Adam

Sneak peek. I'm finally writing my book. I decided to call all the chapters by peoples names. You can tell me if that's a good idea, leave a comment. Apparently though you have to have their consent or if not change their names. So Adam is reviewing this one. 

Adam

When I met my ex-husband, I was still in the cult. I thought, this is as good as it gets. I was 16. Even if our marriage was far from perfect, I still think that having grown up the way he did, he was a pretty good person.

Not a good husband.

I married him but I wasn’t in love. On the outside, we were perfect. On the inside I was dying. I’m a romantic. He had every excuse in the book to not come home. Hockey, golf, boy’s nights.

I was at a point in my life where I was questioning the Jehovah’s Witnesses belief system. But of course you can never talk about that, or you will be labelled an apostate and shunned by all family and friends. Which did happen to me. But before that…

I met Adam.

We were work friends for two years. He was someone I could finally talk to about the truth. In my other life, nothing you ever did was good enough. Taking care of all these people, volunteering all your time. Didn’t matter, you just had to work harder. Be better. You are never good enough. Especially if you’re a woman.

Adam loved me just the way I was and with all my imperfections. We could talk about anything for hours. It happened organically and we never officially crossed the cheating line. Except I did because I fell so in love with him that I finally found the strength to give up everything and everyone else for the chance that we’d end up living in a house on the beach and having strawberry blonde children.

Every time I walked into the office my heart would beat faster. Every time I got a message on my phone I hoped it was him. I had never felt that way about anyone. 

Stuart, my ex-boss/ex-boyfriend took me out for drinks one night while this all was happening and he said Mahhhhgaux (he’s British) married men never leave their wives.

Adam is smart. He is handsome. And kind. And as much as I tell myself he never really loved me I think he did. When it was over, I tried to kill myself. After everything I had lost, I couldn’t imagine a life without him in it. Without the beach house and those kids.

Whatever the outcome was, Adam was my BIG love and the catalyst that got me to wake up and get out of the cult. I will always love him for that. I owe him my second life.

Daydreams & Nightmares

My therapist says I should be writing more so here goes. (And, yes, I did just begin yet another sentence with "my therapist says".)

I had another unfortunate experience recently. Maybe Rosemary was right and I should just write a blog called "My horrible, terrible, really bad summer". Or maybe my psychic is right and I just have very bad karma. Either way, I was recently attacked by a man I didn't know. 

I was alone and the experience was terrifying. Thank the Universe I had the advantage of an extreme burst of adrenaline and a drunk, clumsy opponent. Ladies, if you ever find yourself in that situation (and most of us do apparently at some point in our lives, it happens so MUCH more often than you would think): scream, yell in their face, punch, kick, whatever you need to do. These predators are actually cowards trying to intimidate us into thinking they have all the power. In some situations, they do, and very bad things happen. But not always. Sometimes we can win. 

It's remarkable how our brains work, how we can store away hurt and fear and anger until we experience some new trauma and then all of a sudden, the past is back. I haven't been able to sleep since this happened, I wake up every few minutes in a sweat, having a panic attack because all of a sudden, in my sleep, I'm back in my past. I won't bore you with all the details, but I've managed to make my way through every significant trauma in my life - in my sleep - all the way back to the time our house caught on fire when I was 4 or 5 years old. I had completely forgotten that even happened. 

The good news is I've been getting through so many of them a night, I should be out of bad memories by the end of the weekend. 

I've always preferred daydreams to night dreams. In my head, in the light of day, there's always hope and possibility. At night, not so much. My subconscious takes over when I sleep and I can't control it. 

Sometimes, our daydreams turn into nightmares. The day I got married was one of the happiest days of my life. The day I got divorced was a waking nightmare. The day I was baptized as one of Jehovah's Witnesses was full of promise (although I was a brainwashed 12 year old), the day I was disfellowshipped and shunned was terrible. I almost didn't survive those experiences. 

I think though, that I got through them the same way I got through my most recent challenge: sheer will, determination and  refusing to give up. No matter who or what is our opponent if we don't give up we have a fighting chance. At least 50/50 right? I'm going to be really Canadian for a minute and quote Wayne Gretzky: "You miss 100 percent of the shots you don't take". 

So when you're faced with something and you know in your gut what the right thing to do is, take that shot. And hopefully, eventually our subconscious catches up with us and stops being so afraid anytime we go to sleep. 

Sullivan out.