Upheaval

The next few months got no better. I won't go into all the violence in detail but it was bad and the mental abuse was almost worse. It got so bad that I took off early from work one afternoon and gathered my clothes and personal items and went to my mothers. There I could rest when I got off work, she fed me well and took such loving, tender care of me. My mom and I were so good together once Walter was gone. The entire time I was growing up, Walter insisted on breakfast at 6:30 AM and dinner at 6:00 PM with all of us seated at the dining table together. You're thinking quality, family time where everyone asks everyone else how their day went, right? Believe me this was no Norman Rockwell portrait! These were the times Walter chose to emotionally abuse us. He did it all throughout the day, too, but at these particular times he had a captive audience and no one was allowed to leave the table until he said so. He would pick out our weaknesses and poke us with sticks about them. I usually couldn't eat I was so scared and nervous and hurt so then he would yell at me for not eating my meal.

Well, Walter wasn't there ANYMORE! Although still to this day I have nightmares about him getting back together with my mother and I'm in that living hell all over again. This knowing full well he is dead and she is in a nursing home with advanced Alzheimer's Disease. Mom and I never ate at that table again, unless we had guests. No, we took our meals in front of the television every time we ate! We were definitely rebels!

When I left him, all Hell broke loose with Bob! He destroyed everything right down to the baby's sonogram pictures and my Bible. I guess it would be more fair to say that he destroyed anything left there that belonged to me. He certainly didn't destroy the bed or the couch or the television or the stove, where he slept, laid, watched television and cooked. He quit his job and was doing drugs everyday according to the few friends we had. I didn't want him to die so I put him in treatment at what was then Doctors Hospital, now St. Dominics Behavioral Health.

It took a great emotional toll on me to put my husband in treatment when I was 7 months pregnant. I remember being so upset the day I got the Court Order to have him picked up by the police and taken to treatment. Below my left shoulder blade hurt so badly that I cried hysterically in pain. Go figure. I guess that is where I carried most of my stress.

At my bi-weekly appointment with my obstetrician he told me I had dilated 2 centimeters at 7 ½ months. A week of total bed rest was ordered. I was so frightened but the baby looked and sounded good otherwise. My mother waited on me hand and foot! She went to the library and got bunches of movie star biographies that I loved to read. She insisted that I sleep with her in her big king-sized bed. Funny, I remember propping the book on the highest point on me and the baby would kick the book up and down. One night it kicked me right in my lung and it completely knocked the breath out of me.

The week after my imposed bed-rest was family week at the treatment center. I knew I needed to be supportive of him but I wasn't sure of the emotional turmoil that would be part and parcel of the family therapy sessions. It also meant that I had to take another week off from work. Thank God they didn't fire me.

Gotta get emotionally ready to write about family therapy week so I'll be back in a couple of days.