Value Nothing: What Emotional Abuse Looks Like

Just a heads up, I'm going  Dear Abby on you with this one.  

Dear Abby with a bit of a twist. 

I'm Dear Abby, because I'm in search of some advice.  Dear Abby with a twist because I wont offer any, Gentle Reader, just to have it thrown back if it fails.

I'll provide some food for thought, but I can tell you, Gentle Reader, you won't like it.  You won't like it because it comes from me.

Before we go on, I'd like to point out a change that was made, one that pulls The Dying Year back.  It may be important to remember, toward the end.

No Deliver You

After almost 3 months of writing, my approach to The Dying Year changed.  When I began it, I shared my posts with random audiences to increase exposure.  I posted on Facebook, and Google Plus.  I submitted posts to the online Writer's Collaborative "Medium", and to Twitter.  In the beginning,  I felt I needed to get my work into the hands of the general public. 

I no longer do.  

I stopped wondering who reads it, or what their opinion of it is.   In fact, I'd rather not know.  I'd rather not know because as long as I don't, I'll continue to write about what's important to me, or of concern, or that assists healing, as long as it's my own. 

I won't be tempted to impress an individual, or steal an audience.  I'll continue to write toward what's broken, or damaged, in me, and the people I attract will be the right ones, with right reasons.

At least, that's what I think...

You Still Hear?

I haven't posted The Dying Year anywhere since July, so if you're still reading, you're going about it on your own.  The only way to read it is by visiting the site.
And although I know my audience hasn't really changed, I am ignorant as to who makes it up.  

The bottom line is I write this for me.  I need it, and since there is no immediate feedback, and no one has ever mentioned reading this to me, it's not an ego stroke, or grab at attention.

I don't know why it gets read, but it does.  I don't know who reads it, either.  Except for the woman my Ex said stops by, to tell her when she should be angry.  I know about her.  Even though I wish I didn't.

If you kick me, 
I make a sound.
I don't always stay down, however.

Oh boy.  

Here we go again.

Hand it Over, Or Else

First, a brief review....

One of the primary reasons this blog came into existence was the 8 years my ex, and ex-family, refused to grant audience to the story it contains.  It was created as a safe place to allow it's telling, and protect it from being silenced, or changed.

Like my ex attempted again, just the other day while I was visiting our sons.

As I was leaving she asked to "speak to me outside", so I followed her. She turned quickly and said she doesn't read my blog, but it's a small town, and some of her friends do, and would I leave her out of it already, or just stop the whole thing together?!  After all, she doesn't hate me the way I think she does, and why would I think that anyway, it's silly.

Maybe.  But there's no doubt she's still trying to take my voice away, or to silence it.

She has been alluded to in 11 out of 62 total posts, or in 17% of what's been written.  Given the fact that what I'm writing is autobiographical, she's included.  Since, at the time of our divorce, she had been the primary individual in my life for 14 years, or for 32% of it, I don't think you can say I've unfairly allocated my attention.  But do, if you must.

A Thousand Times, No

Before I answer her request that I stop The Dying Year, I'd like to address the 'small town' comment .  I agree, it is.  

But I just got done telling you that my blog hasn't landed in anyone's lap for the past 3 months. They're choosing to read it, if they actually are.  And if they're choosing to read it while being aware of how it affects you, and still rush over  to share it's content with you, we're both excused from that one. 

There's a payoff in there somewhere for whoever's doing it, otherwise they wouldn't bother.  Maybe they get off , in a sort of sick way, on witnessing the turmoil it causes between us.  Or maybe it distracts them from the issues they're afraid of in their own homes.  Not sure.  Just sure that one has nothing to do with either of us.
Now, back to those 'requests', and hold on...

First, "NO, I will not stop writing it, or referring to you if I'm referring to you within the context, and content that you played a BIG part in scripting."


