Leaving a long-term abusive relationship is freakin’ TERRIFYING. Trying to finish up divorce papers and today I was just frozen in place for hours. I finally just had a mindfulness moment and said to myself, “I AM SCARED.”

Like... not just really bad anxiety (which I’ve dealt with for years because of this guy) but I’m freaking SCARED.

When I have tried to leave in the past, he got NASTY and controlling with me.

The first time I went to get therapy, he got MAD and told me, “I don’t want someone else helping you.”

Dumb me didn’t fully realize how CRAZY that was, at the time.

When I went back to school, he tried to sabotage it and I had to beg him, crying with snot dripping from my nose to PLEASE DON’T PREVENT ME FROM GOING TO SCHOOL!

He tried to intimidate me over the divorce paperwork and seriously LITERALLY said to me that he didn’t agree with my assessment of the value of my own life.

He’s been trying to keep me dependent on him for more than half of my life, and he finally discarded me (phew) when he realized that he couldn’t control me anymore. 

But he’s trying to set things up so he can continue to control me even after he’s left and keep me dependent on him and unable to set boundaries with him.

When he left, he talked about building an apartment for himself in my back yard. Then he informed me that he was going to buy a tool shed to put in my yard so that he could get in there to do maintenance on my yard and house without having to ask me to let him into the garage.

I went out of town to see another man for the first time in over a year since he left, and he tried to make me feel intimidated for doing that and insisted he had a right to know my whereabouts so that he could do things with the kids and my home without having to check with me.

WTF is wrong with people like this???

He’s so RAPEY and it’s so messed up because HE left. He left me with all the responsibilities of taking care of the house and the kids and the yard and everything all by myself and yet still wants to CONTROL me from a distance even though he has moved on and has been dating some poor woman for almost a year.

I guess it makes sense because our entire marriage was like that. He forced me to be his mother and take care of everything, yet he wanted to control everything about me.

If I ever dared to express hurt or sadness or fear, his rage would surface. And for the last few years when I was an anxious mess, terrified of him, he was livid that I wouldn’t have sex with him.

I was literally frozen today. And I realized that I am seriously, PROFOUNDLY SCARED.

I didn’t realize that this would be SO scary. My PTSD is in high gear and I desperately need to feel SAFE.

Fuck this guy and what he’s done to my mental health.