Surviving a Sociopath (2)

(Based off real events.)

There was no stability in living anymore, just living out of our sturdy vehicle. Sometimes I’d feel for our vehicle, because of how hard we were pushing her. A few months had passed since the rape, and I’d become more confident in myself, but this didn’t mean things were easy between me and my husband, because nothing could’ve been further from the truth. The insults continued and were getting worse. I guess since my husband didn’t want to treat me as badly as he had in the hotel room, before our wedding, he had to make up for it through insults, and it really hurt.

Never had I been called some of the names that he called me. He and I managed to get into an apartment, and one night he had a severe, wild psychotic break. I was attacked, scared, tripped, and bit -yes, bit. I couldn’t understand why my husband was being so hurtful. What had I done to him? I was guilty of looking for love and a lasting relationship, and I was paying for it. We were finally in one place, and for me, that brought me relief. This façade of stability couldn’t last, though, not when the one you’re with is violent and insane. Still, I believed in my heart we could work through any obstacle together, emerging all the better for it in the end. At this time, it was too much to hope for.

I was leaving the kitchen, and when I was in the middle of the living room, my husband grabbed my leg and I fell onto the floor. My husband jumped on top of me like a rapid animal, snapping his jaws at me. I forced him off, abruptly asking him to stop in the process. Instead, I was attacked again. I was able to give him a moderate kick that knocked him off of me. I had managed to remain calm and told him he had to stop what he was doing because it wasn’t acceptable behavior. In a way I felt like I was trying to teach a kid a basic life skill: Don’t hit! Remaining calm only served to make him even more angry, and he managed to bite my leg.

Now that hurt, but not for too long, thankfully. Later, after the ordeal was over, I would show him the colorful bruise he left me, which was about a grapefruit in size. This particular fight, that I didn’t want to have happen, wouldn’t end for another few hours. Even with obvious bruising, the insults didn’t stop, and his aggression got worse. I decided I was going to raise my voice to try and get him out of the apartment. Basically I yelled at him, and it was enough to get him to leave.

Always, when my husband was acting in such a childish manner, I found a way to get him out of the picture so I could have some time to clear my mind. This was very much a short-term solution to the problem because I was still reeling from the extremes of whatever fight it was that we were in. I tried to sit down, calm down, and enjoy the peace and quiet, but it was impossible. I couldn’t fully rid my mind of images of his violent insanity. My heart was breaking, too because I had chosen to marry him. I loved him. We were in this together . . . weren’t we?

But how much can I take? I’d think to myself.

I wanted to get away, but I had nowhere to go. I ended up bumping into a guy I didn’t know, and I tried living with him for a while, and it was an unwise choice, because I had no idea who this guy was. He ended up being part of a heavy metal band, and for a very short time I was a part of it, doing vocals and playing piano. It was, musically, one of the coolest things I’d done in my life. What was not cool, though, was how he and the drummer got into it over me. I’d been reduced to an object, competition getting at the guy I was staying with, so he started being abusive to me.

Once again, I did what I’d done with my husband, and I got out of his car at a stoplight. That guy would return to a gas station I’d walk to, so he could give me some of my stuff, then he left, and I had nowhere to go. I couldn’t go back to my apartment because that wouldn’t help the situation. I was in the process of going insane myself, and needed some stability in my life, especially because of my mental disorders. Part of me wished I could make a life for myself in that apartment we’d had, but the truth was I couldn’t afford rent without my husband’s help, as much as I hated to admit it.

There was another guy I bumped into who tried to sell me into human trafficking, but I managed to escape at the last second. I knew my luck would run out eventually, because I was barely getting out of these dangerous situations intact. Having a support system for me was a must, and I ended up contacting my husband, again. Nothing had changed. It wasn’t long until I started going back to mental hospitals the situation was so severe. I met a lot of people, both staff and patients, and will always remember this lesson: Suicide is never ever worth it, not only because you’d be prematurely ending your life, missing out on valuable experiences you would have had otherwise, but also because not all attempts are successful, and what’s left over is often not very pretty, and not something you want to have happen.

