In October he beat me up for the first (and worst) time. Really let it all out on my face via the shift stick. I came out of it looking a MESS. He kept me locked up for a month until I could be seen in public again. He shut off the wifi in fear I would “talk shit”. During that month- my car insurance was canceled. So- Gia’s car insurance was cancelled. And I didn’t find out until there was a lapse which made HER lose driving privileges for a few weeks too. Well in the fast move to dads house, she became the school driver for the other 2 kids. On her way to a full time job and full time first year college. I don’t know how she did it but I will have to compare to when I took my sister. She did it bc she had to.

I have never been able to ask what they did during those couple weeks for school and work.

That month of being offline was also enough to take out a new baby business. You can’t really shut it off for a month and expect it to be there when you get back. So I tried again. My kids have been away from me 3 fucking months at this point and now I don’t have a car or job or income- to even GET to them. So making money was URGENT. I was staying with the evil boyfriend and now pretty securely stockholmed. He lived in the middle of nowhere. I could not get food or even make it to a store on foot without him.

He did some typical narc things to keep me in that state. As did his mother which clued me into how he got that way…Texted my children apologizing for their shitty mom. His mother called my sister repeatedly “worried about me” while standing over my bruised bloody body- telling me I’m crazy and why did I make her son do that to me- how COULD you!!! My sister ended up believing her in the long run. I suppose it was much more likely to listen to a calm rational old lady than your erratic mess of a sissy. It’s the logical choice. I can’t argue with 1’s and 0’s.

It was Thanksgiving the next time he hurt me. Thinking back, the timing was always during SOMEthing. Holiday birthday place to go… something. Turns out that is typical of narc’s too. Turns out autistic people are very often targets too. But I didn’t know I am autistic yet in the story. It’s just stress. So many good reasons for stress too. It makes sense I’d feel how I did. The feeling went from panic attacks to a kind of dizzy- still making heart beat situation. I found out later it was probably cortisol- like 45 years worth… and going from fight >fawn> and landing in freeze.

That beating was the next nose dive. I flipped shit. I barricaded myself in and literally taped up the doors and screamed bloody murder if I heard a human approach. That may have been a nervous breakdown idk. I called my sister for help. But I am difficult to help. I was barricaded in and she offered to come pick me up and bring me to her house- but I haven’t been able to go there for years… avoiding that place for years has been the cause of the giant rift between us. I only put this together after the fact, but I had had issue with being in her home since the whole burnout started. It’s very GIANT and wide-open and white and clean and shiny. The neighborhood is a golf course. The husband is a lawyer. There is a new fresh air freshener in every room. Decoration towels. There are many well dressed successful people acting appropriately… it feels like another TV show that I am NOT in. Now I know why I felt like I couldn’t go. She tried to help further and made many calls for me and got an agoraphobia person to agree to come to the house.

But he and his parents threatened me- I can’t bring someone to the house- why? bc we did not live in the house. We lived in a plastic covered houseboat parked in his parents yard. They own a Marina and it looks like just another one of the parked boats. That’s why they ignore the drug problem. He is locked up in the boat and it still looks respectable on the outside! That is where I was locked down, and that is not legal, they would be in trouble, Cindy don’t you dare. So I used my last dollars to uber back to the apartment that had been left abandoned since the kids moved out of it- now almost 4 months ago, and 4 months since I saw them. But I could be away from him.

It was filled with the stuff they left behind. Lifetimes of stuff they didn’t need anymore. Like a graveyard of all my tries and fails. I had a few weeks of shelter there before my eviction case- my plan was to get the business going and be back to normal by March.