On the Edge of Breakthroughs or Am I Just Crazy?

I hesitated for well over a week to post up my "Crash and Burn" post. It was and is a hard thing to talk about what my fears have been doing to me and us. I don't know what is going to happen with me and my beloved. I refuse to give up hope...what we have is true and good, honest and pure, it's rare what we have and so very, very hard to find. I will not give up hope on us. We are worth it, we are good together, we belong together. And so hope I will, because I cannot give up.

Living here, feels like I am constantly walking on eggshells and that I live in a house of glass with lots of cracks. One wrong step, and I'm afraid it will all crash down around me. I have this desperation to get out, that I cannot explain. Maybe it is my intuition kicking in? I don't know. Learning to trust and tap into my gut feelings, my intuition, to trust my heart...it's so hard. The first thing I start to do is second guess myself. But my beloved is right there to tell me to knock it off, to stop doubting myself.

Trying to wrap my head around the idea that living with "HIM" has been abusive for most of the 20 years, is really difficult. I've been reading and reading and reading different sites...all the indicators are there. The put downs, the sarcastic remarks, the lies, the yelling, the banging doors or breaking things to intimidate me...and even when he doesn't do these things out right...the little comments, the innuendos are always there. Even the little sexual comments like when "HE" tossed a Hershey bar on my desk a few weeks ago..."HE" said 'you know back in the day a Hershey bar would get a sailor laid'. I was so stunned, I didn't know what to say. And now there's the financial control. "HE" is the only one that can write checks or use the accounts. My name is on nothing. I cannot do any shopping with out "HIM" being present. In fact most times, "HE" goes and gets stuff with out me so "HE" doesn't have to talk me. If I do go, it has to be "HIS" idea when "HE" feels like it. Because it's not all the time, it makes it harder to wrap my head around. But I've had more people tell me it is, and not one tell me it isn't. So if others see it for what it is and I see it for what it is...why is it so hard to accept? Maybe because I told myself I would never get into another abusive relationship again. And yet I did, and I spent some much time blaming myself and then "HIM" blaming me for all the problems...it's a lot.

But the more I try to wrap my head around this thing of abuse, the crazier it makes me feel. I have no visible scars, no wounds, no broken or healed bones. Everything, every scar is mental, emotional...wounds and scars that cannot be seen physically. Having been so isolated from family and friends...talking about this to them has been difficult. I feel like I am coming out of a closet in many ways, but only one foot out and one still in...always afraid someone will turn around and blame me for all of this. Everything I have been reading says that trying to grasp the facts of this type of abuse does make one feel crazy...seems that's the abuser whole intent as part of the control they want/need to have.

I don't want to live like this anymore, I can't! I just don't know where to start to find my way out. I can't get any sort of public assistance while I live here. Emotionally and mentally I don't feel I can handle going to a shelter. More isolation is not the answer. I don't know what steps to take to find my way out of this mess. I don't know what questions to ask, if I can get a Legal Aide or Pro Bono attorney. Trying to figure all this out, makes me feel even crazier. I don't like feeling this way.

I just know I have this desperate feeling to get out and away from "HIM". "HE's" not done anything (yet). But knowing that the for most verbal/emotional abusers the next step is to get physical, that scares me. Would "HE"? I don't know, but I don't want to find out either.

I just wish I could figure out what to do first. And I just wish all this didn't make me feel crazy.