Originally I decided I wouldn’t write specifics about my current situation in this space, in an effort to avoid airing my family’s “dirty laundry” to the masses. Please understand that I don’t hate him, I don’t wish him any harm, and I’m not trying to make him look like a monster. He is getting help for his behavior, and I hope he’s able to conquer those demons.
But this is my story. My life. This was my reality. I won’t be silent.
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Being married to someone with extreme paranoia was hard, especially because, in an effort at self-preservation, I couldn’t help but become paranoid myself.
I wonder, sometimes, how long it will take me to stop looking over my shoulder.
He was always creeping up on me. On particularly bad days, he would sneak into the house so that he could catch me doing… whatever it was he thought I did when he wasn’t there watching me.
When I would be startled by his figure in the doorway or by him suddenly touching me when I thought no one was around, he would tell me that only someone who was doing something they shouldn’t be doing would be so jumpy.
So I learned to have nerves of steel, and never react. When will I startle again? Ever?
I walked barefoot into my dark kitchen two weeks ago and stepped on a snake that had somehow wandered in from outside… and didn’t utter a sound, not even a gasp. I just removed my foot, caught the snake, and tossed it outside. That’s not normal, is it?
Anything I did – or didn’t do – might be suspicious in his eyes. I never knew, from one moment to the next, how he might react if I looked too nice, ran too many errands, fell asleep in the girls’ room, spent too much time with any particular person, or didn’t get enough done during the day. The things that set him off were constantly changing, and completely unpredictable.
There was always the possibility of him lurking in the shadows, peeking through windows, checking the history on my computer, driving past the park or the store or my friend’s house to make sure I was where I said I would be, doing things he didn’t consider suspicious.
He would just materialize. And only someone with something to hide would have a problem with that.
So I learned to be aware, always, never trusting that I wasn’t being watched. How long will it take for me to stop feeling his eyes on me, wherever I go?
It got to the point that I wouldn’t talk on the phone in my car, because I didn’t know if he had it bugged. I kept my head down and avoided talking to people in public unless I had to, in case he was having me followed.
It didn’t matter what innocuous things I might have talked about, because he was convinced that I spoke -and wrote- in code.
He went through my emails, chats, notebooks, journals, tweets, blog posts – all with a fine tooth comb, trying to find hidden meanings, demanding to know what I meant by one thing or another.
So I learned to watch my words, always. Will I ever be able to speak freely again?
Yes, I will.
I am.
Right now.
