Fearless

That’s my word for 2025. The definition, according to Webster, is “free from fear” or “brave”. Somewhere on the journey to self-awareness, I discovered that I am afraid all the time. I’d hidden it behind other emotions or characteristics like “control freak”, “freakishly compliant”, “rule follower”, “loves a solid routine”, and in habits such as obsessively checking my financial spreadsheet, refusing to leave my house after a certain time of the day, stringent bedtimes and awake times, assigning household tasks strictly to a certain day. And if these habits didn’t get fed, I’d feel overwhelmed and out of sorts for days, self-loathing and self-shaming constantly. Even worse, I hid it behind grief.

You’re so brave, Heidi! Look at all you’ve accomplished! These are phrases I hear, or read on my posts, but I absolutely do not identify with them. I dismiss them with deflections such as “I just did what anyone would do”, and “You’d do the same in my shoes”. Then I would spend time wondering why anyone in their right mind would think that I am someone who is brave. I’m ordinary, less than average, unworthy of the term. I’d internally scoff at the people who posted or said the words, secretly hoping they would not see through me to the worthlessness that lives inside of me.

Somewhere along this journey, with the help of a very patient therapist who gets me, I realized that I’m tired. Tired of feeling this way. Tired of the rigid routines, obsessive “I can’t until…” thinking, shame spirals, looking in the mirror and seeing nothing but ugliness and unworthiness. We began to explore the why and where this all began. I found the Pandora’s box buried deep in the darkest corner of my mind, and we opened it.

Inside that box I found my truth. I married a gaslighting, emotionally abusive narcissist who taught me, oh so subtly and completely, that I was unworthy of being loved. I was too ugly and high maintenance to be loved, and therefore I was a burden that only he could bear.

His lessons were so subtle, the gaslighting so accomplished that even now writing this 23 years post divorce and God only knows where he is I am scared. My throat is closing, my shoulders are up around my ears, and I am sweaty. His voice is screaming in my head, demanding specific evidence, exact dates/times/phrases, talking over me louder and louder until I want to go back to curling up and making myself smaller in order to make it stop. “No one will believe you” is a real thing. He didn’t often say that, but his eyes, his behavior, his tone drove that message home.

He’d stay out late, not answering my calls, and blame me for not trusting him. He’d spend his share of our expenses on God knows what and then blame me for not making enough money to support us. His favorite phrase, the one that got me to back off, was that I asked too much of him. I put too much pressure on him, and therefore it was my fault when he couldn’t hold a job, pass a certification test, or pay his portion of the bills. (you’re exaggerating, you’re overreacting, where’s your evidence–that’s not evidence, that’s you putting too much pressure on me)

I carefully crafted a routine, centered around being small, being helpful, being quiet when I was around him. I spent most of my energy on two things: not disappointing him and making sure no one could see my unworthiness. Adding Noah to the mix gave him more evidence of just how disappointing I was. He, and his family, used phrases designed to fake acceptance of Noah’s disabilities while making sure I knew exactly why he was born with them. Things like “no one on *our* side of the family has disabilities”, “he’s the *only* one”, “I’m sure he’ll be OK”, “I’m sure you did the best *you* could while you were pregnant”. (you’re exaggerating, you’re overreacting, where’s your evidence–that’s not evidence, that’s you putting too much pressure on me)

So I worked harder, spending my energy on trying to stay small and not noticeable. I loved my kid with all my heart and did what I could to counteract the benign neglect of his dad. I absorbed the consequences of loving our son “too much” and spending “too much time on him, not enough on our marriage”. I took the hit when he moved me out of the bedroom and into the guest room “temporarily, until *we* can fix this”. I went to counseling with him, pouring out my heart and soul, and he cried, not understanding why he was being made out to be the villain when he was “trying so hard, why won’t you understand how much pressure you put on me”. The therapist gave us a laundry list of things to work on. Which got discarded the minute we got home because it was” just too with all of these other things you make me do.” (you’re exaggerating, you’re overreacting, where’s your evidence–that’s not evidence, that’s you putting too much pressure on me)

When I was finally presented with overwhelming evidence of his affair with his “best friend”, and I confronted him, he was flabbergasted. He could not believe I was confronting him, “she’s my best friend, stop reading into this”. His parting salvo was “I’m not sure I really ever loved you”.

And that was it. He packed his shit and moved directly in with her, marrying her 12 days after the divorce was final. He left me with all the baggage that accomplished narcissists leave behind when they go. And I packed it up neatly, wrapped rolls of tape around it, and shoved it into the darkest corner of my mind and heart. I kept the fear, the obsessive habits and the lessons he taught me front and center. And I lived with them.

It continued–for the rest of Noah’s life, he ignored visitation schedules, didn’t pay child support until I forced him to, threatened me with court and taking Noah every time I asked for help, and even at the end, blamed me for not telling him about how sick Noah was. (despite the thousands of emails, texts, and phone calls documenting the decline–Jesus. See? Even now I feel like I have to present evidence).

His step children–oh wait, I’m sorry, I was to call them “his children”– confronted me in the hallway outside Noah’s last hospital room, demanding to know why I didn’t “communicate with them directly that Noah was so sick”. His mother went around me to his nurses, questioning my capability and trying to counteract their orders. His wife demanded 24/7 access in order to make sure that I was doing the right things. And, after all was said and done, they refused to participate in his funeral, instead holding one of their own.

My boy, my sweet, sweet boy, tried to tell me that last night. He tried to help me understand what was going on, and I didn’t recognize it for the message it was until recently. That sweet kid, who never hurt a fly, when the wife of my ex-husband bent down to him one last time, telling him what a good boy he was in her sickly sweet inauthentic baby-talk, kicked her in the face. Let me write that again, just because I can. He kicked that bitch right in the face.

It’s taken me 8 years to understand that message. To realize what he was telling me, that it’s all bullshit, what my ex-husband taught me. All those lessons, all that gaslighting, all that emotional abuse, is bullshit. It is not my fault. All the secrets he forced me to keep, all the messages he sent with his words and actions, are bullshit. They are not my story.

It’s time for me to unpack that box and fling it into the Universe. I vaguely remember who I used to be, and I want to be her again. I want to be unashamed of my personality, my emotions, my feelings. I want to stop keeping what happened to me a secret because I am exaggerating, am overreacting, and I expected too much. My throat closes, my shoulders touch my ears, and I get sweaty, but I want to do it anyway. I want to be fearless.