The absolute worst and ironically best turn of events happened to me in 2022 when my abuser started cheating on me. After investing a decade into molding me into the ideal victim who would never speak against him, he got bored with it. I didn't fight back anymore. I absorbed daily verbal attacks. The random violence he would perpetrate didn't spark a reaction. I would just accept it. I was numb. I was walled off. I had internalized the abuse so much and my depression fed into it.
He wanted to get caught. He didn't hide it at all and he let my paranoia over not being good enough (which he practically had told me daily for years) build and build until I was questioning him. He would reassure me he wasn't cheating and I think the way I was constantly anxious was fun for him. Then he essentially left hard evidence out so I'd find it. He wanted to break me and he did.
My multiple, rapid fire suicide attempts after finding out were largely due to the state of psychosis I was in. My 10 day stay in a psych facility did nothing to assist with my psychosis. It then persisted with varying amounts of lucidity for the next month, month and half that my abuser maintained contact with me after I was released into the care of my parents.
In a lot of ways, psychosis is a lot easier to live with than high reactivity PTSD. My path to mental health management post spousal abandonment in a psych facility has had greater volatility than the crypto market. Compulsive hypersexuality as a near impossible to control symptom of my PTSD was actively tearing my life apart at points. What I didn't expect as much was the transference of reactivity onto hobbies, places, and even people that were a major part of my life pre-psychosis.
I dated someone, who retrospectively a totally sane me would've only been friends with, for about a year and he introduced me to psilocybin. Which is something I have gained a tremendous amount of healing from. I dated someone, who retrospectively I just should've been fuck buddies with, for about 6 months who inadvertently helped me break my codependence. I met another abusive narcissist who love-bombed me and then dropped me when he decided to find another girl to cheat on his fiancée with. Which definitely launched me into a short period of psychosis and a longer period of out of control hypersexual compulsions, but which I didn't take lying down and did in fact do my best to ruin his life by contacting the "ex-girlfriend I'm roommates with" aka, fiancée.
You find out who you have real long-term compatibility with in quite a jarring way when you are at times going completely off the rails as a former abuse victim trying to restart their life. Some friendships go by the wayside as you unlearn personality mirroring and people discover they don't have as much in common with you. Others go down in flames mired by an inability to reconcile with the way severe trauma does not create a healthy person. New friendships emerge as you discover there exist people who resonate with those parts of your personality you thought were unlikeable, unlovable.
This time last year, I was about to experience a relapse of sorts. I got wrapped up with another abuser and the way that would end was far too familiar. I felt like I was reliving the night I was taken to the psych facility when I learned the truth of who that person was. I became suicidal and in trying to prevent myself from acting on that and take care of myself, I lost my job. A job I'd held for about a year and had really enjoyed.
At full speed, I went crashing into compulsive behaviors I knew would destroy me. I was sexually assaulted. I was cultivating a full "social calendar" and using sex to numb myself. I felt like it was all I had to offer anyway.
My low point was also miraculously how I met my other half. I was laying in the bed, well floor mattress, of a two strike violent felon. In the unfinished basement of his NA sponsor's house while he was on the phone with his drunk alcoholic ex-girlfriend. I opened Tinder and started swiping.
I had no idea the sad looking Navy boy I matched with would make me feel like I had reunited with the missing part of my soul. We married within 10 days of meeting, but kept that a secret for about a month after he'd left for his homeport.
For the first 18 year of my life, the thing that kept me alive was horses. During the decade I suffered physical, verbal, emotional, and sexual abuse it was my involvement with horses that kept me sane. Realizing I had to give up that part of who I was in order to start my new life has been incredibly painful. I don't know who I am without horses. I don't know how to keep my mental health in check without horses. I feel such immense guilt over failing to hold on to my dream horse and give her the life I imagined I could. I breakdown and I cry over the loss of Mia, the struggles but ultimately joy I found in Chevy, and just the compounding list of reasons Mitzy and I weren't ever meant to be.
The thing is, I would and will sacrifice anything for that sad looking Navy boy who turned out to be the most beautiful thing that's ever happened to me. The sweet southern gentleman who risked pneumonia while I drug him through every inch of my local zoo and had the courage to tell me about all the worst parts of himself without knowing if I'd accept them. The man I describe to our friends as "me but with a penis" who in turn reminds everyone I'm just "him with a vagina".
I know I haven't permanently closed the chapter of my life as an equestrian. I know because my husband reminds me when I'm breaking down in the shower about how lost I feel without horses that being without them is temporary. It's painful to be without something that I've felt has so defined me and that has been so instrumental in how I've managed my mental health.
Learning to navigate life as a military spouse, living so far from my family and my best friends (who so graciously kept my marriage a secret until I was ready to announce it), figuring out how to survive underways and an eventual deployment sucks so much ass now.
This period of feeling lost will pass.
One day I will again be popping over logs, hacking bareback, bemoaning the parts of a dressage test I'm struggling with, going foxhunting, midfielding in polocrosse, riding aside, and considering 3ft to be a big jump with a non-conventionally bred horse I love for its willingness to try anything with me.
janainaart
jacobvanloon
germansingergirl
2087
origamiaround
theartofmadeline
