january 3, 2019.
Fresh out of blankity blanks to write lately. Which infuriates me because I have so much to write about. I guess they call this writer's block? It sucks. I can't even do art.
I'm so over winter. I need something other than barren landscape & grey.
I hate grey.
january 7, 2019.
I feel like I'm in quicksand & there's nobody to help. Nobody understands. Mutual friends are disappearing. I don't blame them; I sure as hell would dip out on the mess sex addiction/disorder/whatever this is caused.
I hate the bottom of these cycles.
I just want 1 day my eyes don't resemble Niagra Falls.
january 8, 2019.
Dear Cake,
You find the most clarity on the nights you're collapsed on the floor, weeping into your hands. The cathartic release summons your inner therapist & thus begins the sorting out of shit in your head. Last night's inner dialog finally made it clear to you why you feel so stuck right now; forgiveness.
for·give·ness
/ˌfərˈɡivnəs/
noun
the action or process of forgiving or being forgiven.
Such a simple definition for a word that is holding up your healing. Your rational self knows it will be impossible for you to ever move on if you do not forgive. You were raised and are raising your children to understand that God forgives us, therefore, we should forgive each other. So why is it so hard for you, Cake??? You have two very solid reasons to just bypass all of the resentment you feel but you just can't do it.
You seem to think that if you forgive him it would mean that you are accepting the horrid things that happened to you, like you condoned the behaviors & actions. You also recognize that you are letting the raw pain from this affect your perception of him, which makes you want to give him the finger instead of forgiving him. You get physical reactions just hearing his name; you tense up, knot in stomach, lump in throat. Because of this, you avoid thinking about him & communicating with him. There's also the fact that you still, almost 7 months later, have absolutely no idea the extent of everything. How does one forgive something they know nothing about? You are finding lots of things on your own that most likely will never be acknowledged by him; how do you forgive someone that hides?
You are far enough in your personal growth, that you understand you only have control of you. You can't force somebody to apologize or show remorse.
Once you figure out all of the hurt inside, maybe forgiveness will be an easy thing to do....
What a tough mountain this is. However, you'd climb it over and over again if you had to. You have transformed through the pain into something you never thought possible & you will never again let anybody make you feel as worthless and crappy as he did.
I forgive myself for not following my intuition.
I'm not sure if I need to forgive myself for getting involved with him. How could I have possibly known this was going to be the outcome?
If anything, I'm struggling to forgive myself for staying.
This is why journals are so significant; you can start seeing the pattern.
Cake goes rogue for a bit, then she posts an enlightening journal out of nowhere, then massive music bombs happen.
That's me headed towards the bottom, getting the thoughts out via writing instead of internalizing & then music to remember my state of being after I made it through the dip.
january 10, 2019.
Men: your wife & your girlfriend know. They just might not know exactly what it is that isn't quite right.
Don't worry, though. They'll find out sooner or later & when they do, you are in for some trouble, my friends.
It'd be wise to just tell them.
If you're not telling them because you don't think they have enough support/can't handle it, that's controlling & not your decision to make. The woman in your life is probably quite capable of deciding how much she can handle.
Trust her & start being honest.
*so mean, I apologize; so true, apology semi-redacted*
january 11, 2019.
Dear Cake,
The venomous side of human personality is a dark place. When sadism is thrown in the mix, the human personality becomes pitch black.
Before today, sadism never entered your realm of possibilities. Maybe because you associated it with physical pain & not emotional pain. You also never realized narcissism is divided into catagories; classic narcissist (typical; what you think when you hear "narcissist"), vulnerable narcissist (appear to love attention, but in reality, hates it), & the most extreme, malignant narcissist (“the quintessence of evil”).
Unfortunately, you chose door #3 & it has a name; narcissistic sadism.
Narcissism drove the control issues, manipulation, deceit, bragging of accomplishments, entitlement, & much more wretched behavior you despised. You knew why those things were present; because narc.
What's been on your mind & chronicled in your journal, is the desperation to understand how/why a person not only feels zero remorse, but seems to actually enjoy causing both sexual & emotional pain. How can a human show no empathy to the mother of their children after they've annihilated their life by sexual deviency & grade-A asshole behaviors. The vindictiveness, inability to communicate if your opinion was different than theirs, & the very present desire to screw your world up makes sense, now; because sadist.
This one is going to take a little bit to digest.
january 12, 2019.
Still trying to reason with my massive oversight in life. Kind of kicking myself in the rear for being too naive/nice/giving.
It's so unfortunate good traits get taken advantage of by those who are lost in life. I'm beginning to think you can't live a truly happy life anymore in this world if you possess a pure soul.
january 14, 2019.
