The Power Found in Pain

While prying a panel down from the ceiling my pry bar slipped in such a way that the back side of it hit my jaw. As I spat out a bit of blood as well as the corner of my front tooth, my only response to this was a calm, “Okay”. Three weeks later I sat post car accident. A man in a stolen vehicle chose to run through a blinking red light. Airbag dust floating in the air, checking myself for external injury, acknowledging fully he just totaled my car, my response was the same. Simply a calm, “Okay”. I reflected on these moments’ days later. Deeply concussed, my body in pain from the impact, I was seriously questioning my mental health. I conclude that through the trauma of the past three years either I have gone insane or reached some level of nirvana where nothing can touch me. Either way I was okay with it.

When my body and mind felt better, my overthinking-self did a mental health check. Is it disassociation? Nope, I am still feeling feelings. Is it depression? Nope, I don’t feel sad, I am still feeling happiness, life is still my level of normal. There it is. My level of normal. Why am I okay with this? Once again, I was not particularly upset by it, but I did understand that my level normal is not normal. My level of resilience is not average. Some believe there are no such things as beautiful endings or moments within time and space where paradigm shifts occur outside of movies or books. This is furthest from the truth. It is in these small moments and small decisions that change occurs. These changes are so fast and emotionally charged it can be perceived only as a reaction. In that, they are the truest form of self. I have made it a practice to find these moments when I have been triggered to heal from the ones that make my body react to a threat that is no longer there. Incidentally, it is also where my strength was hiding. These are my moments.

I was exhausted. That year is now a blur of bad memories that are so great they overshadow most of the decade before. I loved a man so deeply that I did not acknowledge how lost I had become. His absence was more frequent than his presence until we moved to this place. He was my closest friend that would become my only friend. Whether that occurred with intention or not does not matter. Surrender of self happens this way, small one-sided compromises that are seemingly harmless. I had a level of radical acceptance of another person that was in many ways unrequited. That was the year the rose-colored glasses melted away with each month that passed. He became so lost in his own mind, so convinced of the reality that agreed with him that he attempted to compromise mine. With each month, more and more of the person I used to know disappeared. He became a shell of a human that I used to know. What was once behind those eyes I knew so well vanished within two seasons.

I am uncertain what happened with his mental health and perhaps I will never know. I took care of him through most of that year. I carried him through his depression and manic episodes despite the rage I knew would come towards me shortly after. In sickness and in health, isn’t that what a wife is supposed to do? There came a point when a coworker asked, “Are you okay?” and I no longer had the strength to lie to myself. He made me feel insane for feeling upset for his treatment of me. Tried to make light of the things he was doing, playing them as normal, or as though the outburst were some reckoning which I deserved. He was getting professional help for his issues but the weight of it all started showing on my physical appearance. I carried on as best I could, hiding these incidents from my children, hoping their father would come out of it. His mental decline happened so fast; I didn’t know what to do.

It wasn’t the day he pelted me in the face with a serving spoon of watermelon with enough force to knock me to the ground. He was standing behind me, the action was almost completely unprovoked. I hadn’t the time to close my eyes before impact, I thought he had blinded me as I lost my vision for bit shortly after . It wasn’t that moment though, as minutes later he made me aware of what he wanted to do to himself. It wasn’t my breakdown at a lady doctor appointment when I couldn’t answer the questionnaire about interpersonal violence. It wasn’t the countless times before and after when in the dark hours of the night his demons needed to tell me how much they hated me. It was the day my little girl tried to get between us.

Before then, they had been in another part of the house, or asleep in the wee hours of the morning. I was so exhausted that day, so completely drained. He seemed normal so I let him know I was going to lay down as I had worked the night before. It felt as if in the same moment my eyes closed, he came rushing in, screaming inches from face, of what I can’t remember. One of my little girls in that split second tried to get between us. That was the moment I found my strength. To this day I do not think he even acknowledged her attempt to protect her mother, he carried on as if she wasn’t there. But I saw her, and in that moment I acknowledge the gravity of the situation. I couldn’t let her do her do that. It is my place to protect her, not the other way around. Knowing he would follow me I got myself up so that she couldn’t stand between us and made my way outside, calling my mother, her calming him down. In his distraction I went back to my children.

