new territory

[jamesG.1]

Hi all,

two months ago, my ex-partner died after falling downstairs drunk. Emotions, symptoms which I'd been working hard for three years to overcome flared severely and the whole story came tearing back in all over again; the alcoholic battles, the narcissistic brother, the enabling manipulative mother and my workaholic partner. It was mostly a lifetime of issues, especially with my brother, but it was the final 10 years followed by the grim finales as my mother died and all my issues joined hands and exploded that refreshed in my poor worn-out brain.

With fantastic timing, this new development came almost as soon as I moved in with my new partner, the pair of us also weathering a minor flood issue that left the house in uproar. Trying to keep the confused feelings of anger, bereavement, loss and attack from a judgemental world was tough, really tough. Naturally, I suppressed things and went into a classic numbness and waited it out, choosing to fake it to make it where the relationship was concerned.

I needn't have done that so much, however, because my new partner has been a real brick, giving me huge space to negotiate the smorgasbord of feelings the death of my ex has brought. I'm very lucky. But it has been exhausting.

But now, with the dust clearing and the potential unexpected chains of events that my hypervigilance was expecting failing to materialise, suddenly there has been a huge swing in my mood towards normality. The news caused me to process the demise of my previous relationship anew, but this time without the looming presence of my old GF there in the wings, gaslighting my experience into fantastic shapes whether she was there for real, or doing it through the voices in my head she'd implanted through years of psychological pressure. There is just no getting away from it, she drank herself and our life together to smithereens.

It's so easy in these situations, with a pitiful alcoholic playing the dying swan because you've had enough, or because they died alone, for the perception, real or imagined, that they are the victim and the partner is the abuser. I've felt it acutely, but it's nonsense. All the choices were hers and she made them selfishly and without hesitation. The victim was me. I was severely affected by the abuse, the hopelessness and the loss of all control of my own life. Somehow tho, in the narrative that developed, those around me, including my family and my business partner, chose to use the increasingly severe psychological impact on me... against me. Any attempt to ask for space to repair, consolidate and regroup was met with instant derision, condescension and threats.

My ex had none of this to contend with. She was wealthy, had security coming out of her ears and had avoided all personal responsibility with her own family long before. She used this lack of pressure to embrace a decline she welcomed with open arms and yet somehow, in the end, she achieves near sainthood for her voluntary collapse.

I think tho, that you have to disengage from this kind of dynamic, because I think it's the glue that holds C-PTSD together. It's the sheer mindboggling, manipulation of narrative that our abusers can produce that makes the condition so strong. I can remember so many occasions when I was young when my narcissistic brother's behaviour seemed to sail through the parental checks and balances and how this unhinged my belief in myself and how the world worked. When things simply make no sense you start to pull your own peace of mind apart looking for justifications for why the world is treating you so different to your antagonists. You have to look at your circumstances coldly, objectively and without the terror to see the obvious... they are wrong, but their voices are louder, crueller and more powerful. Not right... louder.

My ex-partner had been severely abused her mother as a child, bullied relentlessly because she'd been a third but unplanned pregnancy by a woman with a sense of outrage for a derailed career. She had been trained how to clam up, gaslight and control and once the alcohol had arrived, she used it in its defence. It fried my head. I'd been psychologically abused by my brother throughout my life, and it had taken years to work out what it was, and how to defeat it, but suddenly, with a sick mother and a drunk partner, I had a war on two fronts and I began to crack. C-PTSD.

Well, it's over.

The transformation in recent weeks has been astonishing. My head has gone through periods of real calm, optimism and hope. Why? Well simply put, my monsters have gone. There was a period of trauma when I got the news, for sure... guilt, shame, remorse.. the whole nine yards, but after that, when the analysis had been done the answers were fantastically simple.

It is no longer my problem.

It is not callous, cruel or shameful to move on from something like this, you have to. We are all born equal and with as much right to live as the next person. But when people skew this idea into these cruel and pointless shapes you DON'T have to go there with them. They love to use words like duty, morality and obligation, but what they really mean is "I dish it out, and you take it." There are many variations on this, but essentially that's it. They dish it out, and we take it. We take it because they have trapped us with our own good nature, and our natural, normal morality, unable to get out of the way because we are really just the only one on the road who is obeying the highway code. It's a clever trick, packed with low cunning, but it's a fiction. Without decency and kindness, there should never be unconditional love and support. Unconditional love is a horrible concept, a blank cheque for abuse and neglect.

The social bonds that bind us are there for what is valuable and worthwhile about human nature, but they are so easily hijacked by the cruel, heartless and selfish. Too many people are looking for shortcuts to avoid the harder emotions, the ego-crushing compromises that the narcissistic seek to outsource their failings onto everyone around them. They wrap us up knots, harnesses that see our every waking moment turned into a soul-crushing fight to avoid their personality disorder swamping and destroying us.

Enough.

I have lost too much time, too much blood, too much treasure on all this. It has to stop. And stopping it is. Finally, the chattering has started to lessen and I'm learning the hardest of lessons. There is much innocence to lose sadly, there really are monsters, monsters that far too often share our DNA or who end up as lovers, wives, husbands or co-workers. I'd love to tell you that there aren't, but sadly, there are.

The good news is that I, you, we... we don't have to live under their shadow. We really don't have to care what they do, say, or propagate about us. We don't even have to care whether they live, or... whether they die.

I'm not a believer, but I cannot help but feel we are none of us here to do anything other than live the best of all possible lives, and that it is an abomonation to nature, god, reason... for us to waste that life for anyone who sees life with such darkness. Nature is red and tooth and claw, but life... a good life, for those of us living in our privileged western worlds should be given. We have it in us to make so much happen in our lives, such potential and so much material to work with that it bewilders me anyone should seek to steer us into the shadows. But it happens, no doubt. The human mind is both magnificent and appalling, a triumph and a tragedy.

All of you, with your tragic stories, bravery and injustices... you are passing through a time of shadow and pain, but it shouldn't and mustn't become the definition of you any longer than it needs to be. We hurt because we expected more, we expected normality, love and decency. We have become confused, frightened and outraged. But these people, these sad, desperate, vicious cowards do not own this life, they don't own the sky, the trees, music, love, wildlife, movies, astronomy, art, food, sex, passion, landscape.... they'd want you to think so... but they don't. They don't own any of these things... and they don't own you.

So that's it really. C-PTSD is just another of them, it passes when you are ready, when you want to be free and when your anger and outrage at the injustice of it all turns to action. Pity them, pity their cowardice and immorality, pity their empty futures.

I am 56, nearly 57. I have lost most of my adult life to the cruelty, obstruction and selfishness of others.

It ends now.

[Blueberry]

James, I'm really happy for you!