Dear Cake,
Your first real fight in this war begins tomorrow morning. In a room will be your husband, his attorney, you, & yours, facing off. You will be hit with insincere questions regarding your sex life & everything you've accused him of....they'll question your state of mind, ability to parent, and anything else they can try & use as scare tactics.
This will go on for hours. 3 men & you; questions of fetishes, hidden cameras, body parts.. abuse, ranging from sexual to psychological.
If there's anything that is going to test your strength, it will be tomorrow.
Screw this hell I didn't sign up for.
I am surrendering to gravity and the unknown
Catch me, heal me, lift me back up to the sun
I choose to live, I choose to live
Next day:
I SURVIVED
5 years ago, I would have been intimidated & a blubbering mess.
Not today, Satan, not today.
Your girl has apparently grown immensely in the past couple of months. I held my own & then some as his attorney hurled heinous accusations/questions at me.
Are you melodramatic? Do you think you're crazy? Aren't you a little narcissistic? Are you sure you were traumatized? Maybe your paranoid. How many men have you slept with? Do you use toys to masturbate? Why did you threaten to call the cops when you found the hidden camera? Why haven't you told all of your friends? Humiliation & shame, you say? Why are you humiliated? Because your basic human rights were violated? How were those violated? You think you were violated because you were filmed in your own home?? Are sure you're not the crazy one?????????????
I took no crap from him or his attorney. No one will dehumanize me ever again & I made that very apparent today.
I kicked ass & I'm so proud of myself.
The truth will always set you free.
january 23, 2019.
Cake, why are you so sensitive? Why are you crying? Cake, why do you let so-and-so's problem affect you? Cake, you're too nice. Cake, why do you spend so much time alone? Cake, wtf did you put the blind dog you saw in the middle of the road in pouring rain into our car & bring him home?! What were you thinking?! Cake, you are too weak. You'll never get anywhere in life being that nice.
Misunderstood. Labeled. Negated.
6 months since dday.
Looking back on how the last 6 months of my life have played out, I honestly can't help but smile. Of course it's unfortunate & devastating that I had to file for divorce. It's been the most excruciating thing I have ever been through. Finding out my mom has cancer was nothing compared to finding out I was never really loved by the man I vowed to spend my life with & that I was a piece of trash, so easily discarded.
One of the last straws for me was my ex's therapist sending me an email about 2 months after dday & only 3-4 weeks of "counseling" my ex. This email came as a reply to one of mine to her; an email I'd sent her chronicling my ex's continued secrecy & flippant behavior. I believe I told her that I wasn't sure if I could continue in the marriage given the behavior I'd dealt with for 10 years was not getting any better, but in fact, it was getting worse. I was angry; desperate; honest in my sincerity.
Her email to me was the catalyst to my growth & understanding of myself. In it, she said that I needed to go to an inpatient treatment center for co-dependent betrayed women & included links to such local facilities. She went on further to say her & my ex had discussed me going to one of these inpatient places & my husband was OK with it & would look after the kids while I was gone.
I want you all to imagine, being blindsided by not only betrayal, but violations of your human rights & then 2 months later being told it was you that needed inpatient treatment, not the person that caused this. Not only that, but that the person who caused this unimaginable pain was "OK" with it & so nicely agreed to take care of the children while you were gone fixing this co-dependent problem some quack said you had.
I don't think I'd ever felt so misunderstood, labeled, & negated than I did when I read that email. I was done. DONE. No longer would I be labeled something I was not. It was that moment I decided to stop trying to get people to "understand" me & why I do the things I do. Screw them. Screw the man that I'd stuck by through years of sadness & this ignorant "therapist" he believed. I mean, I kind of don't blame him. When your in some deep shit, you're probably gonna go with the my wife is TOTALLY CO-DEPENDENT; let's shift all attention from me & my part in this. SHE, the co-dependent, needs inpatient treatment for this co-dependency problem, you, random therapist, says she has (although my wife has only talked to her for 1 hour). Anything to not keep the focus on me & the absolute destruction my behavior has caused!
Here's the deal, had my ex not been face in electronics for 90% of our marriage, he'd know I wasn't co-dependent. He had himself an empath, but, porn & other women kept him from knowing who the woman he married really was. Or, maybe that's why he chose me...
Regardless, that email set my soul on fire. I no longer would be faulted for being a nurturing human. A human whose ability to actually feel others emotions & try to help them was being mistaken as co-dependency. A human that has forever been made to feel weak for loving & giving too much. Had my ex paid attention to me like he should have, he'd seen that I never put my own needs on the backburner to cater to others. I catered to others because that's who I am & then I'd spend time doing me; painting, drawing, photography, reading, laying in silence, etc. I've never put anyone before myself (except my kids & that's not ever going to change). I wear my emotions on my sleeve & am very passionate about them. Not because I'm an erratic spaz but because I not only carry my own emotions, I can feel the emotions of others. It's an overwhelming burden sometimes & zaps my energy. This is why I need my me time, to recharge. Not because I'm having some he's going to leave me, what do I do?! co-dependent party.
