Shivers. That’s what I get when a good friend tells me their paramour has said the words ‘I’m so disappointed in you’ following unaccountable rudeness from him.
That used to be my everyday paradigm: He felt angry and would swear at and embarrass me in public and harangue me in private, and it was all my doing; my fault for not loving him enough — for not putting him at the centre of all my decisions and actions.
From the green peppers being cut in the ‘wrong’ direction at dinner to purchasing a nice pair of shoes because my old ones had one heel left and were making me lurch … all of things were inconsiderate and led to total and utter disappointment from him.
It got so I could feel the disappointment ooze out of his pores; he didn’t need to say anything. It was all there in his shoulders, his eyes, the flick of a hand gesture.
As an exercise in Pavlovian control, it was truly breath taking.
As an exercise in life, it was suffocating.
And every time I take a deep breath these days, it makes me thankful. The only person around who feels any right to be disappointed in me, is me. And frankly, she needs to step back and put down the judgment now and then too.
But the fear of being sucked into that familiar whirlpool is still there: it brings nausea to my tummy and my heart — it paralyses my brain with fear. I cannot imagine being there again: in that horrid prison of abuse and erasure.
1000 days 