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Recording Repeats
I'm keeping notes to keep my head clear
The latest is about my one word answers
Yet, he's talking about conversations where he talks over me unless I say yes or no, then he leaves the room
Where if I attempt to answer he says "I am talking here"
I could easily go mad hearing about the person he describes
Maybe I will go mad
I sound silly he says, when I called it abuse.
When all that's being discussed is putting shoes away
I feel silly as my memory plays all sorts of tricks, but I'd written it down
Do I leave shoes in the wrong place? Yes. Does he like it? No. Did I change? No.
But I wasn't giving it thought, I was bustling in with one thing or another or sitting down still wearing shoes then taking them off. If I come in with bags I sort out what I'm doing and I don't know - a thousand reasons why my shoes aren't on a shoe rack. Interrogate those thousand times and none of them were malicious, nor indeed does he always put his shoes away. No floors are damaged, nothing occurs but the sight of my shoes not where I was instructed to leave them. I wasn't even defiant, it just doesn't register as a priority.
I've probably done it my whole life. But suddenly he started taking great offense to it. Mentioning if he took my shoes to the shoe rack. Ok. Intermittently I comply. Then I can't find my shoes and he says every time he finds my shoes in the wrong place he'll put them in a different wrong place until I learn a lesson. Until I'm late for work. Now I must add here, my mind is full of many things and shoes still doesn't always make it to the top. I'll get in from a tough day, sit down and remove my shoes and forget about them. Then it escalates, he starts placing his things on the floor where I'll trip on them. Ignoring me if I speak to him. Throwing a tea bag on the kitchen floor to highlight how I won't like something in the wrong place. From Thursday through to Wednesday this is occurring and I keep my head down but I have broached it. I have said the key difference is intent and I consider how he is treating me emotional abuse. It's not in a vacuum, it's the example about the shoes. We can use the example about giving a one word answer when I'm not allowed to elaborate. We can talk about when I'm out with a friend I'm asked to admit who I'm with. We can talk about how he waits until just before I'm going to sleep to have a go at me when I ask him not to and I then wake up in my sleep having a panic attack unable to breathe and he says "what are you doing?" as I'm on the floor gasping for breath trying to figure out if I'm dying but he doesn't wait for an answer because this happens and he's learnt to sleep through it, not even remember it in the morning. I say please don't do the thing that triggers it as I'll struggle to sleep scared it might happen. I can't remember what he says, I think he just talks over me telling me what he's annoyed about at that moment.
And I wish I wrote every word down but I haven't. Over and over again where everything shifts and I can't remember my part any more. The shoes are so insignificant, but the intent to punish was not. The knowledge I was being made to suffer for non compliance was important.
I know how it sounds, I've heard him saying it "think about what you have done" and I just know I hadn't done anything at all and what I think about is how I don't want my whole life to be these stories that my mind scrubs out as soon as he's nice to me again.
So I gave the one word answer. Said I'm happy to explain. He doesn't want to hear it, just for me to tell him that I know I shouldn't have said it.
Now I'm asked to not attend a family meal. I know from experience he will likely next be saying I owe more money towards bills as he's no longer happy to pay more than half based on salaries. He'll ensure that he's not around when we are needed to be in two places at once to collect the children from separate places. Or maybe he won't. Maybe he's not this person I make him out to be. All I know is I can't stand it as my life. I can't stand it any more.
I pull each breath in
thinking about what I've done
but my mind is blank
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