The largest argument of the time was that I was a terrible mother and always had been. It was the one thing I wouldn’t admit fault to as I had gone through most of motherhood completely alone. They were the light in all the darkness I had walked through. They were my reason to keep pushing when he was gone, when I was alone to care for everything. I knew it wasn't true at my core so my answer never changed. This angered him greatly. He had, knowingly or not, used them in the past to push me a direction when I didn’t want to go. Small surrenders, like a mother sheep following whoever is holding of her new-born lamb, I’d follow. That was the moment, in my weakest and darkest of hours I remembered. I was never a sheep; I was a wolf who had forgotten she had teeth. I realized the threat he had become. In all honesty, if it were just me, I would likely not be writing this in present day. It was for them. I love them more than I ever have myself. To stay in place would be to choose a man over my children, that is a compromise I will never make. The home we live in now is their best chance at a good life. I was willing to fight for it, willing to fight to keep the parts of their world that didn’t have to change the same.

Another moment was when he had grabbed me by my wrist in an attempt to separate me from my children. As cold as a serial killer I asked one question. “Do you want to do this? Right here, right now?” My calm in his moment of rage completely unnerved him. I had it in my mind that should an altercation break out, I did not need to beat him, I just needed to stand my ground and take a beating long enough for someone else to hear. I still felt crazy, though through a therapist I knew I wasn’t, I knew the threat was real. Bouts of anger sandwiched in-between normal behavior and depression spells; it was all so entirely confusing. When the day finally came that I called the police after he had broken a door in half as a result of my noncompliance, that was when the air got lighter. Another month passed, another episode but even his blind rage couldn’t inspire a grimace on my face anymore. I treated him as a toddler acting out for attention. I paid him no mind, carried on with my children unphased.

I noticed shortly after they were no longer looking at him when his demons got the best of him. They were looking at me. If my face didn’t show the fear, they were not afraid. In this I grew stronger because I needed to be, that was what they needed of me. Then finally the last day, the day before I filed for divorce. I won’t revisit it as I don’t see the need to in this story, but I realized for him it was never about them. In that realization I lost respect completely. Without that respect I could no longer have love for him. I could never have love for man who would place his own children last. I wish that was then end of my story of triumph, but it wasn’t.

The final moment of all these moments was shortly after the calm was in the air, when he was finally off in his own world away from ours. It was in a feeling that I would never wish on any parent. It was winter and my starting point as a single mother was without a consistent job and all my familial ties an entire country away. I had enough money in my bank account to pay my major bills and after purchasing oil that left me with one hundred dollars to feed my children for the month. I had to seriously question my own ability to keep my children warm and fed. Darkness crept in my soul, the fear was over-whelming, but I only allowed it for a second. That second was more than enough to propel me forward. I sought out all resources and received them as fast as I could. However, there was still those three to four weeks I will never forget. They were seamless to my children and for that I am proud. I am proud of the days I didn’t eat so they had their fill, proud of the nights I slept in the cold so they could have more warmth. I am proud of the tenacity I had to keep going, to keep looking to find the help we needed to start again.

The spring that would follow that winter would bring about the pandemic. For many others that is where they found themselves, but for me it was a relief from the year before. I have no regrets for the things that have past as it forced me to acknowledge where my strength is derived. It had never been in hate or anger, though both have admittedly been a propelling force in times of need. It was not in disappointment or sadness, though thereafter being reminded of that ground has since been the signal to stand. My strength comes from my capacity to love others, my resilience in the will to protect them at all costs. I still have a great deal to heal from as a result of these epiphanies, but such is to be expected. Even as an adult, growing still hurts. However, I am thankful I never have to question the how or why I can handle the things that are thrown my way. I understand I can because I have the courage to make my difficulties a must. Through all this I have the confidence to know I'll always find a way to make it right. Thus, it makes sense that the only response I can have when bad things happen is simply, “Okay".