At first, you’re disoriented. Confused. How did the familiar world become replaced by this sarcophagus of grief?
There are no windows. No doors. Only darkness.
And you’re all alone. You can hear life as usual just outside your walls, but you are separated from the activity.
The air feels funny. It’s too dense, making every breath a struggle. It presses down on you as you try to move. It feels as though it’s squeezing your very life away.
And yet somehow, your lungs keep following orders. Inhale. Exhale. Repeat.
In that pitch-black room, there is no day or night.
No hot or cold.
No anything, really.
You scream, both in an attempt to release your pain and in an attempt to feel it. The sound echoes off the walls, filling the void until the vibrations cease.
You find that you’re going through the motions. More an act of habit than an act of living.
You dutifully lay down in the bed only to realize later that you’ve been staring at the ceiling for hours, sleep remaining elusive.
You prepare a meal only to sit down and realize that you’re not hungry.
You drink. Not because you’re thirsty, but because some primal part of brain tells you that you must.
You despise the room, with its absence of light and its reverberations of pain. But you also begin to grow comfortable with the room. You know its every corner. And you become accustomed to its confines. It’s life distilled into its most bitter essence. Terrible, but familiar. You begin to forget that there is anything other than this pitch-black room.
The first glimpse of light catches you off-guard. It feels good and wrong all at once. It’s welcome, yet it doesn’t belong. You even feel guilty for smiling at the glow. As though you’re somehow betraying the solemness that the room demands.
You decide to investigate further, drawn to the possibility that there is more than darkness. But as you approach, the light flickers out.
Over the next days…weeks…months… who knows? time has no meaning here…the light reappears of its own volition. Sometimes it fades as soon as it appears. And sometimes the light remains for some time.
You become hopeful. And then defeated, mad at yourself for letting optimism in. After all, this is now your room.
But still the light persists, growing just a little brighter every day.
Until one day, you are able to see the room more clearly. There’s a window after all. And you can see outside. You want to be outside. You desperately search for a way out. But find nothing.
Pacing in frustration, you begin to tell yourself that you’re stuck. That this darkness is all that you’ll know. You repeat it so much that it becomes gospel. So much so that you’re unable to accept the appearance of door in the once-smooth wall.
And then once you see it, you find that you’re both excited about a way out and frightened about the possibility of escape. Because what if you take that step out only to have your heart broken again?
You finally summon your courage, take that tentative step. Your first ventures out are short. You return to the room when you remember your sadness and often, you find your way back there through no reason at all.
The visits slowly become less frequent. Their duration shortens. You find yourself becoming more a part of the outside world and less a resident of the room.
The room is always there. Its walls are solid, bricks of heartache mortared with tears. You know that you can stop by and visit. And sometimes you seem to find yourself there when the calendar reaches certain days or a memory is triggered.
But you also know that you can step out of the room again. And you can close the door behind you.
The pitch-black room holds the memories, and it no longer holds you.
I thought he loved me. It turned out that he was more con man than confidant.
If my husband had been Pinocchio, his nose would have been a giant redwood. While we were married, I thought he was a real boy. Once he disappeared, I learned otherwise.
My husband and I used to watch “Lost” and shake our heads in disbelief at Sawyer’s deceptions. We laughed at “Dirty Rotten Scoundrels” when the con artists were conned themselves. We were shocked at the audacity of Leonardo DiCaprio’s character in “Catch Me if You Can“, and we were disturbed when we discovered the movie was based on a true story. While I thought he shared my disdain for the trickery and fraud in these tales, it seems as though he had been taking notes. Overnight, I went from an ordinary life to one that felt more like a movie.
My husband was a brilliant and talented man whose skills included creating and maintaining a separate existence. He had two cameras. Two bicycles. Two wallets. Two wives. Two distinct lives. When the financial mess he created in his life with me became too great to keep hidden, he broke up with me via text and vanished. That was when I learned that my husband was anything but a real boy — he was a con man.
My life was a virtual reality — my home a movie set consisting of false fronts.
He was an expert lie crafter; he always knew the exact proportion of truth to weave into the falsehoods to make a story believable. He always had an answer; he never hesitated. His office must have been like a busy air traffic control tower as he directed emails, texts, and phone calls to support his various tales. The extent of his deceptions was made clear when I sat with an auto insurance card in my hand — my name had been digitally removed — while I pulled up the file from the insurance company and verified that both names were present on the actual document. He thought he could erase me as easily as he could my name using Photoshop.
