January 19th 2010 part 3

After my husband took me to the ground, I was in disbelief. He released my neck, probably also realizing what he had just done. I jumped up quickly and raced up our cascading foyer stairs to my bedroom and shut the door. Our daughter had fallen asleep in our bed, something I had begun to allow more and more to create the separation between him and me. I crawled in beside her, snuggling close but careful not to wake her, and the tears began to fall. I reached for my phone in an attempt to text Alex's sister for assistance.

In minutes, Alex was in the room demanding that I come back downstairs. I pleaded for him to leave and not wake Isla. 'Let's let it rest until the morning,' I begged. He was still agitated and not ready to end the argument. I can recall his exact words all these years later: 'Get downstairs now before I pull you by your hair down them." Dreading things would continue to spiral, I got up, left the bedroom and went onto the landing. Again at the top of the stairs, I tried to calm him by saying we could talk more when things were calmer. He was having none of it. Again, his words have seared in my brain: "If you don't come downstairs now, I will throw you over the balcony".

This photo was taken right around that time.

I agreed to follow him back down to the kitchen. Away from my sleeping child and my phone. His next move probably alarmed me more than anything physical he threatened. He moved to the phone book (yes, those things we used to use!), telling me he was looking up the non-emergency police detachment phone number; he was going to report an assault and was going to have me arrested. I was bewildered, stunned; wasn't it me that had just had his hands around my neck? A bruise on my hip had already started to form from hitting the tile floor.

But what I also knew was his grand capacity to wield a lie. I had seen it over and over again through the years. Stories that never happened, I would sit silently in disbelief that he would share with our clients. He was, by trade and by persona, an actor...an actor with no conscience for telling untruths. He was always unfazed by the lies he would tell or hurtful words he would speak to me. Never apologetic, never responsible, never owning up to his faults.

Knowing this, I believed him when he said he would have me arrested: "They will cuff you and drag you out in front of Isla" he said. And having lost most of my self-confidence, and at times reality, by this point I fully believed him. A narcissist will gaslight, love bomb, lie, and belittle all in the same day...leaving their victims not knowing which end is up. The emotional trauma is so deep that victims entrench themselves in a constant fight or flight, or flight or fawn defense mechanism. Basically, we walk on eggshells every day to temper the mood of the narcissist, always prepared to run from, battle with, or build up.

On this evening in January 2010, I had broken. I had fought but ended up pinned. I could not run, not without my child...to get out of the crisis I turned to 'fawn'. Say whatever I needed to say to settle him, build him up, and ensure him we were okay.

When I did finally manage to diffuse the situation, I returned to my bedroom. I had begged him not to call the police (although in retrospect, of course, in 'healed' retrospect, that may have been the escape I needed). I snuggled back into our daughter, checked my phone for Alex's sister's response, and asked her to call him in the morning. Alex slept in the guest room down the hall. Sleep was hard to come by. My adrenaline was still pumping. I knew the time had officially come to leave the marriage, and I believe Alex also knew it was coming.

Throughout the night, I got up to use the bathroom multiple times; each time my feet squeaked on the hardwoods, I could hear Alex get up to check if I was sneaking out with Isla. I knew now that he would not just let me leave with her, nor would he leave if I asked him to. It was time to make a plan. I texted a friend in the wee hours of the night to tell her what had happened, 'I have to leave' it said. The secret was out; she would make me accountable. I couldn't let Isla one day find me injured or worse...my gut told me the verbal and emotional abuse would continue to escalate.

Time was up; this could be no more.

"You know I wanna beat it, wanna beat it bad,

Everyone looks happy in a photograph,

I crossed the county line, I can not go back.

I'm always on my own," N - Kahan