Fucking hell. My parents are driving me so goddamn insane. I’ve lived in their home for five years in the prime of my life (32-37) because I’ve dealt with PTSD from an abusive ex-fiancé.
And I won’t lie — I absolutely needed it. I needed their help. And I appreciate them and I will always appreciate them for allowing me to come back and live with them when I was broken and bruised and in a place so bad that I had forgotten how to feel safe in the world anymore. Hell, sometimes I still feel that way.
Every single night, when I woke up screaming, my mom was at my side telling me he was gone and he couldn’t hurt me anymore. When I had flashbacks and my heart rate would reach 180 while I was just sitting down, they would get me my anxiety pills and sit beside me holding my hand to calm me down. They were my safe haven. They are my home. They always have been and they always will be. And I can never thank them enough for what they’ve done.
And I still have PTSD when I step into my house. Because it feels like his home, not mine. He trashed it. Broke the dishwasher, refrigerator, and AC (that has luckily been replaced), gave away all my designer belongings (except for a pair of Manolos, a Louis Vuitton tote I used to move out, and a lucky bag he didn’t know was Chanel… but also gave away my Vera Bradley for some reason?) and filled the house with trash. (I should be clear that he didn’t get rid of ANY of my Lilly Pulitzer clothes, bags, shoes, koozies, desk accessories, books, outdoor deck furniture, indoor kitchenware, or anything else I’m forgetting, because he probably knew I would murder him if I found anything missing. And I have an inventory on my computer. Am I obsessed with Lilly Pulitzer? Well, I have too many outfits to wear for the entirety of spring and summer, so you be the judge.)
And haven’t been able to clean it because I can’t go into that house because it’s not mine. It’s the place he abused me. The kitchen is the place he forced me to make him drinks (or there would be consequences) so he could get drunk, emotionally abuse me, and pass out every single night. The living room is the place he would call me horrible names, throw keys at my face, and pull me by my hair to my bedroom because he wanted the house (which is in my name only) to himself. The bedroom is where he would overpower me if I didn’t give him my benzodiazepines or stimulants and also sexually assault me. The bathroom is where I wouldn’t shower for over a month and would go a while without brushing my teeth for several periods of time so I would smell bad so he wouldn’t sexually assault me.
There are many other things he did that I’m not mentioning — mostly emotional and financial abuse, but also some physical abuse.
So you can understand why I called off my wedding on what was originally supposed to be our wedding date (and had to change because he was in rehab… and the first thing he did when I picked him up was ask me if I could go buy him alcohol) on June 2, 2018, four months after I picked him up from rehab and just left him there while I moved in with my parents. It took two months to get rid of him, but he was finally gone after he turned the air conditioning (which was a year old because he broke the one we bought several months before he moved in doing the same thing) down to 58 degrees Fahrenheit, broke it, then asked my dad to buy a new one. (My dad said “Fuck no. Move out or prepare to get really hot. I’m also going to turn off all of the electricity and the water, while I’m at it.” It took him breaking a third appliance to get him to move.)
So it’s understandable why I celebrate June 2 as my anniversary of Not Being Married. (Five years, baby!) And it’s understandable why I would move into my parents house. (Ugh. Five years, baby. Kill me now.)
I did need it at first, but now we’re all miserable. I’m not happy living here and they’re not happy with me living here. We are truly best friends. We have always been. I’m an only child and they lost babies at birth, so we’ve always understood how important our relationship is. And I really, truly, actually mean it when I say they are my best friends. I mean, I literally tell my mom everything! (There are things my dad just shouldn’t know… he can’t even handle reading my poetry that is even a little sexual!)
We’re all just unhappy with this situation and we drive each other up a wall and there’s lots of yelling sometimes. And we don’t mean for it to get like that and we still love each other when we do, but fucking hell, I just can’t deal with it anymore.
It’s time to get back in my house. I need help cleaning it. My mom said she would. And I got a new comforter set (Lilly Pulitzer!) and will probably paint my bedroom. And I got a new bed. Nothing in my bedroom (which I loved before) will be able to remind me of him.
Time to join the real world again. Time to rejoin the land of grown-ups.
(BTW, I haven’t just been paying mortgage on my house for five years. It’s been paid off since 2010.)
