Bitter musings

I had one of those light bulb moments again. It always really bugged me why Adam was such a lousy lecturer. He would dance around the subject, change tangent or never fully explain. He did this much when asked a direct question, at first I thought it was a confidence thing, which was how he explained it. It came to me that it was not, it was in fact the opposite. It was about power, if he didn’t give you all the facts, then you were still on the back foot, you were still in the dark, you were not equal, and all Adam had was what he had read by others. Adam liked the dark. I never knew him really at all, yet he knew me, sometimes he would use that against me. “This is how you feel.” He never really knew what I thought. Any challenge to Adam was dealt with a threat of “Fuck off, move out if you don’t like X or Y or Z.” He hated sharing anything, a selfish, over spoilt brat. Taking food from his anorexic girlfriend and threatening a friend that he would kill her baby if she poured another glass of wine. I still hate him, hate him in that shaking, pain in the gut way, I still fear him. Collecting shoes from Brecknock Road gave me the fear. I can’t believe how he destroyed me, yet nothing bad happens to him. Even when his brother died, he turned it into him and his victim addiction. He played the victim card after he battered me and I phoned the police, he played the victim when he could not play the winner card. Adam never liked to lose. He couldn’t even own simple losses, he always had to win. That’s what still scares me and keeps me up at night. I guess I won’t feel safe until he dies. Then maybe I can grieve in a normal way, rather than this fucked up way I am now. Death seems to absolve people of even the most heinous crimes, unless they are Adam. I hope however way he dies, it really fucking hurts.

Meeting an Old Friend

Things have improved, in so much that I applied for a job, got an interview and got a second interview. I'm yet to hear back, but impressed I even had the chutzpah to apply. I decorated my flat, in bright colours and a myriad of kitsch. I dealt with a boundaries violation by my flatmate head on and you guess what? She didn't make me feel crap or that I had to put up with her nicking my food and fags. I didn't get a torrent of abuse or be made to feel I should not feel aggrieved. I didn't then fester with anger, resentment and anxiety. I feel happier, more confident and more normal I guess. It was like catching up with an old friend, it felt familiar rather than alien. A homecoming. Talk Talk fucked the account transfer to me and I had to contact Adam, it was hard, but I didn't let him engage with me and I firmly told him to return the items he took to my office and not my home. When he had a tantrum I highlighted how he had manipulated it into an argument, and I was not being unreasonable. I felt shaken up, scared, I puked, but I didn't say "Please drop round the flat" although a part of me would have liked that more than I can describe. I'm waiting for the next cluster bomb of his fuckery, most likely him trying to eject me from the flat, but I have a plan, I have plans nowadays. I am a woman with plans, a future, not long term, but I can see in five years that I will have bought him out of the flat, have a restraining order in place and be in a job that values my skills. I can even believe I can offer the world something, I'm not defective. I am Zoe, I'm getting there.

Tindersticks and gig sticks

It’s been tough this week, I don’t know why. The past month has seen me kicking ass all over the shop, this week I just want to cry and be held by him. I’m grieving. The malaise and apathy started about Wednesday last week, then it erupted upon finding a gig stick full of his stuff on late Friday. Stupidly I pried rather than deleted. Now I find myself openly weeping when I hear the Tindersticks. I’m listening to the Tindersticks and Cat Power and expecting not to cry? What fool am I? What fool misses a man who beats you, who belittles you, a man so angry that he made Malcolm Tucker look measured and a tirade would be sparked by a fallen tea towel or a sprout making good it’s escape from the chopping board. The content, not full of revelations of regret or empathy for me; more an angry, self pitying rant about why he was angry and why he would argue with people and in turn why he adored the vile bitch who messaged me hate and told me to stop writing about what I have been through. It made me hate him. I do hate him. I then spent some time looking at the photos of the beatings. I wanted to go back. Maybe I am the stupid, self destructive retard he convinced me I was. I cling to the cat. He lay in my arms. It felt good, but I still feel sad. I would like to get to the point where I don’t cry anymore. It felt so close and now it feels a long ways away again.

