We’re getting a full Content WARNING here. Some of the things I’m sharing are the most horrifying moments of my life. It’s going to get dark and personal starting now.
I feel like a person cursed my marriage. I don’t know why she bothered. We were already doomed. As a matter of fact, the title of this article is based on the horrifying moment when I realized I had to leave my home or die. It was January 1st, 2018. My ex and I returned to find the three house plants I owned were dead. The brick that held our window closed had fallen so the cold got the two in the window. The house had been breaking down around us for a decade. The third dead plant looked like it had rotted from the roots up in a matter of days. There was some sort of larvae, that I’m pretty sure were flies, all over the pot. Nine days later my ex pointed a gun at me and told me if I said one more mean thing to him he was going to make my suicide happen.
I learned a word not too long ago. Existential disappointment is a term that was coined by a philosopher named Tillich. He developed his theory of religion while living under Nazi rule. He saw the Nazis take people. He saw Christians risk their lives to protect their Jewish neighbors. He saw a person’s religion as something they would kill or die for. When that thing turns out to be nothing the feeling is indescribable. You either know or you don’t. I know. That is what it feels like to be cursed. Damnation isn’t as scary from the inside. It’s a perpetual feeling of chest pain, rage, and uselessness.
That really happened. There are a lot of things that led up to this moment, but this is the moment when I fully realized that this was not just my mental health issue. There is a whole level regarding my ex’s mental health and how we both treated each other. I don’t have any intention of going into that aspect in a public space. Sometimes I think I tell these stories just to validate my continued existence. To put the pain I have both felt and caused to some use. I’m justifying this story by using it as an example of one of those horror movie moments that happens when a person or place has been properly cursed. IF YOU RELATE TO THIS REACH OUT. GET OUT.
Behold the power of the condemned. By the time this had happened I had already spent eight years with a man that told me he loved me, but then undermined every effort to improve our lives. Eight years of watching my grandmother’s house rot around me. Somewhere in that timeline, I burned out as an LPN. I know there was nothing left to save because I felt nothing but that pain in my chest. I walked out of my old life and became someone new.
The next morning before my ex woke up I triggered a phone tree that I didn’t know existed. I told my uncle I was done. I thought we were going to talk about how life is hard and things would get better, but said he would be there in an hour then called my mom. Mom and I packed a bag. Luther and I left the house, the car, everything. I can still see the fifty vultures that were circling my house as we drove away.
I can also see the hundreds of crows welcoming me to my new home on a buddy’s futon. Isolation makes a person forget that others care about them, but like crows, good people flock together. I’m still humbled by how I was just brought back into people’s lives as if nothing had ever happened. Eighth years evaporated in some cases. In others, some work had to be done on both sides.
I know there are moments in the whole affair that have been overwritten leaving only vague insecurity about my sanity. Some of that is on purpose. I don’t need or want to relive a bunch of drama on a loop for the rest of my life. I have better things to do, but the experience left me with scars on my soul. You can only close a box. You can’t unopen it. I try not to open that box unless I’m taking something out of it, but apparently, someone needs to see that someone else survived it.
I want to close this on a positive note because I am alive and that life is getting better every day. It’s still not easy. It’s taken a lot of work to get this far, but I did. I’m going to keep doing the work. Remember you are going to need help, but curses are broken from the inside. You can change everything about life.
I’m going to try and keep this particular article true. It’s not always good it’s not always bad but it’s real cuz this is my life and I share it with you. I’m a real person and sometimes I find that terrifying.
