Intrusions...

So there I was just chatting away on Zoom and suddenly two books fell. 

Heavily. 

Off the shelf. 

BANG! 

Why two.

Why any!

If you ask me it feels...an unpleasant thing. I associate it with rage directed at me. Rage that belongs to my husband.

Observation: My husband was angry with someone before -in the most passive aggressive way imaginable - that person found their car's windscreen smashed whilst they were in one city. Got the glass fixed, went to another city...their car window was once again smashed. 

So much for my A level's in science and my Western upbringing. 

Did I see it as 'psychic energy' at the time? 

My friend certainly did.

I neither believe or disbelieve..

That remains the same, but if you ask me....

I was telling someone about my WHM (Wim Hof method) experience; that this is the first time I've found a direct way to reach into the core of fear and teach it that things are good. This person has asthma, and the thought of breath control freaks him out. So he was worried about me. It didn't help that I said, 'oh you know, it's fine if I pass out! I'm somewhere safe. And, 'yeah if I hallucinate, ha! I've spent years visualizing things one way or another' and he said "I think it could be re-traumatizing".

I've been thinking of things that really are traumatizing ever since that conversation. Communicating with my husband is one of them. Putting my mind in that space, any thinking about what may really be happening.

His rage when I got in touch with 'her' husband at the end of September was off the scale. I was glad to have a word for it. I've been watching SAS Who Dares Wins: Hazing. 

One thought is; this felt like the only time in our relationship where I was in the presence of a whole person (!) Though his rage made no sense, it felt authentic. I had never once felt I was with the real person for all our years of marriage. 

Can you imagine that? 

I was fine. 

Person is what a person is.

So, yeah.

This intrusion [of the third kind] is nothing more than...an event that clarifies how I see things.

It reminds me of how he phoned me after the hazing to tell me that he was OK after getting so angry he was smashing things.

Did I say, 'do you know what, I didn't think about why or how, or anything. I didn't feel worried about you. You were angry and you smash things. I know that. That's what you do'. 

I don't suppose I bothered to say it, I don't recall...

As annoying as that would have been for him to hear, it wasn't worth saying. And if I had felt any sense of partnership at all I would have listened. 

Instead I found myself just putting the phone down.

Because what I thought at the time is this:

To reduce your guilt and shame and justify your actions to yourself you needed to destroy me as a friend and partner. To do this you set about remembering everything you know that proves in your eyes I am less than than nothing and told yourself that is all I am. You refused to accept any apology I made, or accept that a counsellor could help us. You scapegoated me with your own crap. Meanwhile to stop me finding the truth you used deception and perception management, you told me that there are no lies, there are no secrets, you provided explanations for your behavior that could not be checked or tested. To silence me and to hide what was really happening you rubbished what I prize most about myself. And to get me to be emotionally devastated enough to justify your desire to persecute me for not agreeing to erase myself, you set about exploiting my worst fears, and vulnerabilities.

I found this last one the hardest to understand.

It was bullying, pure and simple.

Rubbishing what I most prize about myself is my ability to be empathic, to listen, to be wherever anyone is and to be strong, safe, intelligent in the face of overwhelming odds. 

So...

If he is in trouble and phones me, I haven't blocked his phone number. 

But I did imagine sending it (potential phone connections) deep down into the core of the earth as part of my Samhain ritual.

OK, let the things fall, let the intrusions intrude. 

All are welcome as provocations to remind me that what I've experienced is bullying, pure and simple.