(The following is a really CLEANED UP version of an email to both my soon-to-be ex-husband and former therapist. As many “F-Bombs” as possible have been removed.)

FYI, my mother has “enabled me” to do nothing more or less than you did in the last two decades. Every freedom I enjoyed with my parents living down the street you enjoyed as well, up until approximately twelve months ago that is. I have kept myself at home with our kids, cooking, cleaning, ironing, decorating, scrapbooking, vacuuming, ironing some more, then cooking and cleaning some more, all with that “perfectly pretty” smile on my face so that no one really knew what either was or was not going on in our home and marriage. Oh, and let’s not forget all the time, days after days, hours after hours, I spent devoted to our son’s school years, constantly entertaining and feeding no less than a half dozen “other people’s kids” weekend after weekend for at least the last decade. Meanwhile, and lest you forget, my human body has been hacked on, cut up and mutilated a grand total of let’s see, oh yah, THIRTEEN times in the last six years alone. Oh and let’s PLEASE not forget all of the truly “personal free time” which was spent in the wee hours of the night while you chose to sleep in another room while I was either eating, puking, crying, suffocating or anything else I could do to avoid the sleep I probably needed so I didn’t have to see dead babies, split open skulls and OH yes, me covered in the first pig with whom I got to enjoy that awesome five minutes of drunken, sweat dripping in my mouth pleasure. Or wait, do you remember all those days you spent with your “business associates” ~ our “dear friends? While I was at home trying to keep myself from slitting my wrists and driving you crazy with my incessant “something’s wrong with our marriage drama”  YOU were at Rockfish racking up those $200.00 “power lunch bills” three or four times a week that I had NO idea about. Do you remember that?

So, then no soon-to-be ex-husband, my mother has “enabled” me to do nothing more than you ever did. In years gone by while mom had our kids, I was a very busy little girl. Got it? So Steven, as far as “this” what you’ve evidently shared with Him but ironically never once with me, how the hell would you know what my mother has “enabled” me to do since (a) you weren’t a fly on our walls and (b) you are basing all of your judgments and opinions on the words and truths of a man who, um, just MAY happen to be a little pissed off and scorned at the moment (and rightfully so I might add).

So, let’s see. The last twelve months? What did my mother enable me to do? The trip to France and the “Flyboy“? YOU enabled me to run away to France and YOU enabled me to spend that time with Henrik? It was YOU who enabled me to go there! There weren’t that many visits in person actually and most of our very one-sided “love affair” was via emails, so nope, not my mom’s enabling. Don’t you remember? You were always up in your theatre room or sometimes in our bedroom with Gia. And oh yah, you’re absolutely correct if you think or have assumed that I basically withdrew myself completely from our “marriage” last September (a/k/a “the night of my AWESOME birthday dinner), don’t you remember? I waited for you! I waited and waited and waited some more. Cried to you. Pleaded with you to help me fight for US! I literally got down on my hands and knees and begged you that fateful night in January 2008 when I tried to tell you I was sick, and I needed help. That WE needed help! But wait, do you remember what your response was to THAT?

Bulimia? What’s that? An eating disorder? Well what the fuck do you want ME to do about it? Just don’t do it anymore dumbass! Call a doctor in the morning, because I’m not one, now get out of my theatre room with all your drama and don’t let the door hit you in the ass! 

Yep, I sure as HELL remember that night! Those words you said to me are seared into my mind like a fucking brand. “Well, just don’t do it anymore dumbass!” And yep, I have, and repeat HAVE, spent an awful lot of time that I should NOT have in the company of other people, including your most especial favorite one in these last seven months. But let me make this one point crystal clear to you both: My mother’s presence in the kids’ lives for babysitting purposes has NOT enabled or fostered that relationship in any way. Here’s a newsflash to you both: Zack works six days a week, some days from ten until either seven, eight, or nine. Mom hasn’t been too helpful is what I’m trying to say. You know who I really think “enabled me” to develop my bond with him? Um, that would be YOU. That would be YOU!