I had barely finished my refusal when I was met with the raising of her voice to a consistent yell, and the repeated instruction,

 "FINE! THEN DON'T YOU EVER SET FOOT IN MY HOUSE AGAIN!!  YOU ARE NOT WELCOME HERE ANYMORE!!  NEVER!!  DON'T YOU EVER COME HERE AGAIN!! EVER...."

She had me rushed off her property so quickly, and emphatically, that I had no idea what just occurred.  When I spoke with the boys again a couple hours later, I learned she had already conducted her 'debriefing' with them, to confirm everyone knew that daddy's a bad daddy, and bad daddy's aren't allowed in.  

It wasn't until the next day that I realized what I had observed, and what really happened.  

Emotional Ass Kicking

First, the immediate follow up tantrum to my refusal to stop THIS,  and your claim that the penalty is being locked out of the house?  

Yeah, I call B.S. on that one, because being told not to enter your home is like being told I can never eat the color blue again.  WHAT? And who cares. 
And you know that.

Not being allowed in the house means not

being allowed to see the boys as often, since it has become routine for me to spend time hanging out with them,or feeding them, when you have triathlon training and are gone, which is frequent.  

If we're going to examine what's been taken,

let's at least name it with the truth.  You succeeded in taking time with my sons away from me because I didn't agree to do as you 'requested'.

The entire scenario that was orchestrated, and played out , is a textbook example of the "emotional abuse" I've claimed, and has been denied.

That's the shape it takes, and it always takes something I want, or need, from me.  It chops me down with insults, or tells me all I'm needed for is to watch the kids. It's smart, so it leads you where it wants without you seeing it coming. It's manipulative. Her displays always occur where no one else sees them, and no matter what exists between the two of you, if others are around, she acts like nothing ever happened. And it always serves to get what she wants.  You get played like a ukulele. The weight of it is exhausting. 

What Really Happened

1. The entire thing was thought through, and calculated to back me into the result that's desired, just as it's been done so often before. It was not a spontaneous event.
2. A question is posed with a plan to take something of significance, something she has control over, from me, until I give in. This time, however, I'm not afraid of what stands to be lost, or what is threatened to vanish because she has it all, already (family,house,my stuff, my reputation, my dignity, shared friends, support of community).  Everything's already gone, and they were taken the exact same way, in scenarios that followed the same script.
3. She knew the question she would put toward me, and she knew she wouldn't ask until I was leaving.  A calculated timing that allowed her to break into the next move, her most important one. 
4. When I delivered my "NO", on cue, she was a full step into her tirade, a tirade designed to achieve the following: It gets me off the property immediately, and separates me from the boys. It leaves her with them, alone, so she can influence how they interpret what just happened, and how they will see my part in it, and to claim the victim role.  Exactly the same way she was involved with the rift with my family. Exactly the same way she was involved with my separation from my community.  Exactly the way she was involved with discontinuing certain friendships.  In fact, during the period in which all were taking place, I was advised by 3 separate counselors to clear out until she cooled down (I moved to Monterey for 6 months), and given the book "I Hate You, Don't Leave Me" to help understand her behavior (I was doing my own work with them), and what was happening.  
5. The ambush nature of the entire thing is carefully planned, and buys her the time she needs, and leaves me dazed. 
6. The manipulation around when these events occur, and where, is why my stories about her, and experience of her, will always be ignored, and denied, and she knows that too.  In fact, she counts on me telling them to others, because she knows no one else has seen what she's shown me.  No one else is treated the way that she treats me. It's why those who know us both will become her ally, not mine.  

The only witness to the degree of manipulation, and determined meanness,she is capable of is me. She's careful to insure that. I'm the only one she treats this way because our psychology's allowed it when they were enmeshed.
My purpose in writing this is not to instruct anyone to see her differently, or to assist me. 

My purpose is to make her aware that I see the stage, and the players, and the script. 

My purpose is to let her know that my role on this planet is not as some play thing she can use to make herself feel better. 

My purpose is to tell her my voice stays with me.

She wants my voice silenced because it's the only voice that can name what she did, or name what she holds the capacity to do.

