Damaged Goods

Yep, that's what I am - Damaged Goods.  Damaged in so many ways - physically, emotionally.....Sometimes I think I'm damaged beyond repair.  No one knows what goes on in my mind or the thoughts that play through my head.  The thoughts are sometimes like a broken record - self-loathing, feeling of being completely inadequate, upset with myself for putting up with all I have put up with in my life at various points.

No one knows the hurt I've experienced, or what it's done to me.  Even I forget sometimes, and then something happens to remind me of things I'd rather forget.  A recent example - riding in the car, listening to Eminem on the iPod, and the song "Kim" comes up.  For those of you not familiar with the song, it's about him confronting Kim for cheating, and he's cussing her and threatening her and it gets pretty violent towards the end of the song.  My ex-husband used to constantly accuse me of cheating, and I never did cheat on him.  It didn't matter to him that I had always been faithful and it just wasn't logistically possible for me to have cheated on him, as I was always either at home with him and the kids, or at work.

Anyways, the song reminded me of how he would interrogate me over various things, and start screaming at me and threatening me, and listening to it just really, really upset me in a way that I don't know other people who haven't lived through something similar would be able to fully understand.  I've been told by more than one person that I just need to "get over it" and "forget about it" - but I think a lot of folks just don't understand how damaging domestic violence and abuse, physical and mental, can be.

You'd think that after being out of that hell for over 7 years now, that I would be over it and be "deprogrammed" from various feelings and triggers, but I'm not.  There are sometimes simple, every day things that will trigger a thought or emotion, or an old reaction from me.   It's something that was just ingrained into me, and it's taking time for me to unlearn those behaviors, thoughts, and reactions.

Needless to say, I really dislike conflict and confrontations.  Many times I fail to speak up for myself, for the dread of the confrontation and conflict that will ensue.   I let things go, and go and go, and stuff those emotions deep inside me, until at some point, I explode.  Usually it's something small that sets me off, and then it all just comes raging out.  But most of the time,  I  put a lid on it before it really even gets started, for fear of having to deal with the fall-out of letting it all out.  Sometimes it's just not worth the stress of dealing with it.

Of course, not dealing with a problem doesn't do anything towards fixing it, but depending on the situation, fixing it may not be an option, or leaving it unfixed may not hurt anything.  I've just really always been the type to want to always have the last word, and in some situations, it's difficult to just walk away without having that last word.  Even if I know it's driving the other person nuts to think I don't care enough to respond and engage them further, it drives me crazy too.

Oh well - I will say this: this is another one of those blogs that I absolutely do NOT want to get any personal feedback on.  If you want to comment something here, that's fine.  But please - no phone calls, texts, or personal messages via email or Facebook regarding the contents of this blog post, and no comments about it in person.  (I actually started this blog entry a few months ago and have just now decided to go ahead and post it, so while the last 2 paragraphs are new, the rest is old, from when I was having a down night after hearing that stupid song).