What has changed?

[Ayanna]

For a long time I made my bed the way he had forced me to make it every day when we were together.
I was like under an invisible slave master.
The same happened with the knives I used for cutting food items. Certain knives had to be used for certain food items.
He had ordered me to wash and comb my hair in a certain way.
I hated myself for obeying him still after fleeing.
I do not know when exactly that changed.
I am aware that I make my bed now the way I want it. It looks pretty and cosy and I make it the way I have always made it before I met him.
I use any knife for cutting any food without thinking. As long as it fulfills the job I am satisfied.
I wash my hair the way I did before I met him and I comb it or brush it as I like. Sometimes I do not comb my hair at all and I go out with uncombed hair and feel content within myself.
I still have the underwear that I had bought to please him, but I have started to throw it away.
I have lots of huge knickers and I love them.
When I dry the laundry outside I am provocative and I hang my knickers up high so that everyone can see them. I symbolize that I do not give a f… and I do whatever I want and I do not dress to please anybody apart from myself alone.
I am comfortable with my underwear. No strings get caught anymore in my bum and cause me enormous discomfort, never again.
I began to visit the coffee shops of my past again, which he had forbidden me to enter, because of the costs and some other weird reasons.
I slowly rediscover what had made me feel content and happy in the past and what I had almost forgotten.
I recently visited a place in the city where I had not been anymore after I had met him. The vibes were still there and connecting to the feelings of the past gave me a glimpse of happiness. I could push the PTSD to the back of my brain for a little while.
I have changed my diet too.
I no longer eat what he had dictated me. I eat again what I have eaten before I met him. I eat what I really like more and more. I still do binging quite frequently, unfortunately.
All in all, I increasingly do everything how I want it. Hardly anything in my daily rituals and habits has anything to do with him anymore.
I am in a deep cleansing process.
There will be a day when I know that he is out of my system and I have fully decontaminated of him.

[Anonymous]

Hi Ayanna I love this post, it reminds me of one I posted about doing things to keep me happy. It is awfull how we do things around not upsetting someone. I know I did things in certain ways, but it was my way of doing things, but whatever I did was criticised. If I put a top sheet on the bed it was wrong, if I didn’t it was wrong. Net curtains were wrong, when I took them down everybody could see in, it was wrong. If I changed furniture round it was wrong, (Removed by moderator). Wharever I did was wrong. It was totally crazy. If anything went wrong always my fault, I remember coming home one day & the mat around the toilet was soaking wet, the toilet hadn’t leaked, he’d been home before, later rang me ranting about it, I was shocked, he said you or your son must have done it. I struggle really badly now, terrified that if anything goes wrong I will be blamed for it. Because I always was.It is like you say an as well way to live and something that is very difficult to go back to doing things normally to us. It is an awful feeling being scared to put a foot wrong. And the craziest part He would do everything we were not allowed to do. I remember shopping being called pathetic for keeping raw meat away from cooked meat when packing it he said it was pathetic, the cashier said actually she’s right, at home he would tell me stuff was put in the fridge wrong, cupboards wrong. Still now I find myself thinking, have I done that right I never had done it right. The shed I had a tiny corner, he would rant about the few tiny bits I had. These things were minor compared to the rest of how he was. Good for you for doing things you way and I can’t wait to be able to do things my way without feeling guilty about it. I think Ptsd is still affecting me badly xx

[Anonymous]

I think most women arrange their homes being a woman, trying to make it homely. Each woman, well all the women I know have their own way of doing things,
But he would stand & ridicule me over everything. He told me his ex was ott, she folded towels a certain way, how he would if she was away leave the washing up for a week, something else I’ve realised since away, I have not worried about the housework, not worried if I leave the washing up. I was conditioned into believing the home was filthy, it never was though. I still panic if anyone comes round & think oh no, they will think I am filthy. But little things I do, like wear perfume, have pot pouri, spray air freshener, use Bleach. Even talking, He score used the f word all the time, if ever I did I was common. I am so self conscious & it is horrible xx

[Ayanna]

They must be brothers. Every second word was the f word. I learned it from him and I use it against males.
Beating them with their own weapons…
It took me a couple of years to start doing my own things. It was a very slow process.
I like a clean home and he deliberately messed it up. He knew that I become distressed with a filthy place.
Like your abuser he dictated where I was allowed to place things.
We had discussions about the toilet paper that I was allowed to buy. It had to have three layers for his sensitive a*s.
He was not sensitive, just stupid.
And he peed in front of the toilet every day. He could never pee into it, although he stood close. Huge puddles of urine were there always and the toilet itself was peed on. Yellow streaks of dried urine were there, dried urine on the floor every day when I came home from work. Let alone the smell of that.
Before I could use the toilet I had to clean it every time.
I still appreciate to have my own toilet, all for myself and it is super clean, and the bathroom is full of nice goodies that smell lovely.
In my own place I could finally have a pretty and soft mat in front of the toilet that is always clean and dry.
That is my toilet trauma …
On the other had did he become very aggressive when I did not instantly wash the dishes that were used for cooking. All the pots and pans and cutlery had to be instantly dried and put away. Nothing was allowed to remain by the sink.
Oh what a hell that was!
We are lucky to be out!
I bought myself a bunch of flowers today, to congratulate myself for achieving to doing whatever I want to do when I want to do it.
Interestingly my fashion style has improved so much since I am out. I have lots of great looking clothes now.
He tried to make me look very plane and unattractive.
PTSD will stay with you, maybe forever.
I have lots of moments when I realise that PTSD kicks in.
I have been living with it for the last few years and I think I am getting used to it.
I get to know myself better and better and this helps me manage the PTSD better too.

[Serenity]

Hi Ayanna,

I absolutely adore this post.

I think you’ve hit the nail on the head : returning to doing the things we loved before we met them can make us so happy. It was the real us. There’s nothing that makes us so happy as to be ourselves.

Blueberry: my ex used to complain because I tried to keep the house ticking over between kids and work- trying to inject some order and routine ( which kids need) as opposed to his lawless, chaotic way of thinking. He accused me of having OCD and when I went away, I’d return to a filthy house, like he was being deliberately unkind and unhelpful. My kids told me he’d say “Oh your mum is away, we can trash the joint” but I would need to clear it all up. I think it was a protest about me going away.

And how immature: teaching his own kids to be disrespectful and unhelpful.

A lot of women are house-proud and want clean, cosy homes for their families, especially kids. It’s a Mother Earth nurturing thing. And pretty things calm us too. But controlling men see us being happy and nurturing and even try to criticise that.

They would criticise whatever. If we were messy, they’d criticise. If we are tidy, they criticise. They simply don’t want us to feel happy with who we are.

Ayanna, I read a quote which said that the day we reach our greatest level of freedom and happiness is when we don’t care what others think any more.

I shall think of the image of your big knickers swaying in the wind on your washing line, like a resistance flag, any time I start to feel I am caring too much about what others think! 😂

[White Rose]

Hi Ayanna
I love your post. It conjured up images of your knickers on the line and a woman with a beaming smile and beautiful hair watching them fly in the breeze. That’s freedom – Go you!

[Author]

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