cw: thoughts on DV - feel free to scroll.
I have only been triggered a handful of times in the last ten years. It isn’t really an after effect for me. I was in such a state of heightened everything for so long, even afterwards, that I was never chill enough to be triggered. Survival mechanisms are funny like that.
These pics are from when we were getting our house ready to sell, after my ex had already moved into his new house. I would go there on nights he had the kids and I repainted the whole damn house. It was terrifying being there alone, but I had lived there for six years so I was comfortable enough with all of the exit points in the house and safe places I could run/hide. Something I didn’t even know was happening in the back of my mind but definitely was.
Last week another fucking family annihilation happened. It happened in the town my ex lived in until last fall. I’ve been way too busy at work to dwell on it but it’s hit me this weekend. Leaving is the most dangerous time and it sounds like that’s what she was doing. However, time does not take the danger away. Ashley Stewart had been separated for more than four years (divorced like three and a half) and then her ex husband murdered her.
I have lived that fear. I will never feel fully safe while he still walks this earth. I have just gotten to a place where I can look back on our early relationship and recall some positive moments before the memories are tinged with the fact that our whole relationship was based on lies. That person no longer exists, him or me. He has never been who he pretends to be. My love was real, but I was loving a mirage.
I wish I could publicly tell my story with my full chest. I don’t protect abusers. But I do protect myself and my children. Many people know my story, so he has not silenced me. But he will forever be lurking in the shadows until he draws his last breath. And that is something I don’t know how to reconcile within myself.
