I’m so mad at myself

It would have been somewhere around june ’21. Partner comes shuffling up to me, says; I might have covid, and coughs right into my face. I could feel the fine mist like spray cover my whole face.

I might have mentioned this in a previous post, but I just remembered it and wanted to make sure it’s posted.

I asked why he coughed in my face. He said, I just coughed, that’s all.

And the reason I’m so damn mad at myself, I didn’t call the police. I’d be reading about people getting arrested for doing that. I even had proof – his spittal was all over my face. 😦

Today he comes up and says; I don’t like eating, right now. Everything tastes burnt. It’s not burn’t, it just tastes that way.

I told him I was really surprised he didn’t come home from the hospital with covid, the hospital must be ramped with it. I also told him I’d read an article how people who had covid reported all food smelt burnt to them. Taste wasn’t mentioned, but I think smell and taste are interconnected.

If he decides to have a good cough in my face, I’m calling the police. Paper trail, woman, paper trail!

I happened to read a previous post by me and I mention how he was breathing heavily on my neck. If he thought he had covid, that would be counted as assault. It is at least intimidation. And coughing in my face, after saying he had it, absolutely makes it assault and maybe a murder attempt.

If I count them, it raises his murder attempts to 11, from 8.

If I Cry, He Wins

Background; I’m sick with what I suspect as covid 19, classic presentation for the first week. But it seems to drag on and on. I mention to partner, all the times he’s talked to his doctor friends, he never tells them I’m sick. I tell him he’s been disregarding everything I’ve said from day one. He denies this even though he’s told me a few times, flat out, I don’t have it. I gave my partner a written list of all the symptoms I’d had over a week ago.

He gets a little snotty about it and I respond in kind. We decide we don’t know what ‘a fever’ is, the definition the medical community is going by.

He calls one of his doctor friends, who say; ‘In this country, ‘a fever’ is anything over 37c’ (meaning, anything over normal). This puts me in ‘sick’ country. He calls a different friend doctor.

So his friend returns the call and my partner walks in and says something to the effect of; you want to talk to him? He’s standing two feet away from me and shouts. I don’t remember the exact words but the effect I came away with was ‘you can talk to him but I already have and you’d be a dick if you do’.

I say, ‘did you tell him my symptoms?’

‘yes’

So I say, no need to talk to him, then.

He speaks with him another 20 mins or so, coming back with two questions. How long have I been smoking and how long have I had COPD. After the call, he comes back and asks if I want to know what he said.

Restraining all sarcastic remarks, I say yes.

His doctor friend says I don’t have it. If I did, I would have recovered by now or I’d be dead. He says it’s just a COPD attack. A little more long winded but that was the bottom line. I didn’t interrupt, roll my eyes, or do anything other than nod. I gave the impression I bought it all. But inside, I’m thinking this just doesn’t match up with other things I’ve seen or watched.

It bothers me enough to wonder what my partner had told him. So the next day, I ask what symptoms he’d told his friend I had. Now this is word for word;

“I told him you had a fever, breathlessness, headaches, runny nose, aches, etcetera, etcetera, etcetera. And yes, I said ‘etcetera etcetera etcetera’, just like that.”

I said, ‘etcetera etcetera etcetera’? Honestly stunned. He said; Hey, I gave you the opportunity to talk to him yourself!

And I remember, only just then, how my partner lies. He lies with the exact truth. Then uses body language to indicate something else. But he’s on the phone, he can’t use body language to indicate they are all fake or lies. He had to do something verbally. Hence, the ‘etcetera’ business. In effect, he told his doctor friend I was faking. Just putting out symptoms and on and so on and etcetera, yadda yadda.

Of all the times he’s tried to kill me I’ve been amused. This time, I don’t feel amused. I wanted an independent, 3rd party honest opinion. He poisoned it. And implanted the idea with his friend that I’m…god knows what. A hypochondriac? Faking it? Looking for attention?

This time I feel hurt. I’ve had to stop myself from crying several times. I don’t think I’m sick enough to go to hospital. But I’m sick enough to want reasurance that I’m not imagining it, that it’ll be ok, and at what point to call for help. My partner doesn’t want me to go to the hospital either, he says because if you go, you’re likely to get it while in there. Now, that is a ligitament worry.

But the hospital is also where you go to get help. And if you need help and don’t go get help, you die. Which is okay with him, really. He knows if you’re meant to die, you will, and if you’re not meant to, you won’t. I’m fine with him believing that. I’m not fine with him pushing that onto me.

OR I am a hypochondriac.

Murder by pandemic proxy. Maybe.

