How did I get here?

I know so many of the typical signs of an abuser. And I chastise myself some times (much more than I should) for missing them. But I think that while there are signs, not every situation looks alike. My abuser is incredibly smart, which I guess many abusers are. And it's hard to see someone you love as manipulating you. Especially when he seems like he's in so much pain. It's hard to watch him struggle and think that he has an alternate agenda to control you.

I'll be talking about my therapy sessions a lot, which feels really uncomfortable at first, but I want to offer any insight I can and that's where a lot of them are happening. I'm lucky enough to have a therapist who has a background in working with survivors. I've just started working with him, but I think he's going to be very helpful.

Our last session was so powerful that I wish I had recorded it. I did have to stop him once and ask for a piece of paper so that I didn't forget this one thing he told me. *Blank*'s violence was deliberate. Deliberate. That's so mind-boggling to me. It's easy to justify abuse. I wish it wasn't so easy. But I did it. It's easy to say he has "episodes". That he "loses control". Well, I'd like to get that last phrase out of our collective consciousness because it's bullshit. If you have so little control of yourself when you get angry, that is still on you. That is not an excuse. You still did whatever your anger "made" you do.

And here's the kicker for me. He didn't get help. I suppose he could justify that to himself because the times that he hurt or threatened me were my fault. Or alcohol's fault. Or his abusive mother's fault. Anyone but his. None of these reasons matter. Even if they were true. Because he took no steps to change it. He knew that alcohol made him angry. Made him violent. He didn't stop drinking (he actually blamed it on me that he couldn't stop drinking!). He stopped seeing his therapist (again, that one was my fault. Apparently, I didn't want him to see a therapist), and he never took anger management classes even though I asked him to many times.

It was deliberate. This is huge for me. And going to take some time to wrap my brain around. Because how can a person that was supposed to love me, deliberately hurt me? Deliberately manipulate me and my emotions and twist our lives so that he has all the power over me. But in such a manipulative way that I can't even see it!!

My therapist calls it the crazy-making. I love that phrase. It's so true. He got so deep in my head that I question my sanity. There are so many layers to pull back here in order to get back to me. There are so many layers to work through what he did to me. It's crazy-making. It's brilliant.