BESTSELF™ ICEBREAKER | Courage 12
TELL ABOUT A TIME THAT YOU FOUGHT FOR YOURSELF?
I’ve always fought for myself but always capitulated due to outside forces like gaslighting, emotional blackmail, guilt, bullying, shame, threats to my emotional, physical, and financial stability.
Then I did a lot of deep and difficult work. I learned, over time and with much painful effort, how to trust myself and my instincts. How the stories of others, adults with agendas, did not define me. Indeed, they didn’t even know me, they simply knew the role they needed me to play in their sick and twisted little games.
I’ve had three great villains in my life: my mother, my children’s father, and my father’s wife.
(It’s true, the Universe keeps sending us the same lesson until we learn it.)
In this particular story, we’ll stick with my former husband. There were many battles but the one where I fought most for myself was when I filed for divorce.
A few years earlier, we were in Florida on holiday with all four of our kids cared for at home. I knew I wanted a divorce and I naively asked for one. He said “no”. Simple as that, don’t even think about it, there is no way that was a possibility. And I believed him. I honestly thought a divorce was a consensus - after all, you have to agree to get married, why not agree to divorce? Like I said, naive. At the time he had complete control over everything - all of the household bills, bank accounts, investments, everything. He was quick to remind me I had nothing without him (even though I was the one providing the means and opportunity for him to be the big man).
And I believed him. That’s what years of gaslighting meets narcissism can do to a person. I loathe the word victim, but I did stew in that space for a long while.
I knew that I was sick but even my doctor wouldn’t let me take a thyroid test. His response, “Lee, you’re just fat, walk more.” I ended up at the Executive Medical Program at Canyon Ranch in Tucson, AZ in April 2011 where the head doctor declared that I had the worst thyroid disease he has seen in 30 years and handed me my first bottle of Synthroid, telling me I’d be on it for the rest of my life.
Why is this significant? After 3-weeks of taking my medication, a thick veil of sludge lifted from my brain and I took a look around at my life and realized it was a complete shit show. I had been going through the motions focusing completely on my children who were well cared for but I couldn’t do any more than that, I was simply too exhausted by the end of the day.
In quick succession a few things happened which included: a public notice in the paper that my home was being seized due to non-payment of debt, a near arrest resulting in a huge fine (over $70,000) for non-payment of vehicle insurance, and an asset (bank account) seizure by the town for non-payment of taxes. I was completely humiliated and embarrassed even though I knew nothing about any of it as I had no responsibility for any of the household accounts.
I took control, changed all of the passwords, worked with the bank, town, and insurance company, and threw him out.
In March 2013 we sat in a hallway in Milton “negotiating”. I asked his lawyer for a list of what he wanted and at the top of the list was “Lee is to have complete physical and financial responsibility for the kids.” Well, that was unexpected and I delighted in the fact that he gave up any negotiating leverage - and I got my kids. Nothing else on the list mattered.
That was the start of the rest of my life - our lives.