While my husband was in jail after being arrested for felony bigamy, I talked with his other wife, who was as stunned by the situation as I was. No woman should ever have to have a conversation about “our husband,” even if it is a cordial and informative discussion. I learned that when he was pulled in for questioning, his lies became increasingly absurd as he struggled to maintain his façade. My favorite? He claimed that he and I had divorced years earlier and I had since married a chiropractor named Mark Mercer. Mark, if you’re out there, I’m sorry that I have no recollection of our marriage and that I have never recognized our fictitious anniversaries.
One of the saddest aspects of the situation is that he was conning himself just as much as he was fooling those around him.
In trying to pull the wool over others’ eyes, he inadvertently knitted himself a mask with no eyeholes. He told so many lies for so long, he began to believe his own fabrications (he even admitted as much in a text to my mother). It became impossible for him to tell where the lies ended and the authenticity began. In trying to keep everyone else in the dark, he lost himself. The real boy was replaced with a hollow man.
I came out of the marriage confused, unsure of what was real and what was fabrication. I was embarrassed. How could I have been such a fool? My anger was explosive as I came to the realization that I had been literally sleeping with the enemy. The crime was intensified by the fact that it was carried out by the man who had sworn to love and protect me. Yet, eventually, I began to feel compassion for him, as I saw through the lies to the pain that must have born them.
I have come to the realization that the life I knew was real to me, and that has to be enough. I will never know what prompted his moral malignancies nor will I ever find certainty in truth.
I was conned, but that is not the end of my story. I am now exploring the world un-shaded by his lies.
When my husband left, I trembled for a year. That’s not just some figurative language used to convey emotion; I literally shook. For a year. My body quaked from the aftershocks of the sudden trauma, my legs constantly kicking and my hands quivering. Those weren’t my only symptoms, either. I had flashbacks and nightmares that took me back to the to the day where I received the text that ended my marriage. The 21-word incoming message read: “I am sorry to be such a coward leaving you this way but I am leaving you and leaving the state.” From then on, the sound of an incoming message would actually send me to the floor, where I braced myself for another digital attack. I felt numb and had trouble remembering aspects of my marriage or my husband. I avoided sights and sounds that were associated with my marriage, often driving well out of my way to steer clear of my old neighborhood. I couldn’t sleep; I was hyper alert, always scanning every room and ready to fight or flee at any moment. I could not eat and my weight fell to dangerous levels.
As far as I know, my life was never in actual danger. But apparently my mind and body never received that message. In an instant, the person I trusted the most became someone whom I feared. I felt threatened and unsafe.
I didn’t know what was real and who to trust.
My husband never forced himself upon me, but I felt as though I had been violated when I learned I had been sleeping with the enemy. He never physically hit me, but the psychological blows left scars just the same. I’ve never been to war, yet every interaction with his lawyer was a battle that left me paralyzed with fear for my ability to survive.
I by no means intend to trivialize the horrors endured by those who have been the victims of abuse or those have been through war. Those are traumas on a scale well above what I have endured. What I have come to realize, however, is that trauma can come in many forms and in many degrees. The psychiatrist I saw that first year after my divorce stopped short of diagnosing me with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD), but the term came up as I described my symptoms, and the medications she prescribed are frequently used in the treatment of PTSD. Another therapist I saw also mentioned the disorder and used complimentary strategies.
PTSD happens when your mind cannot process the extent of the trauma.
It’s like a short circuit in your nervous system, where you have trouble distinguishing between real and perceived threats. We tend to think of PTSD as occurring only in life-threatening situations, but it can occur anytime there is an acute or prolonged trauma. Not all divorces lead to PTSD, but if it is sudden or abusive, the trauma can be severe and sudden enough to lead to PTSD-like symptoms.
According to The National Institute of Mental Health, PTSD includes flashbacks, bad dreams, staying away from triggers, feeling emotionally numb, feeling guilty, having trouble with memory, being easily startled, feeling tense and angry. Additionally, the diagnosis of PTSD requires that the symptoms persist beyond 30 days and that they interfere with daily life. There is a difference between normal grief, shock and anxiety and the pathology of PTSD.
PTSD occurs when a perfect storm of conditions are met. First, prior traumas can “prime” someone for PTSD as the stress can actually cause epigenetic changes, rewiring the body to be extra sensitive to further trauma. Women are also more likely to experience PTSD, possibly due to heightened fear conditioning. PTSD is also more likely to occur when traumas accumulate. When someone who has some of these risk factors undergoes a divorce, particularly one that is sudden or especially toxic, PTSD-like symptoms can occur. Sudden abandonment or attack by a loved one can trigger panic and disorientation as real as any physical threat.
The trauma is stored in the body as well as the mind.
During my divorce, I learned that most people assumed that depression would be the disorder de jour after a break up. They expected me to be sad and withdrawn, curled up on my bed with a box of tissues and endless pints of ice cream. Instead, I was hyper vigilant and always on the lookout for the next blow. It’s important to realize that all divorces are not the same and we all respond differently. There is no “right” way to be after a divorce. I was embarrassed for a time to reveal the true nature of my symptoms. I felt like I wasn’t permitted to feel that way since I didn’t have a knife to my throat. I felt ashamed that I couldn’t cope with the basics of eating and sleeping. I felt weak every time I over-reacted to a stimulus. Once I admitted my struggles, I was able to actively seek help to overcome them. I also learned that I was not alone in my reaction to the divorce.
There is help for those who are experiencing PTSD-like symptoms after a divorce. First, communicate your symptoms to your doctor or therapist. A checklist can be a useful tool, especially if you are having trouble putting words to your feelings. Be firm. I found that some therapists and doctors didn’t really listen to me, rather they projected how they thought I should be feeling. Different therapies, including EMDR, have been shown to be effective against PTSD. There are medications that can be useful to limit the anxiety and to calm the mind and body. Additionally, mindfulness practices, including yoga and meditation, can also help to reset the sympathetic nervous system and regulate the release of stress hormones.
Allow the body to teach the mind how to relax.
In my case, medication helped me survive the first year while a combination of mindfulness training, yoga and exercise has alleviated most of the symptoms permanently. I still have moments of unexplained panic where a slight trigger causes an extreme reaction, but those moments are thankfully few and far between. I no longer feel like I’m a prisoner to my anxieties, trapped in a purgatory where I’m forced to relive those awful moments time and time again. I am now able to visit those memories without panic and live my life without waiting for the next blow.
I never formally acquired the label of PTSD, but it served to be a valuable framework for me to understand and communicate my symptoms and to eventually overcome them. Labels, such as PTSD, can be helpful as we try to understand a complex situation, but even they only tell part of the story. Be gentle and understanding with yourself and others. Don’t be quick to judge or make assumptions. Don’t be ashamed to ask for assistance and admit when you cannot do it alone. Seek the help you need and know that it does get better.
Lisa Arends does an effective job in writing about the aftermath, the fallout, of a life-changing shock, on the abrupt desolation of her marriage. The read is a well done walk through all the PTSD and repeating changes that occur, which is depicted in a letter written to her by her exited husband, the commentary on the letter under the umbrella of the devastating changes she experienced, emotionally, physically and logistically are a walk through the fact that PTSD is not just relegated to victims of war, but to any life encounter that uproots your very existence in a shocking manner. She’s a likeable author, an engaging woman, that you take to and feel for, because she portrays the story, the horror she lived, with veracity and integrity, to allow the facts to unfold on the page even if they point a finger back to her (ie: a text from her spouse to his mother-in-law, Lisa’s mother). Devastation upon devastation unravels and what we hold onto dearly is lost, not just in the relationship but also in the family built around it, fury and otherwise. Arends navigates through this debacle with grace and humility, filled with emotions that are painted with strokes that are sure to offer others in similar situations some reflections and ground; she labels as “Lessons” chapter after chapter, ultimately culminating in what she has learned, valuable life lessons, applicable to anyone. But, this is not just a self-help work, or a read for someone in a similar situation, it’s a compelling story of the frailty and misconceptions we all live with, the thin line of trust & betrayal, confidence and fright, love and rejection, all the things that make the paradoxes of life and keep a balance, hopefully the balance stays in some semblance of equilibrium. In Arends case she tilts off the scale and by the Grace of her very nature, the love of her family, and whatever else strength she draws from she journeys through to meet what is most precious to all of us, connecting and opening to trust (applause to Tiger, no spoilers) despite all temptations not to, and in doing so, learning the ultimate, that love does conquer and cannot be soiled by another’s shadow cast upon our soul.
In the book, I never name PTSD. I only describe the events and my reactions. Yet, here was a third party who deemed that to be an accurate label.
According to the Mayo Clinic, the following are the symptoms of PTSD:
Symptoms of intrusive memories may include:
Flashbacks, or reliving the traumatic event for minutes or even days at a time
Upsetting dreams about the traumatic event
Symptoms of avoidance and emotional numbing may include:
Trying to avoid thinking or talking about the traumatic event
Feeling emotionally numb
Avoiding activities you once enjoyed
Hopelessness about the future
Memory problems
Trouble concentrating
Difficulty maintaining close relationships
Symptoms of anxiety and increased emotional arousal may include:
Irritability or anger
Overwhelming guilt or shame
Self-destructive behavior, such as drinking too much
After I received the text that ended my marriage, I experienced many of these symptoms. I had the flashbacks and the dreams. I had trouble thinking and remembering. I couldn’t sleep and I frightened easily. But, most of all I trembled constantly, my autonomic nervous system was on high alert, waiting for the next assault.
At first, the triggers were everywhere. Driving along the road that passed by my old house felt like traversing a field with buried landmines. I fully expected an explosion at any moment. I responded as though every mention of his name was literally a threat to my life. At any moment, I could be catapulted back to instant where I received the text. It was as though the phone was always in my hand.
My psychiatrist that I saw that first year stopped short of a full PTSD diagnosis, but she mentioned the disorder and selected medications that are used to treat it. I honestly don’t think I would have made it through without the medications. They allowed me to sleep and eat – two things I could not yet accomplish on my own.
Over time, the triggers decreased. I learned how to sleep and eat without assistance. I stopped the medications and was able to use meditation and exercise to reduce any symptoms. I can still feel the shadows of the trauma when I feel like I’m being abandoned again but, for the most part, my mind and body no longer confuse real and perceived threats.
Never to my face, maybe because he feared my response or because on some level he knew the claim was baseless, but to his friends and coworkers. After he left, I learned that others had been hearing graphic and disturbing stories of my supposed infidelity for years.
He then went on to detail my irresponsible spending in his “suicide” letter to his other wife and to my mom (he made a suicide attempt when he was released from jail). He described how I wouldn’t take “no” for an answer and I always needed the latest and greatest things.
My initial reaction to my discovery of these accusations was one of unmitigated horror. You see, I trusted him so much and had slowly been groomed to accept his description of reality, that I initially believed that his claims must be true.
And then I grew confused. Because none of the facts, which I obsessively detailed to those who surrounded me in the aftermath of the tsunami, matched his claims. I struggled to understand what was real as the oil of his accusations failed to blend with the water of my recollection.
Finally, it became clear. He was charging me with the exact misconduct that he was guilty of. He was projecting and I was the screen.
What is Projection?
Projection is a common cognitive dance where self attributes or actions are shifted to another person. Much of the time, it is relatively harmless. Yet in the hands of an addict or abuser, projection can be used in a more detrimental way to distract or to transfer blame.
We all engage in some amount of projection. In some cases, projection allows us to empathize with others when we superimpose how we believe we would feel in a given situation over their stated experience. Other times, we may assume that someone feels the way we do or that they have the same aptitudes or perspectives. You see this when people caught behaving badly offer up the excuse that “everybody does it.”
Projection is also used as a defense mechanism. When there is some aspect of your beliefs or behavior that does not align with your view of yourself, you experience something called cognitive dissonance, where you either have to alter your view or amend your behaviors. One “solution” to the discomfort caused by this misalignment is to assign the disallowed characteristics to somebody else in the classic, “It’s not me, it’s you” move.
Often times, projection occurs when we are aware of something, yet we’re not yet ready to see it in ourselves (an example of this would be the claim that, “You don’t love me” when the reality is that we’re starting to doubt our own love). After all, it takes quite a bit of courage to look within.
Projection As a Weapon
I’ll never know to what extent my ex husband was aware of his projections. It’s possible that he was so deluded that he accepted his lies as truth (in fact, he actually told my mom after the suicide attempt that he had started to believe his own bullshit). But it’s also likely that his projection was largely conscious, distilled and aimed in order to cause the maximum damage.
By accusing me of horrific misdeeds, he excused his own undeniable choice of abandonment. When he projected his deceptions on me, he painted himself as the victim. His indictments acted as a slight of hand, keeping me distracted from looking too closely at what was happening on the other side of the stage. And finally, he used projection as a form of gaslighting, blurring and altering my view of reality.
If you’ve been in a situation where you have endured emotional abuse or faced the helplessness and frustration that comes from living with an addict, you’re vulnerable to believing the displaced accusations. Your self-image and confidence are likely low and you’re prone to assume responsibility for another’s well-being. When these accusations arise, refrain from blind acceptance. Ask yourself first if those claims are actually a better fit for your accuser.
As the divorce proceedings progressed, I found my new awareness of his tendency to project helpful. Whenever he accused me of something (withholding information, lying on a discovery document, etc.), I knew what to expect from him. Because even though his projections were aimed at me, they were simply a reflection of him.
Lessons From the End of a Marriage 