Don't worry, though.  Nobody will walk away from you, or change their mind about you, or believe me.  Not in this community of white cape do-gooders with bad aim.  In fact, I'm certain all I'm doing is adding to the claims of crazy I already hear, and increasing the balancing act I already hold at the edge of community.

I'm also sure that if you were making these claims about me, no one would doubt a word, and I'd be run out of town.

Which is exactly why I'll do that on my own, when the boys are of age.

So, Gentle Reader, if I make you angry with what I write 17% of the time, because this isn't the woman you know...

It's what she's been to me. 

It's how she treats me.  

It's "my truth".

I'm going to keep it, if that's alright.

Every time she asks me to stop telling the story that includes her, I'm being told, again, that my pain is irrelevant, no matter who imposed it, or how.  I'm being told that persons public image is more important than the suffering the same person who is asking, created.

That's fucked up from any angle.

Final Inventory

The only thing I have of value is my story, and the right to tell it, to voice what I've been told never to voice. 

Most individuals who have been the target of any form of abuse have a breaking point that pushes them to the pulpit, a place they were hoping to avoid, because the chance of anyone believing them is slim, and because it increases the threat of more abuse.  If it's unclear, I've reached mine.

If you reach inside for the perspective my fifty-one years put together for me, I stand up.   

If you refuse to allow my experience to live alongside of yours, I find it a place of it's own, and banish you. 

 If you take everything that was of value to me, 

I'll learn to value nothing, and honor my voice.

I'll leave you with a statement a therapist I was seeing at the time of my divorce, made to me.  
She said,

"Patrick, you were married for 11 years.  That's a successful relationship in anyone's book.  The failing occurs in the community surrounding the divorcing couple.  That community will choose sides, even though they once loved, and cared for, both.  The damage that's done is done by those who take one side, and honor it above the other.  Ideally, the people who loved you both when you were together, will love you equally when you're apart, and refuse to hear anything negative about either of you."

Ideally, maybe.
Just not in this town.

from The Deborah King Center on Abuse

"Another form of abuse, and one that we don’t often hear of, is emotional abuse. It is very difficult to define, and it often goes under reported. In general, however, emotional abuse involves rejection, degradation, intimidation, or threatening, exploiting, withholding love and support, and isolating the victim from others. Emotional abuse is present with other forms of abuse as well. And as it can occur on its own, it is the most prevalent type of abuse. Despite this, there is not a lot of research into this area. Many victims are never identified nor do they seek help. Of the 896,000 cases of childhood physical abuse, it is reported that only 7% were victims of emotional abuse. Of course, it is more likely that 100% were victims of emotional abuse, and 7% experienced no other form of abuse in conjunction. Despite the lack of solid statistics, we can be certain that this terrible crime is far more common than we would like to believe."

**In her possession through these tactics, and how:

• • Our community of marital friends was told I had a long, marriage wrecking affair (and numerous others) with a woman they all knew, despite the fact that no such affair took place. Letters were written to the woman's employer demanding she be fired for "..the break-up of a marriage", and backs were turned toward me.  
  • Siblings were told the same, and that I spent $50,000 of the 'family' savings on vices, and God knows what, while we were separated, and that I left 'us' insolvent. 
  • I received 'anonymous' letters to insure I felt 'small' with information about hobbies, or passions, or history that only she knew, and told family and friends I was "crazy", and wrote them to myself to make her look bad.  One of the letters I wrote to myself went something like:

 Teacher-FAILURE!

Actor-FAILURE!

 Writer-FAILURE!

Husband-FAILURE!

 Father-FAILURE! 

Just like your own father-SUCCESS!

 All intended to burn the bridges, and connections to anyone, and keep isolation imposed.  All intended to destroy character in the eyes of others.  All intended to keep what is too frightening to lose.  All intended to destroy the voice that was subjected to someone no one else ever sees.

She has succeeded in all of her efforts.
All but one.
I still own my voice.
I still have my story.
I've told what I needed to tell of this part.