Wash, Rinse, Repeat

Last three-ish months have been quite nice. It’s common for him to go a while as Mr. Nice Guy. Makes a girl relax, you know, so when the sucker punch is thrown, she doesn’t see it coming, right? Only, I’ve been expecting it.

Every few weeks he’ll mention; ‘You need something, just ask. I’m here to help.‘ So when I’m having trouble breathing, I’ll ask him to get me some tea. (Hot caffeine is good to relax bronchial constriction and I can’t drink coffee as it hurts my stomach.) Which he does, cheerfully enough. I’ve even woken him up to do it for me – sometimes a cup of tea is the difference between being okay and calling emergency.

A few days ago he started saying his back hurt. I tried not to bother him as much as I could. I was having fair days, so it was okay. I told him to wear his back brace, and he said it helped but that it was still painful. So I gave him some over-the-counter pain meds, the ‘good stuff’. 😉 Then the next day I had a spike. Couldn’t even go to the bathroom without having trouble breathing. I (breathlessly) asked him if he could get me tea. He said sure, no problem.

While he was getting me tea, I went and took a nebulizer treatment. This took about 5 minutes and I started to feel better. I felt like I could make my own tea, so headed to the kitchen. The water was heating and I told him I could do it. He said, no no, I’ll get it! I said, I’m feeling better, I can do it. Again, he said no, he’s on it.

Now, I’m not going to argue with the man over this. So I said ‘okay’, turned around and went back to my computer. I think my ‘okay’ might have been a touch too cheerful.

Five minutes later he comes hobbling into the room. He says, ‘I didn’t fill it all the way, I was afraid I’d spill it’. He sets it down and turns away. I watch. He’s bent over like he’s a 150, he’s taking baby steps like he’s hobbled. He says: ‘Im okay when I’m sitting still, but moving is painful!’* He groans, he huffs, he literally inches across the room. He’s overacting so badly it was embarrassing to watch. Once he was out of the room, and couldn’t see me (and I guess, thought I couldn’t see him) he straightened up and walked normally.

See, I was supposed to feel guilty for asking him for help. This is an old theme of emotional abuse: say he’s there to help and if you ask for help he will do or say something that is supposed to make you feel guilty for asking. It used to work, too. At one point I swore to myself I’d crawl over broken glass before asking him for help. Then I realized that’s exactly what he wanted – not for me to crawl, but for me to feel guilty. Screw that.

*This is one of the things I truly can’t argue with, as it’s something that I feel. When I’m having an attack, I’m okay if I’m sitting still, but if I have to move, I can’t breathe. And if its a pleurisy attack, the pain is indescribable. I’ve told him those exact words, I’m okay if I’m still, but it hurts when I move. The difference between us, is I’m telling the truth. Maybe he is, too. It just feels like he’s using it as a jab at my asking for help.

Salt poisoning

I know I’ve mentioned the tea before. How when he makes me tea, but it’s not made ‘right’. It’s not every time. This morning, it wasn’t just not made ‘right’, it didn’t taste right. There was something in that tea – way too much of something. I suspect it was salt. I don’t put salt in my tea, so I have no idea how it would change the taste. The weird thing was, I didn’t recognize the taste at all. And it lingered on my lips, I basically tasted it all day. I never did figure out what it was.

My partner likes salt. A lot of salt. On everything. I figure because he’s on TPN, and getting liters of fluids every day, it counterbalances the amount of salt he takes in. Now, when I say ‘a lot’ I realize that is relative. So to be more specific, I’d say in a normal coffee mug sized cup, he puts in about 1/4th teaspoon of salt. He drinks maybe 6 cups of tea a day, so that makes about 1 1/2 teaspoon of salt. And when I say a teaspoon, I mean the eating utensil, not a measuring cup. That’s just the tea. He puts the same amount in/on anything he eats. A sandwich, soup, jelly toast, bananas. If I see him adding it, I panic and say ‘stop, stop! too much!’. That doesn’t stop him.

