Partner had been getting better in my treatment, as his brother’s influence started to fade. But today, sigh, it was a one, two, three punch in the space of an hour that has me tearing up.
Some repairmen comes in the house. Lots of banging. I had no idea someone was coming in – I wasn’t dressed to talk to him. So once he leaves, I go into the living room where partner is (and two other family members who stopped by to help with odds and ends). I ask what the guy is repairing, to find out it was the shower. The shower has been broken at least 5 years. It’s been ‘repaired’ 4 times and it never worked. We have a disability shower, dip in the floor, water gets sucked up and deposited in the system. I don’t take showers because anything more than 3 minutes of running water, floods the bathroom. I use the sink. I have asked many times for the shower to be repaired to be ignored. They didn’t bother to inform me it was getting repaired today. You don’t inform or ask for input of someone who is a ghost. Invisible.
A few minutes later, another bang at the door. I’m dressed now, and see the guy heading into the kitchen. I ask my partner, what else is getting fixed? He says, oh, that’s the grocery. I blink a couple of times and say: why didn’t you ask me if I wanted anything? He’s innocently looking at me: oh, I didn’t? I meant to. A couple of times. He thinks a second, there was nothing on the refrigerator list!
I don’t go in there as much as I can. We have a young couple living in the living room. I try to give them as much privacy as I can. There’s nothing new on the list because I don’t go in there. He honestly just should have asked. Just a courtesy. Invisible, disposable.
Then, just a couple of literal minutes after the groceries are delivered, the girl that’s helping us comes in the door. With a bag of groceries. She, too, didn’t ask me if I wanted anything. (she may not have been asked if she wanted anything, either, requiring a trip to the store.) But the young in the family learn quickly how I am treated. They see how my partner treats me and echoes it.
Her coming in with that bag brought me to tears.
I am ducking tired of being invisible.
Silent Scream 