Accepting My Demons

October 7, 2013

Dear M,

     I’m so angry still.  You were playing a show on Saturday night and I knew exactly where you would be.  I fantasized about showing up and storming the stage, ripping out clumps of your hair and kicking you repeatedly in the face.  This did not feel like the usual hate fantasy.  I was thinking through all the logistics as well as the likelihood of getting tossed into jail.  I wish there was some course of action I could take against you, something that would wound you deeply but I realize that anything I do will only be turned back against me.  I am trying so hard to stay in the light but this black mark you have burned into my soul is hard to ignore at times.  I want to destroy your angelic face and blacken your golden hair.  I want to give you an appearance that is more suited to your lack of a soul.

M. W., I fucking hate you.

***

     A large part of the reason I wanted to publicize this blog is that I wanted to be honest about the darker side of recovery.  I had never experienced hate and rage of this magnitude in my life, and the experience was horrifying.  I did not think I had a dark side capable of the urges I was having.  It says something about the type of person I am that I never acted on these impulses because there were hundreds of times where the urge to create violence was so strong that it was physically uncomfortable in my body.  Over the years, these uncomfortably intense episodes have mostly subsided, but even now I get worked up once in awhile.  Just this afternoon I awoke from a dream where I was entering a state of rage and physically shutting down upon running into M in public.  In the dream, he was staring at me from outside the window of an RV and I caught a glimpse of him in my periphery.  Overcome with emotion, I motioned to my boyfriend to alert him to what was causing my reaction and he also responded with more “fight” than “flight.”

     Since that dream I have been battling the urge to look at M’s Instagram account to see what new fictions he is creating about his life and lover.  I’m morbidly curious to witness how long it takes her to see through his fucked-up worldview to find the demon lurking underneath.  A well-timed phone call from my mother stopped me in my tracks and now I’m centering my energy on channeling some hate into my blog rather than getting myself all riled up about whatever bullshit he is creating in his personal life. 

     I have come to the conclusion that this amount of rage is natural after someone experiences an extreme violation that is personally directed at them.  I’m still bitter and angry that this human felt it necessary to use me and manipulate me for their own pleasure, with no regard to my safety or well-being while pretending to have my best interests at heart.  I’m still angry that he continued to lie to my face at every opportunity even after I had blown a hole into his deceptions.  I’m angry that two years of my life and thousands of dollars have been spent on my recovery thus far and that I have had to resort to using a medication to get my life back on track and to feel happiness.  I’m angry about so many things, and I guess the major point of this post is to provide some hope that for people just now going through this, that it is possible to work through the rage without inflicting harm on yourself or others.  Physical exertion, such as long, long walks with no cell phone (so you can’t break no contact and dial up whoever it is to scream at them while working through a rage episode) are extremely useful for working through intense emotion.  Eventually the intensity will lessen, well-founded though it may be, and a peaceful life can be re-established.  It was difficult to not judge myself as a monster or a “crazy ex” while working through the anger but I have finally made peace with the idea that some betrayals are so huge that uncharacteristic reactions are to be expected.