The world has only barely started trying harder to understand those of us with mental illnesses. Before, even as a young kid with ADHD, I felt like the whole world was calling me crazy. My family treated me differently because of it and it only got worse as I got older. I think maybe my biggest mistake was telling my narcissist my feelings about this. He knew how I felt in my classes, in my friend group, and in my Family. I told him how hard it was growing up with taking meds and being treated different because of my mental health struggles. Many of these struggles which he knew was from my childhood abuse.
It’s weird how your brain protects you. It’s weird how your brain tries to destroy you. It’s weird how your brain can betray you.
My brain likes to forget things. It’s called traumatic memory loss or something like that. I’ll do more research later. Basically, I don’t remember certain things and for some reason I remember others. Even if the things I remember are the bad things and I end up forgetting the good. Yet, even with the things I remember, I don’t seem to remember it right. So when I’m told that something didn’t happen the way I remember it, I often believe it. Which is why I was so easy to control.
The engagement and all that followed is a mess of a story I can’t even begin to dissect right now. It was awful and wonderful and magical and tragic. No one seemed to be happy for us but it didn’t matter cause we were, I guess. It was a real Romeo and Juliet romance. Except this story ended in being disowned and homeless instead of dead. Well it didn’t END there for us obvious, but you know what I mean.
At one point I’d broken off the engagement after he’d moved to a different state for awhile. Being away from him I was forced to spend more time with my family. Which ended up causing me to see some of the flaws I had refused to see before. He didn’t take it well. In fact he drove back immediately, showing up at my front door in a truly romantic fashion. It was in no way a red flag or sign of insanity or control. Right? He drove all that way just for me! I can’t believe my family convinced me not to love him! They don’t understand!
When we finally got married and moved into our apartment things felt good. I truly believed he wanted the best for me. My knight in shinning armor. Until things started looking not so shiny almost immediately.
‘You’re being stupid’
‘That’s not what I said, Kaylee’
‘No, that never even happen’
‘You’re the one that should’ve known better’
‘You’re going to make me lose my temper’
‘You’re insane’
‘You’re crazy’
‘You’re childish’
‘You’re helpless’
‘Even your family knows you’re impossible to deal with’
Of course I was told the first year of marriage is the hardest. Wasn’t expecting the first week to be so hard. I was expecting it to be hard living with someone for the first time. And I was taught all the ways to make it work. Communicate. Compromise. Forgive. Repeat. But the talking was always angry and I just kept asking for forgiveness.
I was 18 years old, living away from home for the first time and married to a man older and ‘wiser’. Who was I to say otherwise, to anything he said to me. I mean, the world I was in all my life already told me that people like me, well, we are those things. We’re difficult. We’re different. We’re crazy. WE’RE the ones who need to change. So when this man, who I loved and who said he loved me, told me I was the problem, I believed it.
I feel like I had some sense of who I was before this marriage, but not much. By the end, I’d lost myself completely.
Less than two years into my marriage I was admitted to a psych ward for the first time.
I just wanted it to end.
I just wanted it to stop.
I hated myself.
It was all my fault.
-to be continued-
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