I was on myspace looking at the people who went to my high school and I went to the grade my brother graduated from. I found some girl with the name "Fitzy" and I thought maybe she was the sister of the girl who was my best friend in middle and high school. So I emailed her to ask her if that was her name. She wrote me back to say it was and wanted to know who I was.
I told her that her sister used to be my best friend and her brother was my bf in 7th grade. She wrote back and said she remembered me. That's cool. She told me a little of what her sister is up to and told me which school she now works at. So I went to that school website and looked in the faculty email list. I found her!
So I sent her an email to say hi and to see what was up... 11 years later! Finally today she wrote me back. That put a smile on my face LOL She found me on myspace and put in a friend request to me. Of course, I accepted. She SO looks the same. LOL It's wild.
The thing about this girl is that it was my boyfriend that came between us. He was very controlling and emotionally abusive. He went to a different high school than us, but knew several people who went there. He never let me talk to other dudes. He was very strict about that. He said that some of his friends are in my classes, and he won't tell me who, and they report back to him when I talk to other dudes. I'm also a very honest person and I would confess when I did.
Well, like any normal girl, this best friend of mine had guy friends. God forbid they talked to me. I wasn't allowed to talk back. If one of my friends invited a guy to sit with us at lunch, I got mad at them and had to move to another table. I wasn't allowed to sit with another guy at lunch. Yes, this all sounds SO absurd. Even he admits it to this day.
Junior and senior year of high school he transfered to my school. It was him and I everywhere. He was in 90% of my classes and he sat with me at lunch every day. When he came to my school, basically all of my friend ships with other people had to end. Including this girl. She was my friend the longest. I was sad, but at the same time I was mad at her too because she was never there for me. She never gave me support and always criticized me for letting him do that to me. I see where she was coming from. I guess I just wanted help but didn't know how to get it. With hardly any friends of my own (they were all his) I felt so alone and accepted this was how I had to live.
At home it wasn't any better. I had to stay in my bedroom unless I had to go to the bathroom or if I was with him. Literally. A few examples of this absurdity was one Christmas my mom and brother were going to put the Christmas tree up. Since he had to work I stayed home. He didn't like my family and they didn't like him so I wasn't allowed to be with my family. Not even to put the Christmas tree up. I decided I really wanted to be out there decorating so I went out anyways. While he was at work he called me CONSTANTLY to check up on what I was doing. He called when I was in the living room and my mom answered the phone. That was a BIG no no. I was the only one allowed to answer the phone. So when I got on the phone he really let me have it. I told him I was just getting supper because I was hungry. He called me a liar and said I was out decorating the tree (like I asked to do earlier). I admitted I was and he was SO mad at me for days.
Another absurdity was the one time my mom bought me a bunch of clothes. He had to work that night and said I couldn't wear them to school until he looked at them first. To make sure I wasn't dressing like a whore. There was one conservative outfit I just LOVED and wore to school the next day anyways. I watched in horror as the bus pulled up to our house and he was standing there at the bus stop. I got off the bus and he knew what I did. Of course, he said I looked like a whore although that SO wasn't the kind of outfit I was wearing.
He loosened up on me, but tightened up in other ways, after I had our son my senior year of high school. I couldn't be in my room as much because I had a newborn baby. I had to make bottles and stuff. So I was allowed to leave my room for that. I convinced him to let me go in the living room to sit in the rocking chair to rock our son. The day my son was born was the happiest day of my life by far at this point. I wasn't alone anymore. I was in control of SOMETHING in my life. I pampered my baby so much and loved him. I rocked him every chance I could get and hardly ever put him down.
After we graduated, he joined the Navy. When he got out of basic training we got married. He was stationed in Virginia Beach, VA. I loved it so much there. I felt like I could leave my old life behind. Of course, his absurd behavior continued. To him, I was sleeping with everyones husband and all the sailors on base. I don't know how I could because no one was allowed in the house and I STILL didn't have my drivers license. He wouldn't let me get it because there was no reason for me to drive anywhere unless he was with me. One day right after we moved in one of our upstairs neighbors came down to our apartment while my husband had duty at the base across the street. He was taking their trash out, and as a friendly gesture, offered to take ours out as well. Since we just moved in I had alot of trash and appreciated the offer. When he came back in to get more of our trash my husband walked in! Yeah, you guessed it. I was accused of sleeping with this dude... blah blah blah. It was like this for years. The same game.
The time came when he had to go out to sea for his Mediterranean cruise assignment. Since I worked and had NO family around, he had to allow me to get my drivers license. I also had a WebTV unit so I could email him on the ship. I hated to see him go and I was scared to have to do everything on my own with a child. I was only 20 years old with no family and a small income. Looking back on it I can't believe I didn't apply for food stamps or something. But I don't believe in people living on those things unless ABSOLUTELY necessary and even then only short term.
While he was gone a whole new world opened up to me. I loved going to the ocean with my son. The ocean was amazing to me and I miss it so bad even to this day. It's almost like a representation of life to me. And independence. As hard as it was I survived without him for 6 months. I met so many people online and began to "socialize". It sounds twisted but this was the most interaction I had with people in the 6 years since I met him. I met people in person and had such a wonderful time. Life was great. I missed him so bad, but life was good.
One thing he told me was to not start smoking. If I did, he'd divorce me. So out of rebellion, I guess, I started smoking. I quit cold turkey though the night before he came back. And used about 5 things of Febreze LOL I never smoked around our son. I made sure of that. But when I was at work on break or in the car alone I smoked and smoked and loved it!