This is a Gordian knot of a problem. I believe I’ve had corvid 19, my partner dismissed it as nothing. One of my symptoms was muscle, bone and joint pain. Yesterday he comes in and says he fell and hurt his hip. There’s been plenty of times where he’s said he thinks he’s broken a bone and I suggest he go get it checked. He’s refused as ‘there’s nothing they can do’. So, okay. This time I pretty much ignored it. The next time I see him, he’s creeping along. Super slowly. It was so played up I thought it was fake. Still do, mostly. I hurt, he says.

Then he lays on my bed (we sleep in separate rooms. we both snore. He’s deaf. I’m not.), puts his head on my pillow, and coughs. A couple of days ago, he’s breathing hard. Right behind me. I can feel my hair moving. I can feel moisture building on my neck. I ask him not to breath on me. He says; that’s just how I’m breathing. I didn’t ask him to stop breathing. I asked him to stop breathing on me. He didn’t.

He’s never said he feels like he has a fever. He takes zero precautions, that I know of. He’s invited two people in the house after lock down/isolation.

A while ago, I’m at the fridge, digging out a snack. He comes up behind me, puts his arm around my waist, pulls me up against him, and talks into my face. I asked him to back up, mentioning social distancing. He did, but slowly, laughing into my face.*

Now, I don’t know if he’s sick – he’s displaying the symptoms I had. Cough, breathless, aches. I also had fever and runny nose, which he’s not mentioned.

I never got tested (I’m not famous, a politician, sports figure or actor. Even though I have COPD I don’t rate getting a test). So we don’t know for sure if I got it. And the jury is still out on if you can catch it again. But damn if its not like he’s trying to give it to me.

Oh, and btw, I’m still sick. I went 6 days being ill. Two days without fever, then it started all over again. From what I see, you have to go 3 days without fever before you’re considered recovered. I still get low grade fevers, fatigue, runny nose. Is it the same bout or… a second wave?

*I no longer feel safe or comforted by hugs. Especially hugs that pin me against something (like an open fridge) I feel… captured? Confined? Trapped. A few weeks ago, I got a hug by a woman. I didn’t feel trapped. But it was a one armed hug, on the side. I had an escape route. So, maybe there will be hope that someday, I will enjoy hugs again.

I had (mild) coronavirus 19

At least, I think I did. Not being a politician, sports figure, actor or rich, and living in a country that doesn’t (yet) give out tests ‘just to see’, I had to go by a site I’d found with listed ALL the possible symptoms, not just fever and cough. I can’t find it now, but https://www.telegraph.co.uk/global-health/science-and-disease/coronavirus-symptoms-what-mild-fever-dry-cough-covid-19/ gives the same information.

I am considered high risk as I have COPD.

So, yeah. Fever (never going over 99.9f/37.5c) runny nose (rare!) cough (more than usual) breathless, fatigue, aches (rare! but the worst symptom for me, holy hell, it hurt) headache spikes. I treated each symptom separately – so, parasetamol for the fever, antihistamine for the runny nose, ect.

I had gone to the hospital about 10 days before the symptoms, really before the virus ‘hit’ my country, it was kinda on my radar, but I didn’t worry about it. I think at this point, we were told 3 people had it, but none in my area. Yeah, I think I got it then, cause that’s the ONLY time I was out of my house.

I told my partner I thought I had it and he was very dismissive. At this point, he was still going out a lot. Places with lots of people. Hospital appointments, church, store. He always made jokes about staying 6 feet away from people, washing his hands.

Even though I told him when I was sick he never told me. Except one day I heard him struggling to breathe. (If it was real and he wasn’t just messing with me.) While making deep, gaspy breaths, he comes up behind me and starts breathing heavily on the back of my neck.

I tell him; ‘don’t breathe on me’

he says; ‘it’s just the way i’m breathing!’

I could feel moisture building up on my skin. My hair was fluttering. I didn’t ask him to stop breathing. I asked him to stop breathing on me. He didn’t. He left once he felt the job was done. Looking back now, I consider it a physical attack. If I get the bad version of this illness, the odds of it killing me are high. Like when people with aids were spitting on people. He knew this. He knew to stay 6 feet away. He knew how the virus spread.

So I was sick for about 6 days. Felt better for 3 days. Then it starts up again. Now, I don’t know if the virus works like that – laying low for a few days before coming back, gang busters. I had heard of one person in China, a bus driver, who had it, recovered, went back to work, and caught it again. But I’d only heard it once and don’t know if it was true. I have not heard definitely if you can catch it twice. I’d think you can – you can catch any flu more than once.

So here I am again. Fevers (hit 100f/38c this time), cough/breathless, runny nose, sore throat, fatigue. But I didn’t get the aches this time. Today is day 6 of the second round. It’s not going away.