Back in the beginning, when my husband and I were on our way out of town to go on our road trip, the verbal abuse wouldn’t stop. Our transmission started acting up once we were headed to Boulder City, outside Vegas, and our vehicle was having problems handling the hills, so we and had to stop by a dealership to service our vehicle. We were lucky that there was an extended warranty, so we ended up getting a brand new transmission, free of charge. I saw this as a favorable stroke of good luck, while he only took it for granted, continuing to treat me like dirt, despite our good fortune. The way I saw it, he was taking advantage of a perfectly good vehicle, too.

We had to stay in a hotel for the night while the dealership worked on our vehicle. I was coerced to do some sexual activity, but for once, I was successful in asserting myself against him, and I didn’t have to do all of what he said. This was a big step forward for me, because I was learning to be strong for myself, not waiting on some other person to save me, or magically becoming this impossible person that would succeed in convincing my spouse that his behavior was childish and needed to stop.

The next day our vehicle was ready to go, and all things considered, we’d had a decent night, so we went on our not-so-merry way. First, we drove all the way to Florida from Vegas. My husband said God had told him he needed to go to Florida. Key West was our first destination, then we made our way northwards. We were doing flea markets, so we went to a few of the many that were in Florida, not finding what we were looking for, or what he was looking for, whatever it was. He described his goal to me like this during what would become a 50,000 mile road trip: “I’m looking for my ‘golden egg,’ if that makes sense.” Truer words were never spoken from the lips of a previous gambling addict. To me it sounded like he wanted to live on handouts.

Florida would end up having special meaning in my life, but with him, it wasn’t the time nor the place to have it happen. The frustration my husband felt he’d always take out on me, and there were psychological consequences. Dissociative episodes are where a person goes into an “autopilot” of sorts, and another personality -also called an “alter ego,” by some- would surface for the purpose of protecting what integrity still existed in my mindset. The past several onslaughts of both mental and emotional violence had taken their toll. A part of me, that I didn’t know was within me, had been developing in the midst of all of this, and that process had started in Las Vegas when I decided I was going to try and experiment with self-defense because what I was going through was absolutely nuts.

Violence is a waste of time unless it’s absolutely necessary, and I really believe that.

My alter ego was able to protect me on several instances, and even though I don’t remember a lot of what happened, he did, and something about the whole scenario scared him, and I’d never laid a hand on him in violence that wasn’t self-defense. There were times when he would abandon me, and when he would return, which was was usually the case, we’d reunite later on. As time went on, my alter ego learned that abuse was sometimes the only thing that would distract him from being abusive. I was continuously bottling up my feelings because I didn’t want to do anything that would hurt him, even with all he’d done and was doing to me.

I may not have been extremely reluctant to be physically aggressive, but this darker side, the side that remembered the rape and the pain of it all too quickly, was.

I used words and the tone of my voice to freak out my husband when he’d get into one of his “moods,” and this did win some of his respect, not that I really wanted or valued it at that point. When I was in that “mode,” with my dark side surfacing, I had one objective, and that was to prevent this monster from destroying who I was. I knew I had never done anything to merit being abused, making me an innocent party in all of this. This “alter ego” was still me, just a side of me that I kept hidden because I didn’t want to hurt anybody, even if it was just to say something that had an unintentional side effect of hurting someone’s feelings.

There were other ways, though, that my husband would try to get under my skin, but this time, I was not scared. This time I had the psychological backing to call on that part of myself that was willing to see if self-defense was possible. I wasn’t through learning from these experiences with him just yet, and I was determined to emerge with flying colors. Before I managed to kick my husband out of the apartment, I had a moment where he was being verbally abusive again, and I looked in his eyes, hard, and said: “If you don’t stop what you’re doing, one day I’m going to not be in your life anymore, and you will never see me again.” It’s been a full nine months since I’ve seen or heard from him. If I have my way about it, we never will ever see each other again.

Back to the story, though: This was just the beginning. It was war in a case for self-defense against an arrogant maniac, but I was ready. I was going to learn whatever there was for me to learn from this experience, and if he wasn’t going to change and emerge the better person for it, I sure was. I never gave up, and it ended up saving my life, as well as my precious sanity. I also know I’m a heck of a lot stronger than I thought I was.