Another thing about him being out to sea, he told me I better not be like the rest of the Navy wives and get fat while he was gone. I was only like 130, which was obese to him. But I was scared of getting fatter. So I became real bulimic while he was gone. One night my son walked in on me making myself throw up. I tried to play it off. I realized the consequences of my actions one day when I walked into the bathroom when he was in there. He had his finger in his mouth like he saw me doing! I stopped the bulimia that day. It still upsets me to this day. I can't believe my son saw that.
One thing he also did while overseas was ran our bank account so far in the ground that when he got paid it was only to cover the overdraft charges. My son and I hardly had any food. The food we did have went to him. I guess that last month I went from bulimic to anorexic. Finally my boss, who was also a good friend of mine (my husband didn't mind because he was gay and he figured he wouldn't be interested in me) told me to take the day off with pay, go over to the bank, and set up my OWN bank account. One my husband didn't have access to and didn't know about, that I could deposit my paychecks in so I could get bills paid and to buy groceries. That worked out so nicely. In fact, our joint bank closed in the negative and neither one of us was allowed to open a bank account for 7 years.
The day came when he was returning from overseas. I was excited to have him back but 99% of me was scared out of my mind. Horrified of what might be unacceptable to him. I had to let go of the online "social network" I had. The minute he got in the car he noticed one little bit of cigarette ash on the center console. He asked if I started smoking and I admitted that I did, but that I quit and promised never to do it again. He was so mad. So far, not off to a good start.
When he got home things seemed so different with him. He accused me of having men over because there was a little bit of urine "out of place" for a woman. I told him it was probably from our son, who was potty training at the time. This was the truth.
As time went on I realized he had SO much rage in him. He changed so bad when he was gone. I think the whole 6 months he felt out of control of me and he finally had control when I got back. It was around Christmas time when he came back, and the time of my 21st birthday. I wanted to go to the mall to see about buying stuff for him for Christmas and I didn't want him there with me. Can you believe I had to track my minutes and mileage on the car so he knew exactly how much I drove at which point? While I was at the mall I had to call him from a pay phone periodically so he could hear the "background".
My 21st birthday was definitely memorable. He promised me the whole time he was out to sea that him and some sailors were going to have a wild party for me. I was so excited and thought about it all the time. We got into a fight though the days leading up to my birthday. There was no party being planned. There never was. All I got for my birthday was the first real beating of my life. I stood up to him. Right to his face that night. He didn't like a woman being tall up to him and he hit me down to the ground. As I was down I spit at him. That earned me a few more slaps. He dared me to spit at him again. I think what was going through my head up until now was I hurt so bad inside. Might as well fight my battle. I'll take the hits. Maybe it will numb how I hurt inside.
I think it did the exact opposite. I hurt even more. I wasn't like bruised and bloody all over. It wasn't like that. Yeah I had some bruises. But emotionally I hurt way more. I kept telling myself "WTF are you doing?! This isn't you! You want to be a doctor, you have a child you live for, you are SO much better than this!"
For the next 7 months things still sucked, but I made it work. Life went back to being how it always was. He hit me less and less as time went on. But I was so depressed. At the same I was in the part of the world I was the happiest. I want to go back so bad and relive my life. If death is how I think it is, I want to fly over Virginia Beach.
After he left the Navy we moved to North Carolina. We lived in his brother's friend's 1 bedroom apartment (he moved out but didn't want to break his lease, so we stayed until it ran out with the blessing of the apartment manager). My husband got a job that kept him out of town most of the time. He came home for a little bit on Friday nights so I could go to the store to get groceries for the upcoming week. It was just me and our son all the time. We were happy together. We were all we needed in the world. I didn't know anyone in this new city outside of Raleigh. No one was home during the day, they all worked. I didn't have a car. My husband took the one car we did own. Heck, we didn't even have a telephone. And he was making $60,000 a year! We were a little in debt up until this point and I was happy to get bills paid off. But I think he really had a hell of a social life with his salary while I sat home with our son.
Life sucked like that until he quit that job. It was too much for him. He worked in the city we lived in, we moved into a brand new 2 bedroom apartment, and I was allowed to get a temp job. I loved being out of the house. I offered to work constantly. I missed my son, but I had to get away. My husband was never hard on our son like he was me so I trusted him.
But one day everything came crashing down hard on me. The job I worked and loved so much was over. The girl I was filling in for on maternity leave decided not to come back and another girl was already in line for it. So I had to leave. I met so many people there (Of course I was accused of sleeping with all 2o0+ male employees there). It was all gone again. I was tired of everything. I was so alone. I was tired. I just gave up. I felt like my son would be better off without me. I took every pill, ephedra diet pills, Tylenol... anything. I was SO sick. I told my husband I OD'd and was trying to kill myself. He was pissed and said I was stupid and then left to go golfing for the weekend with all his friends!!!
Fortunately I lived. I hated him so bad for leaving me. What if I died?! Noone would have checked on me until he came home Sunday night. My son would have been all alone with mommy dead. I was pissed at myself as well.
Finally in 2001 after being together for 9 years he moved out. Turns out he met someone else. HA! How ironic? The one who blamed me extensively for years of cheating on him was the one who left cause he found someone else. A month later I met a man in the Atlanta area who was beyond amazing. I fell hard for him. I kept telling myself that, right now, every man will seem amazing to me. But I never gave up on him.
A year later my son and I moved to Georgia to live closer to this man. Here we are, almost 7 years later. Madly in love, married, and have a 3 year old son who is our world. My ex husband and I are still good friends. He moved back to Ohio. I'll always care for him, but I'll never forget.
I'm also happy to say that I'm 3 years into my adventure to become an RN. I'm finally becoming everything I always wanted to be. I'm so happy. And in another 2 years we're planning to try for one more child. Hopefully a girl!
Labels: abuse, baby, Navy, relationships, suicide
