I was deprived of the most basic human needs during my four years with him.
Food. Sleep. Warmth. Regular contact with the outside world ~ particularly my family.
He monitored my food intake ~ especially in public.
I walked past Marianne's Ice Cream the other day and flashed back to a visit we took there after his A.A. or N.A. meeting in Santa Cruz. Everyone in the small group that joined us after the meeting was ordering either double scoops or sundaes. But he made sure I only had one scoop. And so I finished mine first and watched the others happily enjoying their dessert. He made sure I knew his limit for me was because I was already fat ~ which I wasn't ~ but in his eyes, I should look like the scrawny, cocaine-addicted girlfriends of his past. His exact reference.
Many nights I would be kept awake with all of his crazymaking. The lengthy verbal confrontations of the most ugliest of kind. Vulgar words. Rehashing the past over and over again. Making demands. Over and over again. All through the night. Until nothing made sense anymore. And until I was simply too tired to even care.
He made sure I was cold at night. He would never let me sleep in anything warm. I had to sleep in the way he saw fit. And some nights in the Santa Cruz Mountains were very cold even with a little warmth from the wood stove.
He made sure I rarely saw my family. Time spent with my family is a blur of sorts ~ with many holidays in the beginning only being spent with him. I remember he chaired a Thursday evening A.A. meeting held at the youth center, and he came up with a "Just Desserts" theme for the meeting that fell on Thanksgiving night.
He was so happy to come up with this theme that he made posters to try to get more people to attend. His young son and I followed him around Safeway on Thanksgiving Eve as he joyfully picked out dessert after dessert for the lavish spread. The tears were trickling down my cheeks as I walked behind him knowing I would not see my family the next day. I felt like I was in a trance following him around the bakery, quickly wiping away my tears in order to not get caught.
I should be happy, I told myself, helping him prepare for this special meeting. But even though his A.A. and N.A. meetings were my only consistent contact with the outside world ~ other than work ~ I was not a member, having never touched drugs or alcohol in my life ~ I was just a tag-along ~ only spending time in his world tucked away in the Santa Cruz Mountains.
But mostly I wanted my family in that moment. I wanted my mother to be alive and for all of us to be younger again and celebrating Thanksgiving together at Nanny's ~ long before my life had become this nightmare. Before I become so terribly isolated from the people who actually cared about me. I wanted to turn back the clock to what seemed to me then as simpler times.
As I watched him putting pies, cakes, and cookies into the cart, I envisioned his reprimand when I reached for a treat tomorrow.
I could hear him scolding me, always using the word "fat" followed by the "b" word, the "c" word, or the "w" word.
Because abuse never took a holiday.
