. I was afraid to even keep a journal because he insisted that was keeping secrets and couples shouldn't keep secrets from one another. I had no privacy-- he claimed rights to anything that was once mine. He controlled everything. Right down to the little things: I was never allowed to touch the remote control to the TV, that's how serious it was! When he decided to get up, he would turn all the lights on, the TV or the stereo, regardless if I was sleeping or not-- it was time to get up because he was ready to get up. In the two years we dated I don't think he ever let me sleep late. Of course it didn't start out like this. He was sweet enough in the beginning, but he was like a dense fog rolling in in the middle of the night-- little by little he took over control of my life and I didn't even know how it happened!

Sex was terrible. He wanted sex all the time, but I was never turned on by him (obviously- how could I be? he was killing my spirit). But I was so unaware of what the problem was, I thought not being turned on was my fault. I thought maybe it was the pill. Anyway he insisted we have sex anyway, no matter how I was feeling-- this is how adolescent his thinking was-- one time I said I didn't feel like it and he said, "What, you get to decide when we have sex?" Forget about being in a consensual partnership! We would have sex and I would bite him, not out of passion, but because I hated him so much. It was crazy, but I didn't even know. It was like I was in some kind of fog, under some kind of trance.

Oh, it breaks my heart to think of the girl I was then. I was the most depressed person you ever saw, overweight, tired and unhappy, and I had no idea because I had nothing that was mine anymore. I didn't even have feelings. I felt hollow all the time, like I was just carting my hollow body from one place to the next.

One day a guy friend of mine came over that I went to high school with. We just talked and hung out, but I was so turned on by him, just sitting there talking to him and looking at him. I'd always had a crush on him and felt incredibly attracted. After he left I realized... I did have a sex drive! It wasn't the pill at all or something wrong with me... it was Derek.

There was a glimmer of something in me. I tried to leave. I told Derek I didn't even like myself when I was with him. Each time Derek would break down, become all sweet, say the nicest things, suddenly he was dream guy, and he was changed. After the first few times I no longer believed this act, but if I still tried to leave he would get nasty, threaten. He would physically not let me leave until I agreed we could try again.

One day I drove my hollow body to the dentist, where they were taking my wisdom teeth out. As they lowered the anesthesia mask onto my face, I had one thought that just slipped through my mind before I went under, "I hope I don't wake up."

I did wake up, of course, and Derek started some ridiculous fight with me while I was still recovering, with gauze all in my mouth and everything. About some little thing I'd done wrong that upset him. It was at that point that I knew I was going to leave him. I started taking my things from his apartment one by one, because he had threatened that he would keep all my stuff if I left-- over half my life's belongings were at his place, of course, so he could control them.

I got most of my things and went to my girlfriend's house to stay for a while. Derek called me to talk about my birthday. He said he had planned the whole day out for me, including a party. The funny thing was, the party did not include any of MY friends. They were all people that Derek knew. I said, "But that's not really what I want to do for my birthday," and he got mad. Started saying, listen, I did this for YOU. I set this whole thing up. Etc. etc. (Abusers always act like they are the one making all the sacrifices for the abused). And I said, "I don't think we should see each other any more." Derek was shocked. He couldn't understand. He did the nice guy thing. When that didn't work he did the mean guy thing. His mother even called me to say she thought it was terrible to break up with her son on the phone. I couldn't explain to her that that's how it needed to be done, because physically he would not let me leave until I agreed to do what he said. I told her he was not that nice, that he told me to shut up all the time. She said, "Oh, but you know he really loves you."

It was impossible to explain myself, because I was in the abused fog and I didn't have the words. I wasn't even fully comprehending how deeply I was affected. Derek looked like the victim; the sweet, ugly guy that I had cut off abruptly and left behind. The abuse had been such a secret. Others encouraged me to give him another chance, because he loved me so. Sometimes I was tempted to take care of him in some way because he was helpless and depressed. He kept begging me to come over "just to talk". But I knew I couldn't; because he would do the same thing, whatever he could to convince me not to go. When I was in physical proximity of him I had no power. But if I kept my distance on the phone, I could say no.

The biggest feeling of relief was when I realized I would never have to have sex with Derek ever again.

Then things started happening that really validated my experience and threw things into perspective. For one thing, I met another guy and we started dating. I slept over at his house once, and when I woke up he was not in the bed. I went out into the kitchen and he was reading something. "Why didn't you wake me up?" I asked. "You looked so peaceful, I just figured you needed the sleep," he said. That blew my mind. He was considerate of ME, of what I needed.

People told me I looked lighter. Not just physically lighter, because I did lose weight (depression will make you heavy), but just LIGHTER. And I was. I was not carrying the heavy burden called Derek anymore.

Then I found a book by Patricia Evans, I think it was called "Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out" and suddenly my story was right before my eyes. I saw all the patterns of control that I hadn't seen before, like the TV remote and the lights like I told you before. I cried when I read that book, because suddenly I realized that all that time I was beating myself up thinking there was something really, crucially wrong with me, it was really the fact that I was in such an abusive relationship-- there was nothing really wrong with me. Except I lacked skills in knowing how to protect myself.

Now, after a few years, I can see that Derek was probably pretty unconcious about what he was doing. He probably to this day believes that he really loved me. But whatever; abuse is abuse. Abusers usually choose extremely sensitive, compassionate people, and that's why it's hard for the abused person to leave... because they actually have compassion for their abuser. There comes a time when you have to protect yourself though. I take responsibility for my part in that drama-- I did not have the skills at that time to protect myself or set a boundary for myself, so I consented to a lot of things that I thought meant we were a couple and we were in love. This doesn't mean I deserved that kind of treatment ever. And I paid for it dearly a few years later, I think, with the cancer. My body's way of screaming about the violation done to me.

Unsolicited Advice: I would recommend everyone, whether a woman or a man, read one or more of these books by Patricia Evans:

1)The Verbally Abusive Relationship: How to Recognize it and How to Respond

2)Verbal Abuse Survivors Speak Out; On relationship and recovery

3)Controlling People: How to Recognize, Understand, and Deal With People Who Try to Control You

I say man or a woman because men can be verbally abused too. Or two people can be in a relationship where they abuse each other. Or, if you are exhibiting verbally abuse/controlling behaviors, you will see yourself in these books as well.

I am very passionate about this subject as you can see.

Thanks for reading.

Duck

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