Gonna be messy for sure
Maybe the reason I stayed in a life that didn't fit for so long was because even with the chaos, it made sense. There was a tidiness in the labels - I was a doctor, a scientist, a rational person. Even when I dove into alternative medicine in 2005, rounding out my family practice/emergency medicine background with knowledge about plant medicine, bodywork and energy healing, I was still a doctor. "Integrative medicine", they call it. I considered the transformative effects I saw in patients just by listening to them, deeply connecting, loving them and helping them love themselves. I felt their brokenness in my life, in my story, especially after May 2018.
The first time I met with a domestic violence counselor it was a fluke. I had called a friend who I knew was in real estate, and also worked at a local domestic violence shelter. I knew she would be discreet, and I needed a place to live. I knew she had experienced "conversations" with my ex, knew what I would be up against in our small community, and could understand my need for privacy.
She told me she wasn't doing real estate anymore, but did I want to come in and meet with a counselor that day? I was confused; why? Well, maybe it would help with the planning, and to get some objective feedback...these were big decisions.
So I went. After talking for a bit, I said, "can I just run a few things by you, and get your perspective?" That was the day I realized I was a domestic violence victim. Maybe being a doctor, working in ERs with victims of violence, needing to believe my life was alright...made me blind to the stark reality of what I lived with day in and day out at home. What I allowed my children to live with, telling myself "people have different ways of parenting, I'm sure if I just set a good example, and continue to love him and show positive parenting..."
I remember the day my eldest, at 16, moved out. He cried and told me that he tried for so long to stay, and hated to leave me and his brother and younger sister there. The ensuing anger fell with more force on the two left at home, and a light bulb went on the day I stood between my ex and my youngest son, for the first time unwilling to sacrifice my role as my children's protector for the man I chose as their step-father.
Everything I had portrayed for years as a "fairytale" life started unravelling even faster after that. As the connection with my children was nurtured, and my intolerance of abuse solidified, the violence escalated.
Sometimes I think that every cloud has a silver lining. The raging thunderstorm that was breaking my reality to bits gave me many gifts. I cried after the first patient I saw on the first ER shift back at work after the separation was a woman with chest pain, whose work-up was negative, until I listened to her tell me about the abusive relationship with her "old man". Conventional medicine doesn't have a silver bullet for that brand of heart pain. I was able to offer suggestions I never would have before, because before I didn't see her fully. Before I didn't see me fully. I was too busy trying to not be a mess.
So many of the music mentors in my life talk about songwriting from the heart, excavating the things that need to be said, but are too scary to say. Along the way I realized that it's not the fear of saying those things to other people, it's the fear of speaking them aloud to yourself. To acknowledge the hurt, the loss, the betrayal. To tell the story, but more heartbreaking, to feel the pain. Being human is messy.
I let my ex convince me for years that I was wrong to feel hurt by him, that something was wrong with me, that I was unbalanced or mentally ill because I (gasp!) felt betrayed by his betrayals, and wounded by his punishments. When I started listening to my heart, like listening to my patients tell their stories, the emotions were messy. Years of neglect and abandonment left my heart sullen, afraid, and angry. But I kept listening, and feeling, and allowing a big fat mess of a wounded self to breathe fresh free air.
My life looks nothing like what Good Housekeeping says is "right". Way off base from what my local churches consider "good". Most of my old physician colleagues barely acknowledge me in public, and certainly aren't calling to schedule a girls' night out. They know better than to risk consorting with one who will listen to their hearts, because that will start the unravelling...and that would get messy for sure.