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My Profile
Gift from Hil Part 2 - 2014-12-30
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5:12 p.m. - 2012-04-30
So okay, the blinds fit. Whew. In most other ways Life has smoothed out again too, as I know it always will these days. Best thing about this new part of my life- the absence of absolute despair. Sure, it still gets thick sometimes, nothing's really changed about me being far too emotionally volatile and sensitive to ever qualify as a normal person, but the downs never go to The Really Dark Place anymore. The total blotting out of the light, that achy desperately wretched place where all hope of it ever getting better is gone. That's one place I never visit anymore. Now when I have the black dog all up in my business I can deal. I engage in some self-comfort, drop out of sight for a day or two without guilt or paranoia. I eat some Good-n-Plenty, watch a couple girl power movies, do something mildly radical to my appearance or wardrobe (no Britney head shaves), engage in some life affirming stuff like sex and/or cooking, and basically ride it out until the light comes back. Because these days I know it will. Wanna know why? Mick. My hubs is the reason I never have to go to the Very Bad Place anymore. Oh for certain there's the obvious things like how he loves me and sees me and how he hasn't made being an obtuse asshole his life's mission. There's the sparklies and the movie dates and how he'll go get me pizza anytime I want. Yup, he can (and has!) kept a steady job for 17 years, a nice job with a contract and a union and a uniform allowance and health benefits and a pension to look forward to. There's the bedroom end of it which I won't go into explicit detail about but let's just say I've gotten mine at least 300 times more in total during the last 5 years with Mick than I did during the entire 25 years with the ex. My car is always gassed up and the windshield is always clean thanks to Mick. My man thinks I'm brave, smart, kind, and funny. He loves my cooking, my writing, and my paintings. He's taken my younger son into his heart and made him his own son. Mick trusts me. With his heart. With his wallet. With his soul. All of those things. Those amazing things my life had always lacked. They count, a lot, but what truly keeps me out of the pit of despair is Hope. Mick gave me my hope back. He's proved to me that, YES, there can be progress. There will be change and it will keep on getting better. Mick busted me out of the ex's prison of endless sameness and hurt. It never changed with the ex. NEVER. And that was what drove me to despair. No matter what I did, no matter how hard I tried, no matter how much I sacrificed and allowed myself to be brutalized for, NOTHING ever got better. I didn't know, you see, I didn't know it was a case of Couldn't, not Wouldn't. Yeah, there was some Wouldn't in there; nothing makes the ex happier than making someone else gag on frustration. But mostly I didn't know how screwed up and damaged the ex was. I didn't know how firmly he was in the grip of Asperger's Syndrome. So all those tens of thousands of hurts, the endless stream of letdowns and painful mockeries I took them onto myself. My previous life with my evil mother had ground it into me what a worthless pain in the ass I was. Weird, misfit, too big in every way, unwanted, unworthy LA the biblical burden. So when the ex neglected me, when he hurt me, when he gleefully deprived me, when he pushed my face in what a nothing I was to him, I owned it and tried to atone. It was the only thing I knew how to do. I banged my head against the ex's pleased-with-himself autistic wall of vengeful indifference from ages 18 to 44. And it killed my hope. Nearly killed me entirely. My ex was poison. Damn, don't I pity my future daughters-in-law! Alex has already chewed up and spat out Rachel. He's given me the chuck. Hope whoever he's seeing now has some monumental ego strength because if she's looking for approval and kindness from my elder son she's doomed. Loving an Aspie means never getting anything you need. It means starving to death emotionally. And Mick? Mick, my darling mannie, gave hope, strength and peace back to me. Just by his willingness to change. Mick listens and he learns. Mick gets it. He understands there can be a better way. It's Mick's life goal and purpose to improve. To stretch himself. My guy loves the opportunity to do things better. It's what drives him. Improvement. Body, morality, actions, sex, soul, knowledge, whatever, if it can be made better then Mick is there. And for so many, many, many of those improvements, those new points of view, Mick has trusted and learned from me. Mick thinks I'm the bee's knees. It's all I ever truly wanted. I needed to be wanted. To be believed in. To have my feelings validated and my caretaking appreciated. These days I do get a lot back, thanks to Mick. What I yearned for above all else my whole life was to be an agent of change, to help and comfort. To provide for those I love a new view. Options. I wanted to give my dear ones a way out of any pain and confusion they were tangled in. The ex never listened. He never wanted to grow or learn or make anything better. The ex treated me like a bad joke and an affliction. He is content in his messes and his brutality and the way everyone eventually ends up loathing him. Alex is much the same. Whether Wolf has the capacity and the will to want more for himself than being an unloving spiteful asshole, this remains to be seen. But Mick, blessedly NOT autistic Mick, he's here and he loves me. Mick has turned his life's view upside-down since we met. Taking on the challenge of letting go of egocentricity and hostility and learning to embrace others and himself with some wiggle room, giving everyone some grace space. Since being with me Mick's learned to see the world with a less jaundiced eye. And by doing so has given me the one true heart's desire my lonely unloved life had lacked until then...proof that I am not a waste of space. I am not a curse. I am not a life ruiner. My dippy, hands-off, "I trust you to do the right thing", 'long-term good is better than temporary advantage', hippy-ish philosophy is NOT stupid or worthless, that my being part of someone's life actually enhances their quality of life...wow. And this, this validation and acceptance, it's worth everything to me. It's what finally cut me loose from that bitter, blacker than black hopeless despair and let me live. So when the darkness slides in nowadays and wants to choke me I have the chops to fight back. Thanks to Mick the bleakest sorrow isn't mine to drown in anymore. I've got backup and I have hope.
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