Now I’m scared.

They got my hopes up, damn it. Now I’m actually scared. I had managed to get into a comfort zone, ignoring things or just getting on with it. Now I have a dangling hope of escape and it’s scaring the hell out of me.

I’ve been having some tests done on my memory. Not sure if I’ve mentioned my short term memory loss. I can’t hang on to a thought longer than a few seconds. Or as the old expression goes, in one ear and out the other.

About four years ago, I’d been tested for dementia. It was past due for a re-test. My memory is even worse. But they’ve been talking a lot about other things. Lots of side glances and knowing nods. Asking if I want to talk to people and being very willing to make sure it’s ‘on the sly’, or at least, so it’s stuck in with their normal scheduling. Talking about getting me my own income support, about women’s shelters, about emotional help. I didn’t even tell them about the murder attempts. Or maybe I did, using other phrases or word clues that they recognized, that I didn’t know I was giving.

They wanted to know, if I tested positive for dementia, what I wanted to be done. Would my partner care for me? Lots of other pointed questions.

A few years ago, I was free. But the government switched their position and so it was, it was the street or back in with my partner. I chose my partner. But if I ever leave again, there will be no going back. And the government has screwed me once. They can do it again. And I’ll have no backup, no net, no hope. I’ll be totally screwed.

The last (and only) time I tried calling a helpline, I hung up before they answered. My hands shook for hours after.

They’re going to have to do some almighty talking to make me think it can be a permanent freedom. If there’s a remote chance it can go sour I won’t even start it. I can’t take that kind of fear.

MWSA

It’s been a rough week. For a change, it’s not my partner who’s giving me a hard time. He’s been really nice these last few months. I don’t expect it to last. No, it’s not him. It’s everything else.

World events. I read and watch the news. Since Trump got elected president, the world has gone to hell in a handbasket. I am not a Trump fan. I do try to keep an open mind. Just one example: I figured, no one had ever tried to out-crazy Kim Jong Un before, maybe it’ll work? I kept giving him excuses. I did try. But it was like every time he opened his mouth, he said something that got my back up. … anyway, I hadn’t planned on this being an anti-Trump post. I wanted to touch on the tariff thing he has going on with China.

He keeps telling people how the tariffs will mean China has to pay us more. How they will pay for our commodities. Over and over, until it got to the point where I wasn’t sure how tariffs worked anymore.

This is called gaslighting. Being told something so often and repeatedly, that you come to believe it, even though you know it’s not true.

It’s not just Trump and his menagerie of sycophants who are currently and continuously in the news, as disgusting as they all are. But then there’s Alabama* putting a life sentence on doctors who give women abortions. I felt physically sick when I’d heard. Women are not going to stop from having and enjoying sex (sorry guys, that horse got loose a long time ago). What this law is going to do is make women go to dangerous lengths to stop a pregnancy. My grandmother had a wire clothes hanger termination when she was 17. My great-grandmother did it. Now, women only need to take a pill. The ‘fruits’ of rape do not have to be born. And one of those places that will sell you that pill is China. Unfortunately, they don’t have any regulations on how safe these pills need to be. But when you’re against a wall, a lot of women will take the chance.

It makes me sick thinking of the unholy choices women are going to have to make.

Then there are the deaths of Doris Day and Tim Conway. Two people I admired even though I never met them. Their deaths make me sad.

Then there’s Barr, for god sakes, the damn head of the DOJ, spouting conspiracy theories. And Trump saying now that Meuller has turned in the report, any further action is treason. Investigate the investigators! I’ve read the Meuller report, all of it. Repeatedly saying ‘no collusion, no obstruction’ is just another attempt at gaslighting. I’m getting gaslit from my partner, I sure in hell don’t need it from my president, too.

I’m not sleeping well. My stomach hurts from tension. I keep getting stabbing temple headaches. ‘Mindfulness’ is a placebo that isn’t working. Even my mental safe place isn’t working. I feel shattered. Cracked just enough to have all hope slowing seeping out my eyes.

And this word, ’embolden’. I don’t like this word, I don’t think it’s accurate enough. Reporters saying; so-and-so was emboldened by Trump policy… No. These people have always been here. They’ve always had brass balls. They’ve always slug their tar and sludge. They’re not ’emboldened’. They are enabled – empowered.

This week, I feel shattered. There’s too much going on and I feel overwhelmed. Beaten up. Enough. The world needs to go sane again. MWSA. yup yup.

*for some reason, I published Alabama as Virginia. Senior moment! Corrected.

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.