I know that sometimes it is important for people to strictly write for themselves. In my research, I have come across many references to the validity of maintaining better health by writing down our thought processes. I feel an overwhelming sense of what they call “writer’s block” every time I attempt to just simply write something that I know no one but I will ever see. The need for connection feels much like the need for oxygen. I don’t know if it’s that way for everyone but I can most certainly say that for me, isolation is the next best thing to drowning. At this time, I can be authentic and honest enough to say that I don’t have all, much less, hardly any of the answers in how to resurrect neither myself nor my marriage from the adverse and ongoing effects of partnership with a person dealing with sexual addiction. Sometimes, I successfully convince myself that I am on a way to a better life. Alas, the fall seems farther every time. My soul hits with the hard pavement, concrete and unwavering in it’s conclusions. I feel that I am trapped in a soul-crushing, mind-melting cycle of addiction and co-dependency.
I am not just talking about the “cheating” or the “acting out”. I am not just talking about the shot to my pride or the weight of “never feeling good enough”. I am not just talking about the feelings of rejection or the jealousy that comes in hot waves every time you see an attractive female figure. I am talking about the moments where you are so low and you are so deep in shame, mistrust and heartache that you cannot even be sure whether or not the sky is blue, or if that tree over there really exists. You cannot be sure if you are dreaming or if this nightmare truly is your life. You are so hyper-vigilant that you begin to see sexual images in almost everything. You begin to wonder if your mind is playing tricks on you. It is. Every time you step out of your home it almost resembles what you’d think the feelings of a veteran suffering from PTSD who is again venturing out into a war town world unnervingly feel. & the questioning begins. You begin to question everything. No, not just “is he cheating on me” or “is he lying about this or that”. You begin to question him, your peers, your authoritative figures and even yourself. You begin to question what you see, feel, hear and do. You question morality. Yes, even your own. You see, what I am getting at is what, in lay terms, most would consider “a psychotic break”. As an already undiagnosed obsessive compulsive, I was the perfect victim of a perfect storm.
Love, it strikes just as a viper
The bite so warm and tender
Like baby kisses on my cheek
With the mark of god and master
I took the hand outstretched to me
& with his touch; am carried under
An air as thick as the sea
Let nothing go untainted
With our infatuation
We trade each other’s skin
Wound tight together
To be ripped apart again
Fear, it taunts beneath my chest
One look in his eyes and I am obsessed
& this is love in its conclusion…
To be tied like a dog to the thing I hate
To eat upon my own vomit
& like the whore, be traded as a slave
One day to be exchanged for another man’s harlot
Widow Of Intimacy 