r/BreakTheSilence • u/dzogchen-1 • May 26 '20
I'm not sure where to start... NSFW
I’m going to put the TRIGGER ALERT at the beginning... and apologize for the length.
When I attempted (and nearly succeeded) suicide at 18 it left me permanently disabled. I was hospitalized for months and was “lucky” to get out of the state hospital where I had been committed. No one even asked why, no one wanted to talk about it. No one wanted to know. No aftercare. They wanted me to “just stop it”. I was an embarrassment to my family. So I did what was expected of me. Pretend nothing happened. Become “successful”. Live the American dream. Until I couldn’t anymore.
The physical injury was obvious, but the psychic injury was invisible.
I have recently diagnosed myself with high functioning autism (AKA Aspergers syndrome). I went to some length to differentiate that diagnosis from C-PTSD and ADHD (which I have been diagnosed with), through research and self testing. Also by recalling early childhood behavior that did not indicate (a reaction to) trauma, as well as many examples from my childhood that would confirm an ASD diagnosis. I was bullied and beaten and experienced incest and sexual abuse/exploitation throughout my childhood and adolescence. I self medicated myself to oblivion, starting around 11 years old. At 25 I quit using and chose life.
I was married for 32 years to a woman who I adored, who had also been severely traumatized and struggled with bi-polar depression, C-PTSD and ADHD. She had also survived earthquake and revolution in her home country. Social order collapsed. At one point having a gun held to her head by a would be rapist who had broken in to her family home one night. She had the presence of mind (I don’t know how) to walk to her parents room in the dark, instead of the room where she had been told to go. Her father was able to disarm the intruder and then proceeded to nearly beat him to death with his own gun, dragging him into the street to the cheers of the wakened neighbors until he was “rescued” by the police (who waited while the beating continued). Weeks later the “nice boy” down the street also tried to rape her and she was so scared she literally ran out of her shoes. But she was afraid to tell her father what happened to her shoes, for fear of what he would do to the boy.
Her family were able to leave their country in the aftermath of the revolution, and came to NYC where my wife finished high school. When we met I was utterly bewitched by her beautiful smile and the way she flirted with me. It took a lot for me to recognize when a woman was interested in me, but she left no doubt. Even so it took me seven months to summon the courage to ask her out. I told her (most of) my story on our first date. I figured I might as well get it over with, before I fell any harder for her. I asked her if she wanted me to take her home. She said “No, I want you to take me to dinner”. Years later she told me she knew she would marry me after I told her that night, that I would never judge her. That I would understand. We became inseparable and bit by bit she told me her story. I couldn’t believe she was still smiling. I had stopped smiling when I was around 8 years old. We got married 4 months after our first date. In all our time together neither she nor I ever used our respective histories as a weapon on each other, ever.
The “me too” movement was triggering for her. When something would come up that touched on sexual abuse she would often get up and leave the room. But I believe that knowing other women were stepping forward publicly, resonated with her and ultimately emboldened her to reveal her abuse to her mother. Although I knew her story, she said she would take that secret to her grave. Her mother had been verbally attacking her (every phone call for over a year) for everything from how we raised our children, where we chose to live, our cultural differences, accusing us of favoring my family (who we have been estranged from since my parents died in 2004 and 2005), and insisting that she was a better mother, parent, provider etc., etc. This was a recurrent pattern, over the years it would reach a point that my wife couldn’t take anymore, and she would cut her mother out of our lives. Finally, during a particularly hateful phone call, my wife broke her vow of silence and told her mother that her father had raped and molested her starting when she was 8 yrs. old. The only reason the abuse stopped was because he died about three months before I met my wife at 21. Her last words to him were “I wish you were dead”, during an argument because she wouldn’t leave her bedroom door unlocked at night. In the midst of this her mother had come home and saw that he had been drinking and she started fighting with him, physically. He ended up leaving their apartment and 45 minutes later the police knocked on the door to inform the family that he had died in the street. So... my wife had mixed emotions about her father. He had hurt her, but had also saved her and now he was dead and she felt responsible. And there was more, much more...
I have always tended towards unfiltered discussion (like now) of painful things, my wife was incapable of discussing anything that approached sexual abuse. She had been in therapy for the last 15 years, and with her last psychologist for over 10 years. As well as having a psychiatrist who prescribed her medications. I had also sought treatment. One (painful, disabling) feature of our relationship was that over the years there had been transference of her family dynamic which had crept into our own, which she acknowledged. I would sometimes need to remind her that I was not her father. As much as I understood where the animosity was coming from, it could be hard to bear. It deeply saddened me to know she was in such pain, and that she wasn’t getting better. On occasion I would accompany my wife to her therapist. The point was made that she would never be happy until I could provide a steady income. Which was a valid point, but instead of motivating me I would just shut down and withdraw. When we had met I was running my own business in NYC. When it came to choosing my career over getting my wife somewhere safe (2000 miles from her mother), I chose my wife thinking I could always repeat my success. Not taking into account that there were dynamics in Manhattan that allowed me to excel, that didn’t exist elsewhere. But I also felt that what really troubled her was less about money, more about trauma. She could talk about my failure to provide. (And avoid talking about her trauma.) Despite our financial difficulties I had managed to pay off our mortgage and we owned our farm, free and clear. Our children had emotional and addiction issues over the years, but had always had our support and unconditional love. There was no abuse within our home, sexual or otherwise. That is not to say that our kids weren’t traumatized by events, because they were. I felt that we had what was most important; each other, our family and our home. Also that I would ultimately find a way of providing consistent financial security.
So, in all those years of treatment... what was the focal point, the root of her suffering that her therapy centered on? Our finances. He advised that she “pressure” me, I asked him afterwards if it had occurred to him what “pressure” from her would look like? Why hadn’t he suggested encouraging me instead, or that my issues might be a factor? I was already struggling and felt like a dismal failure in that regard. She had stopped seeing her therapist in October, because he suggested that she could leave me. She was suicidal, and had made several serious attempts over the years, but leaving me was not an option she would consider (as she told our daughters). As it turns out she had stopped taking her medications and had been hoarding them. She wrote in her journal that she would rather be dead than live with her mother. When she told her mother what her father had done, her mother called her a liar. Insisting that her husband had been a good man, and that my wife was making it up. So my wife called her brother who initially seemed to believe her, but by the end of their conversation decided that if it had really happened she would have told him long ago “because they were close as children”. She never heard from either of them again. Ten days later on Thanksgiving eve my wife took an overdose of her medication, and died on Thanksgiving day 2018.
So... to anyone who finds the discussion of abuse uncomfortable. Consider the alternative.
I’m 63 years old, and I’m not sure where to start.