Terror

Last week I had dinner at my mum's. After we had finished I called a taxi, and waited on her front step. I waited, and waited. It didn't arrive. Approximately half an hour later I had to call the company back and ask if it was still coming, and after I had hung up I turned around and my mum was smiling at me.

"You wouldn't have done that three years ago," she said. She was right.

Three years ago I would have sat frozen in my seat, wondering where the next emotional blow was coming from. Three years ago he took away my insulin. Three years ago he used to dress and undress me, and tell me what I could or could not eat.

Three years ago we went in the car to buy cigarettes. He had moved me to the middle of nowhere in East Lancashire, surrounded by fields with the only access to transport being the car that I could not drive. Sounds idyllic? It wasn't.

We drove to the Co-op, the roads were thick with at least a foot of snow with ice underneath. He was shouting, I don't recall what I had done wrong that day, perhaps I hadn't put my empty cup in the sink or similar. He shouted so much that the veins in his head started to stand up, and crusty white spittle gathered at the corners of his lips.

We turned out of the car park onto the main road through the village and he took his hands off the wheel and his foot off the brake. I could hear my own screams with a kind of dreamlike quality.

My name is Jessica and I was married to a narcissist. That is what terror looks like for me.

They said I could, but I didn't go. Or I would try but I always went back. The terror reeled me in with a razor sharp fish hook and the hook was embedded in my heart, my brain, my body, and my soul. I loved my husband, but he tried to kill me.

When I moved to Fleetwood, to be close to family, I was a shell. All I did was cry and shake, I don't think I spoke in sentences for a couple of weeks and I said sorry a lot. Maybe too much! I was so scared of everything, and I hated going into shops, cafes, supermarkets...

Healing was a grieving process, and it wasn't linear, I'd bounce from one stage to another with startling frequency, I still do. I still get scared, but I am learning to accept it, rather than fight it.

I think I have rambled enough. Besides, I have to go. I'm off to meet friends for coffee.

Sheepcountwolves

I stood in your lightbox,
You saw every part of me.
The past is passed
What will be,
Will be.

Don’t be scared, love.
We are two desperate sides
Wrapped around our truths, where we hide.

I still have nightmares,
I know you do.
And when they can’t sleep,
Sheep count wolves.

We’re years older, I have lines
On my skin
Still scared of the shadows, and
What they may bring,

BUT this I know,
(Now I’m firmly on the ground)
I'll still be singing
As the world falls down.

Jessica Lyon-Wall