About 2 months ago, he came up to me and asked; I’m watching a show, and this guy kills someone with belladonna. Where did he find it? … I explained what I knew of belladonna, which isn’t that much. I asked him why he didn’t just google it. He says because I probably know it, and it’s easier to ask me than google it.

And so help me, it only dawned on me now, it might be because google leaves traces.

So I looked up salt and belladonna poisoning just now (if you find a search record, oh ye police officers) that was me 😉 The belladonna symptoms didn’t line up at all, but I found this quick google definition on salt poisoning:

Too much sodium in the bloodstream can damage brain cells, and lead to seizures, coma or even death. Fluid can build up in the lungs, causing trouble breathing. Other symptoms of salt poisoning include kidney damage, nausea, vomiting and weakness.

And yeah…. ticky box, ticky box. This past month, breathing has been worse than normal. I started a course of antibiotics and prednisolone, and it’s improving. Nausea and vomiting – I’ve been throwing up a lot. It takes a lot for me to throw up, I fight it as much as I can before I let it, ah, go. I had thought it was my new medications causing it, but … I stopped the meds, and it’s still happening. And it doesn’t seem to be after I eat, anyway, sometimes its 6-12 hours after I’ve eaten. But not that long after I’ve had a cup of tea. And lastly, the weakness, holy crap. This last week, I’ve been asking him to cook/get tea because, and I quote what I said: I feel really weak, and can’t do it. Can you cook something?

And it makes me sound so paranoid, damn it to hell.

Later today, he asked if I’d like another cup of tea. I said sure. And as I handed him the cup, I said; no salt this time, okay? He was like: oh, did I put salt in? My mistake! Then he rambled on for like 2 or 3 minutes, telling me how he’s gotten the cups mixed up before, and have to ‘trade out our cups’, so I didn’t get his. Except, I have never gotten his cup. His physical cup. I’d recognize it. He lied.

I didn’t talk to him about my realizing he was trying to scare me to death (which he quickly gave up on, thankfully) because I didn’t want him to try something else. I didn’t want him to get inventive. But I’m starting to suspect he has, anyway.

As with the scaring me to death thing, salt poisoning can be an ‘accident’, and I think one of his criteria for my death is plausible deniability. It was an accident, officer. I don’t know what happened. *puppy eyes, bubbling sobs of sorrow* I’ve seen this act, he’s pretty good at it.

New Riffs on the Murder Theme?

Once you realize your partner is willing to go that extra step in inviting you to the great beyond, you have to ask yourself what limits will they impose on themselves.

So far, that I know of, he’s limited himself to trying to frighten my weak heart into stopping. This I know as well as if he’s written and signed documentation.

Last week-ish, he took the remnants of a roast chicken and made a broth. Basic broth adding the bones, boiled it a couple of hours and let it rest. And rest. I told him he needed to remove the bones and blitz the vegetable bits smooth. Three days later, it was still sitting in the pot, on the stove. Kind of a DIY salmonella kit.

On the fourth day, he drained all the bits and just left the liquid part, which, after two days, he put in the fridge. At that point, he also threw out the bones. Now, I didn’t say anything about salmonella, as JC on a pogo stick, he’s old enough to know.

I have noticed when I eat the food he prepares, my stomach hurts. And hurts for days. I’ve been trying to make sure I only eat the food I prepare but I can’t stand there for hours over it, guarding it.

He could add that broth to pretty much anything I make. It’s food poisoning waiting to happen.

He’s got a friend that comes over a lot. This guy wears enough perfume to fumigate a bus. I’ve asked my husband several times to please ask this guy not to wear so much perfume to our house as it reacts badly with my COPD causing me to stop breathing. He has literally said: I can’t do that it would be rude. I responded: Its ok for me to die, so long as you aren’t rude? What is rude about asking someone not to kill me? He didn’t say anything to that, because I think he was hoping I’d die over it. Hey, it wasn’t him! He didn’t touch me!