So thank you, shitty ass therapist. You made Cake grow a backbone & reject being just another misunderstood label. You also helped destroy my marriage by giving an addict a chance to do what addicts do: blame, project, & deny.
I forgive you, uneducated therapist. For it was with your ignorance & enabling that I was able to break free from the chains my mind was under. My dreams are now able to flourish with no strings attached.
I will not be labeled & shoved in a betrayal box. Nor, will I be used, abused, & dehumanized for being an empath.
Did I attract the wrong man or was I attracted to the wrong man? This seems such a circular question; going round and round with arguments in my head.
Was I prey or did I sense a wounded man?
The only certains I know right now, are that I married him completely believing the love I felt for him was 100% reciprocated & that he'd never hurt me. *He's never hurt me physically, just murdered me emotionally. Don't want grown adults starting rumors & such......*
But, was I the prey or the savior? Is there even an answer to that? Probably not, but it might serve as some good self-reflection on my search.
january 25, 2019.
Deception is a lonely place. Intentional deception is even worse.
Finding out your husband was asking girls on gamer sites to show their goods while you were going through grueling in vitro regimes is devastating. Seeing your husband has degraded females on said gamer sites as you were losing the first ever embryo to give you a positive pregnancy test, is even more devastating.
You were left to fall on your own; sobbing and cursing Jesus as he got his rocks off to these gamer chicks & most likely, much more.
Looking back, the negligence & inability to show true concern & empathy was blatantly obvious.
Why was I so blind?
I stockpile this grief for weeks at a time until my cup runneth over & I collapse from shear exhaustion from carrying it around. I know, I know....totally unproductive way to deal with it. I don't really know what to do about it because this divorce is forever bringing up things I'd not had a clue about. I get to a good solid place in my healing & then another crappy realization of what was really going on behind my back appears, knocking the wind out of me every single time. But, those kids I focus on cause me to lock these realizations away until they've grown too big I must break down in a fit of sobs after the kids are asleep.
I just want to grieve, you know? With no new information thrown my way & with no court hearings to be worried about. Just grieving in peace.
Someone told me to pull out my canvas & paint.
So, I'm going to go do that instead of crying over spilt milk.
january 31, 2019.
My journaling has clearly taken a nosedive & it's obvious this is directly correlated with the quicksand I can't get out of.
So.
Cake is going to stop staying all inside her head. I'm going to get back to putting my thoughts in writings; long ones for a book, Mr. Used Car Sales Lawyer.
Divorce is devastating to any normal human. When divorce happens because you were forced into it, it's not only devastating, it is isolating. You suddenly become the enemy. Nevermind that you are literally just trying to save your sanity & hold on to that tiny sound in the background that's been saying You are so much better than this & deserve so much better. Please Cake, find the girl you were 10 years ago.
Man versus self; protagonist versus antagonist. This is my struggle & everytime something of extreme significance is brought to light, I revert back to timid, in my head, Cake. Never locking eyes with a stranger, being hyper alert, hopeless in my journey.
The correlation I'm finding, is when these unknown/buried things are found, they overtake the rational, strong, defiant woman that I've worked really hard on. It's like the path to my growth & healing just retreats into black & I'm that lost person again; sobbing at night, alone, blaming myself. Hopeless & seeing 45 reflections in the mirror.
I've learned enough to know that the universe likes things joined on all frequencies & when you doubt or don't have understanding about things, you get really scared. This fear sends me backwards & the more out if touch I get with my inner being, the more I freak the hell out.
Here's why I think my journaling is such a catalyst to centering myself; it let's me spill my conscious thoughts out to human beings who kind of "get it" & these human beings have a great capacity to help me acknowledge what my inner being really is when it's free.
Full circle.
Healing...
Consisted of/consists of hours upon hours of: research, therapy, self-love, meditation, photography, journaling, self-reflection, 1 million gallons of tears shed while having talks with my inner therapist, etc.
Blown apart. But, not really. I still feel like I'm worth a shit, I still want to journal, I still want spring to get here so I can photograph, I still sob & grow while doing so, I still do therapy, etc.
The only thing that makes me feel like I reset to the days before I started healing, is the inability to forgive myself. Every day I find something. Monday's finding made me physically ill, once again.
How in the hell was I so blind?
I just want an answer to this; that I know I'll never get.