Let me ask you both something. Is in possible, and I mean even slightly possible, that rather than you sitting back discussing me, my disorders, my family and all of my shortcomings you might BOTH have missed this one very important concept: Maybe I’m not crazy, split personality or whatever the hell you both say, think or judge? Maybe, and just MAYBE, my “depression, bulimia, anger and dramatic OUTBURSTS are as a result of serious amounts of shame, guilt, self-loathing and hatred? Maybe I don’t trust people because I’ve been seriously hurt by a few and maybe I “can’t have sex right anymore” because I was raped and my body (as you have so lovingly referred to it) is all “mangled up and gross” and I’m ashamed of the way I look? Maybe our sex life is broken now partly because I admittedly and ashamedly destroyed and emasculated you with my very ugly and unforgivable words and partly because you emasculated me with all your equally ugly an unforgivable words because not only you were trying to punish me for some things I’ve said to you over the years but also because sometimes you are just a cruel and hateful asshole with that mouth of YOURS? Maybe, just MAYBE, I am pissed off at the world and really pissed off at myself because, again, been there, done that … every three or five years there’s some other “trauma” in my life and I’m just broken, worn out and tired now of always looking over my shoulder for that lovely dragon that’s been chasing me. Yah, that’s right, that’s what the dragon tattooed on my back is all about – NOT YOU! NOT ZACK! “The dragon” is my very best friend and the keeper of all my secrets, and if you want to know anything else about her going forward, well, then read the fucking book!

In closing, how about this possibility in the psychotherapeutic scheme of it all: Maybe I’m not just a mean, hateful, manipulative, insane and horrible mother, wife and daughter? Maybe I’m just tired of living in the past? Maybe I’m just tired of being ashamed? Maybe I’m just tired of trying to be “the perfect illusion” so that no one I love has to suffer with any of my realities. And yup, I GET IT! My little “perfection act” and constantly trying to cover up all these feelings I’ve been stuffing and suppressing is now totally fucking backfiring on me, as not only have I been physically killing myself all the while, but I also think I’ve become a mean, hate-filled, “ungrateful for any of the real things I did have in the meantime” rotten fucking bitch of a human being! I seriously took some of the things you gave or did for me for granted and for that I am ashamed and sorry. But through it all, up until now, I have stuck by you faithfully because I really did and DO still love you and I did not want any of this to go down this way! We both let each other down in huge amounts of ways, but I DID ask you to help me. The last year of my life was spent literally on my hands and knees trying to pull “me” out of “me” and I ended up reaching for any single hand that would take mine! I am sorry, more than you will ever truly know.

And yes, maybe you’re right. Maybe I a really am “a cancer to everyone around me“, up to and especially including MYSELF, but I no longer want to be one! I will never ever stop hoping that you will recover from me one day, “the cancer of your life”, and I will never stop praying that you will find a way to be an actual whole human being. God knows at least one of us needs to try and get there, for our kids’ sakes if nothing else. You are a good man when you want to be and under the right circumstances, you’ll have a lot to give someone else. Just remember this, though, the next time you get a shot at love: You snooze, you lose! Gotta make yourself “emotionally available” my friend, and especially if you end up with another handful of a fucked up crazy bitch like me!

That’s all I have to say now so you two can have each other going forward. Bang me up, shrink me up, give it both your best shots of making any “textbook” sense out of me. Meanwhile, I’ll just keep going at this on my own. Wish me luck, love, death, or all the above. I suppose at this point it doesn’t really matter anymore, because I’m either gonna make it out of this alive or I’m not. I’m hoping for the former, but it’s a shot in the dark at this point I suppose. Self-discovery sucks, for the record, especially when all the extremely blameless and perfect people looking down on you at all times refuse to stop shoving all of the cancers which are “you” back down your ALREADY ROTTED throat. Peace out!

THE LIE

And you, your love’s defining a generation to settle a score. I once knew trust but now I’m surrounded by time I’ve wasted, and hearts that I stole, I owe to you.  A second chance. An explanation, a promise I’ll keep for every lie that I told to you. You said you would come back for me, said you’d find a safe place. You said that heaven and stars would never tear us apart. You’ll find the right words even from the wrong ways. You lie. My lungs were failing, hands to the sky, face to the ground. I found that you have no intensions, you honor nothing. And how could this be true? They think so highly of you. Why won’t you just shut up? I’ll make you fade away. There’s a consequence to every word you say. Don’t you know who I am? I said I would come back for you, said I’d find a safe place. Who knew that heaven and stars had their own prison bars? I’ll find the right words even from the wrong ways, I lied. I never wanted so long to turn into go away. There was a time when your face I held much higher than grace. You are the catalyst to words I would never say, goodbye. And now I only talk to the dead. Goodbye …” {One Less Reason}