A New Low

About a week ago, I noticed all the icon’s on my desktop and shifted around. I’d done nothing that would do that although I had done a disk frag. I figured at the time, it’d done something. Now, I’m not too sure.

The sad thing for me is the fact this thought even crosses my mind. Today I discovered my photos, my writing, and my ebooks are all gone. When I got this computer, I transferred all those things from my previous computer, I always do. Once I saw everything successfully transferred/copied, I deleted the old files. These three subjects are very important to me. They practically define me. I had them on this computer. Now they’re gone.

I think my husband somehow got into my computer and removed them. They weren’t in my bin. They aren’t on the computer. He has stalked my computer before, using a dongle. *checks* No, no dongle today. But there are other ways for him to get in. I thought I’d closed off this computer from the family network, but he’s much more computer savvy than I am. Next, I’ll try a master password, or password protecting the log in.

I think I’ve mentioned how he tricked me into giving away my paper books. And how he tried to trick me into giving away my DVDs. Variations on the things I love. He is destroying the things I love, with the added flair of having me do it to myself. Only this time I think, he did it.

I’m also suspecting he’s reading this. If so, I think now would be a good time to mention I have things scattered all over the place. I can not be silenced from the grave, as it were.

He’s out right now. I tried calling him to see if he has any old thumb drive that would have my old stuff. He’d give them to me if he does as he’s still pretending to be a good guy. He’s not returned my call. He’d said he’d be gone for hours so it’ll be a while before I know if they are gone forever.

It will not be the first time I’ve lost everything I’ve loved. Sure, it hurts, some more than others. At the moment I have shimmering eyes and shaking hands. He will never see this, I refuse to let him see this. He would fap off over it for months.

Killing me, that’s old school. Men kill women all the time and half the time is a current or x-partner. You’d think just killing would be enough. IF he’s done this, it’s sole purpose is to wound me where the bleeding doesn’t show.

Something else occurs to me just as I’m about to publish this. A couple of days ago, he got some mega-ram in the mail. He refused to say why he got it, just wanted to upgrade (by double) his current ram. He was very defensive about it. The thought flittered across my mind that he couldn’t control 2 computers with what he had, his and mine. Now that thought has taken root and become a little more probable.

Going to A&E

It’s not easy for me to get out. Because of my breathing issues (not breathing) doing simple things become quite complicated. First I have to plan everything out, every step. I won’t go out without taking a shower first. This requires getting undressed, taking a shower, washing my hair, drying off and getting dressed again. This is such a simple thing but not when you can’t breathe. Go ahead and hold your breath from start to finish. Do tell me how that went.

So generally, not only can it take me a couple of days to take a shower and recover after, I also have to pick a day when I can breathe well enough to do it. It’s not just ‘jump in the shower’, it’s wait until I can breathe enough to do it.

Lately, when I brush my hair it has fallen out in hanks. It was horrifying to see how much hair was in the brush after. And I know if I washed my hair, it would fall out there, too. So I was very reluctant to wash my hair. It had to be done, however. I’ve spent days trying to motivate myself into washing my hair until I realized it just wasn’t going to get done. So had had my partner shave it. This isn’t a big deal to me. I’ve shaved my head 4 or 5 times. Meh. At least now, washing my hair is nothing. There’s one block gone.

Now I got to get my behind in the shower. Then I can go to A&E and get my heart checked.

Quandry, do I or do I not.

We’ve been having a silent (in more ways than one) battle. He acts, I react and counter. I have taken some small actions by noting things that he does. But this is mainly on the sly, as far as I know, he doesn’t know about all my notes, which are scattered over several social media and other places. I do know at one point he was monitoring my computer with a dongle. He knows I googled abuse.

Now I need to come to two or three decisions. 1) go to the hospital and have an EKG done. I’ve had 3 different medical personnel tell me to go do so. I’ve not. 1.a) Tell him I’m going and tell him the results. or 1.b) don’t tell him I’m going and don’t tell him the results. Or various combinations of those two things. 2) I need to register with the police that I think he’s trying to kill me. But I don’t want them in my house and I don’t want him to know I’ve talked to them. 2.a) call them to the house and let them look him in the eye and say ‘bad boy’, or perhaps they’ll say ‘your partner is having a mental break down, perhaps install her in a psych ward and let them straighten her out.’ 2.c) the police don’t have a sterling reputation in protecting women from abusive partners. I feel like making a report is only going to be of benefit when my murder trial comes up. IF one comes up.

1 Going to the hospital. If I decide not to tell him, I need to come up for a reason for leaving the house. I don’t go out unless I have to. A doctors apt usually. I have in the past gone out for a social event with someone. But its hyper rare. However, I think if I go the route of going to the hospital without telling him, this is the excuse I’ll give. If I go without telling him I’m going, I won’t give him the results, either. But this can cause problems and is probably central for the reason of my conflict.

If I find out there’s something wrong with my heart (I know there is, I just don’t know what), if I tell him what the problem is, it does two things. First, it blocks his defense of ‘I didn’t know she had a weak/bad heart’, which he will absolutely use. Second, he will need to come up with a new strategy of knocking me off. And he will. It might take him a while, but he’ll come up with a new one. And I’ll have to be constantly watching to know what it is. That’s exhausting just thinking about.

This is of course, if it’s a simple thing. Stress. Too much caffeine or smoking. But if it’s something that needs surgery, he’ll have to know. And if he has to know, I can’t lie about the reason I left the house. … but, I can say the person I was seeing insisted on my going. Yeah, that would work. They talked me into going and getting it looked at. What a nice friend 😉

2. Talking to the police isn’t really going to do anything in the short term. Perhaps if I register every time he sneaks up trying to scare my heart into stopping. But my gut says reporting things will only be of benefit after I’m dead and he’s on trial. Oh god, I want there to be a trial. But if I do talk to them, do I go to the station, find a foot copper wandering down the street or more likely, ask to see one when I go to the hospital?

3. Not mentioned in the first list. Talking to someone other than my two daughters. I could ask the GP for a referral to a psych. This could be of benefit to my mental health but on the other hand, if it goes to trial, it could be used against me. “She’s crazy”. I have some virtual friends in the online game I play. (yes, I have no real life friends. Or family in this country.) There are a couple that might actually believe me. We hear about women getting murdered by the partners all the time but we don’t know these women. And how many people say stuff like: I had no idea there was a problem there. Or She told me but I thought she was just getting paranoid. I’ve mentioned things to other ‘friends’ online who literally told me I was just crazy. So super hesitant to go that route again. If I do and they instinctively tell me I’m nuts… I don’t know if I could handle that.

Practicing.

For the last couple of months he’s been very attentive. Bringing me food – even cooking it! – or coffee, ‘whatever I needed’. Like, every couple of hours stopping in and asking if I wanted coffee or tea. It was very helpful. I’d been given a new prescription from the doctor and one of them had a very nasty side effect. Headache, nausea and vomiting. It took me a couple of weeks to figure out where the illness was coming from, at first thinking it was a simple migraine. But during that time, nothing – and I do mean nothing – stayed down. I lost 10 pounds. His checking in on me every few hours was comforting.

And then one time he brought me a cup of tea. He just materialized next to me, I didn’t see or hear him coming. He said: There! I got all the way here and you didn’t hear me. I said: why would you want to? He said: So I could walk silently like you do.

It took me a few days and the shoe dropped. He’d been so attentive because he was practicing.

And I made an error. Maybe not my fault, but still an error. One of the times he materialized next to me, I jumped. The slight smile on his face told me I’d screwed up. My counter to this was to place some metal clothes hangers on the hook behind my door. Whenever the door opened, they jangled. They lasted a few days then he moved them. Rearranging the things on my door so they didn’t jangle. I moved them back and so far they’re still there.[A]

One of the things that’s confusing me is, he’s been making my coffee/tea for almost twenty years. But suddenly he doesn’t seem to remember how I like it. For that matter everything he’s cooked for me isn’t made to my taste. That sounds so petty of me, and I quickly realized I couldn’t complain about it. It made me sound abusive almost, petty. Examples are so little sugar or too much milk in my tea, it was undrinkable. Or a lovely steak cooked to leather and seared to charcoal. A soup with so much garlic it made me gag. So even though he was bringing me food/drink, most of the time I couldn’t eat it. And this is after the side effects had finally worn off.

Briefly, I debated with myself on if he was poisoning me. He has the knowledge to do so. And he’s already proven he’s willing to go that extra mile to help me along to the great unknown. The food was so ghastly it wouldn’t surprise me at all if there was an added ingredient that I couldn’t taste behind all the ‘mistakes’ of cooking. I’m still 50/50 on this but falling on the side of ‘no’. It seems more aggressive and harder to look a copper in the eye and lie about.

I’m feeling a little better now. I can make my own tea or coffee again by myself. It usually triggers a non-breathing spike, but I can do it. It’s sometimes hard to fall asleep at night because I’m thinking of all the foods I want, I’m starving. Maybe tonight I can make something light. A sandwich or soup. Although I got to say I’m sick to death of soup. Soup and yogurt are the only two things that have a chance to stay down.

My stress level has spiked.

[A] edit: today the hangers got moved again. It only took him 3 days.

Attempted murder

It sounds so dramatic. It’s what happens in novels and movies. Maybe something you read in a newspaper. It doesn’t happen to you. And when it’s done in such a way they can look the police in the eye and sound perfectly innocent? Yeah, hysterical woman vs loving, caring man. You know who’s going to be believed.

So how did it happen?

Over the months, I mentioned ‘unexpected noises cause my heart to stop’, but I don’t think he really understood what I meant. Until the day he comes busting into the bedroom* and screams my name. I jump, put my hand on my heart (which had stopped beating) and said: you startled me, my heart stopped, ow!

And the look that came over his face. And Ohhh, realllly, look. Understanding.

And the next day his behavior changed. He took to leaving the bedroom door open (my computer is in the bedroom, so I’m in there a lot), and rather than his usual kick in of the door, would quietly enter the room. Every day, he’d get a little closer before he blew his cover and made a noise. With my back to the door, I wouldn’t see him coming in.

One day he managed to get right behind me without my knowing. It was his 4th attempt. He slapped his hand on my shoulder (never did that before, either) and shouted ‘I just came in to see how you’re feeling’.

But he’d misunderstood what I’d said. It was ‘unexpected noises’ that startled me. Not getting touched. When he slapped his hand on my shoulder, it was nothing. I calmly replied: I’m fine. It’s a good day.

A few days later, he tried again. Only this time, he slapped both hands on each of my shoulders. “Just came to see how you’re doing!” he shouted. “I’m fine, a bit of asthma but nothing unusual.” … totally calm, but I knew what the hell he was doing. That look on his face stayed with me. The change in his behavior.

But you know, if he’d only stuck to his normal way of entering the room, I think it would have worked.

*When entering the room, his right hand pushed down on the handle, but his fingertips stayed on the handle. His left hand, fisted, would slam into the door, sounding like it was getting kicked in. But the right hand slowed the door, so it didn’t hit the wall. He’d then scream my name, in the tone of voice men would use when finding their wives in bed with the postman. Accusing, angry, horrified. Then he’d ask something totally benign. ‘What’s for dinner’ was the usual inquiry. The sudden, unexpected sound of the door getting kicked in always caused my heart to stop. So, yeah, if he’d just kept up his usual routine, it could have worked. And he would have been innocent.

Trying to kill me by scaring me to death. Its childish plan was amusing. Seriously, I found it funny. And he did it in such a way, he could look the police in the eye and say ‘I was just asking her how she was and she just keeled over, officer.’

But this was a straight-up murder attempt.

Lier – literal lying

It took me a couple of days trying to think of where to start. The easiest – or at least, shortest, subject would be lying.

At the start of our relationship, I thought he would be normal. Or at least, default with telling the truth. Sure, everyone lies. It’s a requirement in the human race. Children learn to lie around 2-3 years old. Telling the truth is not his default. Lying is. He lies about everything. Not so much as what he had for breakfast, although he has, but… his emotions, his thoughts, his beliefs, his morals. Some lies are huge, those he’ll keep track of for a few years, before blowing his cover and changing the story. Some lies are off the cuff, whatever pops out of his mouth. He doesn’t even know what he’s saying. So long as it isn’t the truth, it’s all good.

The problem is I remember.

And as the years built up, lie after lie, I started to realize. Nothing he has ever told me is the truth. Now, there are times when I still believe him (I’m damn gullible), but I also know, 90% of what’s coming out of his mouth is a lie. He is lying literally, by tone or silently. And sometimes, like a normal person, a flat out lie to protect himself.

How is this abusive, you ask? Only someone who’s ever lived with a determined lier can understand. “I love you” is a lie. “I left the puppy at the farm” is a lie. “We don’t have enough money to pay for medication.” is a lie. Living with a lier is warping. And when they stick with a lie, it can become gaslighting.

Examples: Literally.

I ask him if he has 20 bucks. He says no. Later I find he has 25 bucks, in 5s. Literally, he didn’t have a 20, so ‘he was telling the truth’. Or how about this one. It’s a set up for a later day, when he may be asked a question.

I suspect I’ve had a heart attack and ask him questions about woman’s silent heart attacks. His response was: ‘Silent heart attacks are a great way to die! No pain and boom, you’re gone’. Two months later, he comes up to me and said: ‘I’m going to make us something for dinner. If you think you had a heart attack you should go to the doctor. I’ll make us tuna sandwiches.’ Turns, and walks away quickly. And I knew instantly, it was a set up so he could say ‘I told her to see a doctor about her heart‘, if the way I died implicated him in some way. He’d just neglect to mention it was two months later. That’s the thing about literal lying. It usually leaves something out, sometimes very similar to lying by silence.

He’s disabled. Severely in medical terms but in quality of life, not so bad. He used to go to retreats but they asked him to stop coming. He told me that they said ‘he takes up too much room.’ I got really angry about this – he’s disabled, he needs some things, and yeah, they can take up maybe 3 or 4 square feet. I was ready to go down there and give those guys a piece of my mind, it was discrimination! He talked me out of it – it’s their choice to make, etcetera. A few years down the line, he puts his computer station in the living room. Things started piling up there. Grooming products, a little bed, boxes of ‘to do’ papers. Within a month, he’d taken up their entire living room. And I remembered the comment, he was taking up too much space. He’d told me the literal truth. He WAS taking up too much room.

I’ve been silent

Why post here? I’ve got a web page, I’ve got social media. There are lots of places I could speak up. But there are family there, friends, acquaintances that know me, know my name, where I live. My character has already been assassinated, he’s made sure of that. And he’s a saint, he’d never do such things, according to his family.

I don’t expect anyone to see this. I’m half hoping no one does. My voice has been muted for so long, it would feel really strange if anyone spoke back. The other half of me says: Hear me! See me! I’m telling the damned truth!

I am disabled and there will be times – perhaps long stretches of time – when I can’t post. I’ve gone a year or more with my head down, in survival mode. I will be using this blog as a diary. The diary of a disabled abused person. Spoken over, ignored, invisible, a burden, a waste of space and water.

My strongest wish is his family learns what kind of person is truly is. Perhaps at the trial.