Black dog

The past 3 months have been difficult; what started as a cloud following me turned into a staring at the abyss. What do you do when faced with that? I threw a pebble in and took to the couch. Facing my birthday and wanting it to end left me crying under my duvet for a full week, until Toby kindly visited me. Beasley was tolerant and offered me a friendly paw or a wide berth, depending on the wetness of cheek or distorted of mouth I was. Camden and Islington Mental Health team offered me a bed at a crisis centre, that tossed me right in. Today was OK, I was sad, I'm often sad, but everything felt normal. I have cried, I cry a lot, but it was OK and the tears dried easily and the anger came back. I wish I didn't feel angry, it's so exhausting. As draining as being in a toxic relationship, but it keeps me going. I'm clinging on, to my home, my sanity, at times my life, but I'm going nowhere. I'm alone for this week, that is not scary, I wish it was and felt normal, but I'm not scared and I'm often scared. I haven't thrown up since Monday although my stomach pains are still there, I'm hoping I can feel normal enough for them to stop. I guess the hoping is what keeps and kept me going. I've stopped seeing people, I'm doing what I can cope with, it's making me bitter and old. It's going to stop. If anyone I know is reading, give me a call.

The Morning it ended

On the 20th of May 2011, I picked myself up off the kitchen floor for the last time. I didn't know that it would be the last time my ex partner beat me after 6 years of beatings, but it was to be so. You rationalise the beatings, I'm smart and I know they are bad, but somehow, maybe, I deserved them. It wasn't easy and it is no way over, but this is my blog detailing how I am getting free of violence, abuse and control.

My abuser was a nice middle class guy, a university lecturer, an educated man. Not the acceptable face of a wife beater, yet 6 months in to the relationship, he slapped me, yet I stayed. When he blackened my eye, I went to work for two weeks with a shiner, when he ruptured my eye, I lied, when he pulled out a third of my hair, I told friends I had alopecia. When he chipped, chipped, chipped away at what makes me intrinsically me, I took to my bed for a year on downers. This time he beat me when I needed his help to get my sick cat to the vets, he tried to drag me out of the flat, I fought to stay put, he tried to make me say I was a cunt, I refused and he rained blows down to my head and ripped my hair from my scalp whilst banging my head on the floor. I told him he was going to kill me, he laughed, I screamed for help, my neighbours never came. When I admitted I was a cunt, he kicked me in the back and went to bed. I grabbed my cat and took him to the vets.

I walked up Lithos Road slowly with my cat, I managed to get to the taxi firm on the corner, but they had no cars. People passed me and stared, I didn't realise that I had a split lip and I looked terrified, no one spoke to me. I heard one "hipster" couple walk past and say "that is a sad face.... "

Friends sort of knew, but they also knew that I was never going to be the woman who put up with that; I'm the kid that moved out at 15 and then moved to London at 18 and survived, sometimes it even felt like living. It's difficult for me to understand where it came from, why hate me so much that you try to drown me in a bucket of stale piss, I guess it will always be unknown to me, and that is even more unfair, I think.

Why did I not leave before? Difficult. If they rewrite your whole personality and feed you it back as truth, you get lost in their reality and yours is unknown and alien to you. I was told I would not be able to cope, that I was a major fuck up, that I was useless. It never occurred to me or him, that in my past I coped, but you can't see that anymore, you only see what they tell you.

"You are driving me mad. Why do you hate me?"

My cat had to have an operation, so I called a work friend to tell her I would not be in that day, I told her Adam had hit me, she went crazy and told me I needed to go to A&E, forget the cat and run. I couldn't do that, it was the need to get the cat to the vets that made me throw the cold tea at him to wake him.: "You cunt, you scolded me!" Run, Zoe, get away. He was on top of me, dragging me out of the flat, if he did that I would never be able to help my cat. His bollocks were in front of me, I worked my arm free and pinched and tried to pull. He let me go and and I scurried into the kitchen. He is really mad now. Unhinged. I see a smear of red blood on my hand, I hope it is his.

It is. He starts punching me in the head, using my hair for purchase. It tears out in clumps.

The cat at the vets, I slowly walk back to the flat, numb. So scared. I get into the flat and take to the couch I sleep on and pull the covers over me. My phone rings and it is Julia, begging me to go to A&E, I try to convince her I would go, but I guess we both knew I wouldn't. He is asleep in the bedroom. She phones again, insistent. I meet her at Belsize tube station.

In the bright sunshine, I feel like fainting. The coffee I am drinking makes me feel light. When she arrives, I know it will be alright.