Yesterday the practitioner I’d seen back at the hospital called, just to check up on me. Partner hovered nearby, listening in. I told her everything that had been going on. She checked with a doctor, who advised calling my doc and getting antibiotics. Now, I’d not taken them before, because antibiotics are worthless against viruses. But I got to thinking, a temp of 100f means I am fighting something. So I started an antibiotic course from my rescue pack. I’ll probably call my doctors office on monday, when they’re open.

After listening in to the call, partner finally starts to treat it seriously. Or perhaps, thinking ‘yay, it worked!’ lol. He asked if I wanted something to eat, the first time since I got sick, he asked. (I’ve been eating maybe once every couple of days, cause I’m just too tired to stand there, cooking. Lots of snacks, not much food.)

One other, last thing about my partners attitude. He strongly believes if you’re meant to die, you’re going to. He survived something that totally would have killed anyone. He wasn’t meant to die. So, hey, go ahead, get sick, what will be, will be. Not just him – not just me – but everyone. He was totally okay with going out, cross contaminating every person he met. Thankfully, lockdown has stopped that stupid behavior.

I realize this got long and doubtful too many got this far. Thank you for reading.

Terrorizing

My partner drives like a maniac. And I’m not talking like the joke cliché of a woman screaming ‘slow down, you’re going to kill us’, to the man driving 10 miles an hour. No, I truly mean he drives like a mad man. He knows how to drive, but the second he gets behind the wheel, his dick grows 10 sizes and he becomes aggressive. We sold ‘our’ car two years ago. He didn’t tell me how much he sold it for, and I never got any of the money. Since he sold it to a friend, I suspect he basically gave it away. I was just glad it was gone and I didn’t have to make up excuses not to go anywhere with him.

This story wasn’t the first time I was in a car with him. But it was in the first week.

We’re going up a long road. Far ahead, I can see cars sitting, waiting for the light to turn green. There were four lanes, and they all had four or five cars in line. We’re maybe a quarter of a mile away. He’s going the speed limit. Once we’re on the straight, he speeds up. And keeps speeding up. My foot involuntarily makes breaking motions. I tell him to slow down and he ignores me. The point where I would have started breaking, if I were driving, comes and goes. The point where at our speed, I don’t think we’ll be able to stop without hitting the stationary cars, comes and goes. I said, ‘What the hell are you doing?’ I brace myself. He says, ‘They’ll move out of the way.’ (remember, four cars deep, sitting at a red light. They are going nowhere.) When he finally hits the brakes, the nose of the car goes down, I’m thrown forward and we come to a screeching halt. Inches from the car in front of us. I must have looked pretty pale. He just laughed and laughed.

He did it once when his brother was in the car. His brother pitched a mild-mannered fit and told him to stop. He did stop driving like that when his brother was in the car. But he still did when it was only me.

Before him, I was a good, solid driver. But I was in a different country then. The roads were smaller, very winding, and I became very afraid of being on the road, in a car with him. I became so afraid, I didn’t update my license and have never driven again.

The years passed, I became more afraid. First, I always hung onto the door handle. Then I hung on to the seat belt. It just got worse and worse. He’d aggressively move into the flow of traffic. Cut people off. Stopped hard. Rode on peoples bumpers. My heart would pound, I’d hold my breath. And after a few years, I just closed my eyes, held onto the seat belt, and waited to die. If I told him to slow down, he’d go so slow, barely over idle speed. I was afraid someone would ram us, expecting us to be going the speed limit. He’d sneer and say, see, I’m slowing down.

I slowly stopped going out with him. I stopped socializing because I couldn’t take being in a car with him, and my disability made using public transport impossible. If I had to go, I’d spend the entire trip with my eyes closed. One day he noticed my eyes closed and just laughed. He practically pissed himself, he laughed so hard.

I thought he was just being a dick.

But looking back now, I think it was torture. Not a joky kind of torture, but real, dangling off a face cliff torture. Every single time I got in a car with him driving, I expected to die. He put me in physical danger day after day. He liked the control, I guess. My face full of fear. Pale and trembling. It was fun for him. A good laugh.

edit:

I guess I should say how this has impacted my life. I can’t drive. I’m afraid of narrow roads. I will not get in a car with my partner driving. My socializing has tanked, I just don’t now. (I can sit in a taxi, though, without fear. I expect them to be respectful drivers and so far, they have been.) The sound of a car’s breaks squeaking, even if I’m not in a car, makes my heart pound in fear. I am terrorized of cars, driving, travel, and roads. I think I might be for the rest of my life.

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.