Friday, May 27, 2011

A seven step program...Step 1 & 2: Shock & Denial

Grief has seen stages. You can get through them quickly or slowly. You can get stuck in one and skip another. You can repeat all of them. It is very individual to a person and their situation. For me it took almost a year to reach the end and I believe this would not have happened without the help of my therapist and my will to move forward.

SHOCK: I think this speaks for itself. I spent the first few days in shock. I almost couldn't function. Barely eating and sleeping. Shock came instantly and left almost as quickly...

DENIAL: I was in denial for a bit, but never about what he did. It was always clear that he had tried to meet up with the undercover officer and it was always clear that they found underage images and videos on our computer. In that there was no denial.

My denial came with his character. I knew he was sick. I knew only a sick sick person could do what he did.... but was there anything in there worth saving. Was every kiss a lie? Was every I love you empty? Did he feel shame for what he had done? Was it just one demon he could not overcome? I thought there was no way that I could have been in love with someone who was evil to the core. He had a devil and an angel on his shoulders and he listened to the devil in regards to his crimes. I thought he would realize how wrong he had been and let me go easily. That inside he knew the best thing to do would be to give me and my daughter freedom from him. I thought he would listen to the angel on his shoulder and not make life any more difficult for me. If I was civil with him we could get things sorted out for a divorce and be on our way....

The truth he was more sick than I thought. The fact that he lost control in his life and that I held all the power in regards to my daughter made him crazy. He became manipulative, threatening (not physically) and desperate. When I finally snapped out of my denial I could see him for what he really was, a criminal with many problems including anger and control issues. As a last ditch effort he threatened me with many things including: Filing legal action against my sister because she wrote him a strongly worded email (no threats in said email), having his parents take me to court (no reason given) and to have all of my furniture taken away because some of it was bought in his name. Finally he tried to bribe me. He said he was going to get his mother to pay for a lawyer to fight me in court, but if I agreed to take my daughter to visit him in prison he would instead give me the money to use for Nugget... what a bastard.

Which leads me to step two....

No comments: