Deep breaths. This is only part of your life. Pt. 2

Apparently, I liked this Facebook meme on this day...last year? Two years ago? Three? I don’t remember now. But I still feel the same way. Especially about the partner in crime part. Not LITERALLY in crime, but someone who has a little mischievous streak in him, and great love for finding a bit of humor in everyday life. And I have to add something else: an enormous amount of PATIENCE, and an equal amount of EMPATHY.

Here's why: this nearly 60 year old woman is recovering from an extreme amount of physical, mental, emotional and yes, sexual abuse from my ex-husband. (#MeToo)  I divorced him 1987, and since I firmly believed I was one of those "strong Black women" who had inherited the strength of her ancestors to endure and overcome all pain and suffering, I  "soldiered up", raised my three kids with the help of my parents (thank you so much, Mom and Dad) worked at various jobs that were mostly mentally stressful and physically draining, and finished my Bachelors degree in English. But something was always wrong deep inside. I wouldn't admit it to myself, but looking back, I now realize that I went through long periods of emotionally checking out of life with obsessional and addictive behaviors. I was unavailable to everyone around me, and I had moments of rage and pain that unexpectedly roared out of me that were frightening and baffling. I'm  certain it had the same effect on everyone else in my life, too. And I did a WHOLE LOT of addictive eating that subconsciously anesthesitized all that self loathing, pain, and memories of abuse. Perhaps, I was also trying hide my pain and make myself unavailable to men behind a wall of fat.

I didn’t address my personal "Hotel Hanoi" (Google that term if you're unfamiliar with it) until I had, strangely enough, an appointment with my eye doctor. I was living in Oakland at the time, and I was wearing broken glasses that I kept together with duct tape. All of my medical records had been transferred the Sacramento Morse Avenue Kaiser Hospital to the Oakland Kaiser Permanente Hospital, so the doctor had proof that something was very wrong with my right eye. My vision had decreased 30 points in the past two years, while the test of my left eye showed that vision had remained the same. He asked me a lot of questions about recent injuries to that eye, or exposure to damaging chemicals. The answer was no. He seemed so perplexed and worried that I started to panic. "Is it possible to go blind in only eye?" He said no again, but his brow was furrowed as he furiously tapped way at his computer's keys.

Then I  heard a voice, probably that part of subconscious that often tells me things that I  don't like to hear: "Tell him about what your ex-husband did to that eye."

And I argued with that voice. No! That happened over thirty years ago! That can't be it!

The voice: "His fist came within one millimeter of your temple. That bone is thin. You remember that from your high school anatomy and physiology class, right?  You could have died. Remember what you looked like? Blood had hemorrhaged into your eye, and the doctors had to go in and surgically repair that fractured cheek bone near your temple so that it wouldn't break off into your brain. You wore a Styrofoam cup taped over that eye for three months to protect it after that surgery. Tell him!"

I nearly burst into tears right then. There was no way I was going to reveal what had happened to me years ago. I felt so ashamed and vulnerable. How could I allow that....questionably human, mostly monster to do that to me? And how could I allow it to happen on other occasions, such as when I didn't answer him right away, or agree with him on a certain subject.

One very early morning, he came home after a night of cocaine and sex-filled revelry, then he woke me up to watch something on t.v. with him. I had been waking up throughout the night to nurse our then newborn son and soothe his older sister back to sleep after her brother's cries startled her awake. I was groggy with sleep deprivation, and drifting back to slumber land when I felt a sharp blow to that same cheekbone area. How could I possibly explain all of that to an EYE DOCTOR?  But I did.

And that was how I ended my years of denial, and started my recovery after being diagnosed with Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder along with depression and anxiety (which have been severe panic attacks).

Strangely enough, my right eye is no longer inexplicably worse than my left. They are now evenly nearsighted. Go figure.