(no subject)
Okay so here is the beginning of the story.
Judah and I have been dating for two and a half years. We've been living together for a year and three months. (We can't afford the rent here without him. This is a thing on the List to deal with.)
Last year, he became depressed over financial/work stuff, and then the depression continued when he was sick and didn't have the diabetes diagnosis yet. During that time, everything was totally okay with us.
About a month ago, that changed. The following things cascaded:
May 13: Judah cheated on me - engaged in sexual activity below the waist with someone before she'd gotten STI tests run. (Her tests were 5 years old.) He initially lied about the extent of the cheating. This was amazingly painful. I spent the following week trying to counsel him through this, especially because the person he cheated with decided to be childish and irresponsible and hurt him. I worked hard on this, because I was going on a weeklong trip 5/21-5/28 and needed us to be stable before I left. We worked out a very specific agreement of what we wanted and the rules we were operating under.
I left on my trip 5/21. On 5/22, Judah violated the agreement by making out with a stranger. I was upset about this, but tried to deal with it quietly - until it turned out that he then spent the entire evening with the stranger Saturday 5/26 whilst texting me that he was with two other people, deliberately not mentioning his makeout buddy.
This was the point at which I asked him about the HPV test results of the person he'd full-on cheated with, to the degree that if she did have HPV, he could have it and pass it to me. He claimed that she had not gotten her results back. I expressed that this was improbable, given that she was tested on 5/17. He insisted. He also slipped up at this time and admitted that the two of them had been texting all week, despite previously telling me that he'd had no contact with her.
I was squeamish about him going to a deliberately-hedonistic party on 5/26, given all this. He swore I could trust him. He engaged in sexual activity with multiple people at the party. He then texted me to say he was sad that he couldn't make out with people. This, Wisconners, is when I had to walk out of Genderfloomp. I talked to him and gave him permission to make out with a particular person.
Because at that point I didn't know that he'd already been sexual with people and he'd lied about those test results. The woman I gave him permission to make out with? She knew. So that's shitty.
On Monday 5/27, he told me all about the sex stuff he hadn't told me about previously. And when I was upset, he dropped the bomb that he had those HPV results, and that the person he cheated on me with did in fact have high-risk, cancer-causing HPV.
So Monday was a horrible night. Not just because of that. But because my Judah had become a stranger, a monster. He spat out vicious sadistic nastiness. He shot to wound, he shot to maim. He said and did things I hadn't thought he was capable of.
And - desperate, horrified, confused - I was still trying to make it work. Because this wasn't him. I didn't understand. I still don't understand. I can blame the new friends he'd spent the week with for part of it maybe? I don't know. I genuinely don't know.
I flew home Tuesday still hoping that this could work. We talked. Talked past each other, mostly - when Judah is wound up, he is incapable of listening. I thought if we just kept trying, he'd hear me. He'd listen.
And on Wednesday afternoon, I thought he had. We had what I thought was a breakthrough. We cried, we held each other. He promised to go to therapy.
And then Wednesday evening, his mood turned. He became Judah the Sadist again, this monster wearing my love's face. He attacked viciously. For hours.
And eventually we went to bed, when I thought we were as stable as we were going to be.
This is where it could get triggery.
For the past six years, I have taken Lunesta to sleep every night. I literally cannot sleep without it, and stress and sleep dep are my two big seizure triggers. So I take the maximum legal dose of a strong sedative.
When I am on Lunesta, I am so unconscious that it takes half an hour to even partially revive me. It is worse than being blackout drunk. I am 100% incapacitated. Everyone I sleep in the same bed with knows that. Everyone.
I slowly gradually Lunesta-woke to find Judah's fingers inside me.
This continued for a bit, because I was too incapacitated to react. I was aware, but I couldn't make my body respond or my voice work. He may tell you I wanted it because my unconscious body responded in an encouraging way. Key phrase there: My unconscious body.
I communicated a no. He withdrew. I conked back to sleep because Lunesta.
He was in a Mood the next morning. I decided to wait to address it til he got home. But then I took a nap, and had a nightmare about his friend who's been encouraging him to cheat and lie doing the exact same thing to me. So I knew my brain needed to deal with this, and I Gchatted him.
His response was along the lines of "sorry you feel that way".
We talked about other things. He later told me that everything following that statement was a lie, but at the time, I believed that he was negotiating with me in good faith.
And then he surprise did not come home. He'd fled to a mutual friend's and gotten drunk, and he became Judah the Sadist on the phone and in chat. I thought he was going to come home and talk about what must surely have been a horrible misunderstanding.
But he excorciated me. Vicious. Cruel. The nightmare wearing my lover's face.
And I hadn't been talking about any of what he'd been doing, and the trauma I'd been going through - because I didn't want to make him seem like a monster. I was protecting him. This whole time. I was scared and confused and fucked over and fucked up and protecting him.
But he hung up on me, and wouldn't respond, and I was triggered and traumatized and terrified.
So I called michaeldthomas, who is my Person and also has crisis-line experience. And he reminded me that if anyone told me what I was telling him, I'd be saying "Yes, that's rape. That was not a misunderstanding. It was rape, and you know your options."
And I would. But augh, people. He broke me. Judah. Broke. Me. Shattered. I was curled up on the kitchen floor weeping and desperate and begging for there to be some way Judah was not doing these things to me on purpose.
But we can't find a way. We can't.
I called and made a police report.
And then told him via e-mail that I'd done so.
And I actually had to keep myself from typing "I'm sorry."
Actually had to do that.
Is how much I love him and how much he broke me.
So just so you know what it takes to make me give up on you if I love you? Apparently rape is not enough. I don't know what this says about me and I can't really think about it right now.
Judah came over today, ostensibly to talk and work on things but really to grab stuff and rub. When he cold-voice told me this, I was upset; I followed him downstairs asking him why and what happened. I followed him into the storage room, where he then decided he didn't like me being between him and the door.
And so he grabbed my left arm and threw me against the wall.
I got up - he was looming, yelling, too close, and I pushed at his chest with my open hands, and he did it again. He twisted my wrist. He stomped on my foot. I don't know what else. It's a blur. I know those because those were the parts there were reddened or had abrasions. When he was done, he went upstairs.
I followed, grabbed the phone, and called the police.
They arrived almost instantly and interviewed us both, and I got to talk to the Sexual Assault Unit sergeant. I decided to file for a restraining order. So did Judah. Just because? I don't know. We went to the courthouse. There was a long interview process with multiple people. They finally found us a judge, and we told our stores. I told the truth. He claimed a bunch of physically impossible stuff.
The judge believed me. He granted me a three-month restraining order against Judah. Because I am genuinely afraid. This monster wearing his face is not the person I know. I don't know what happened, and I cannot predict his actions, and I am afraid.
He did not grant Judah a restraining order against me. He deemed the potential threat of violence from me to Judah highly unlikely.
So this is where we are. Judah will come to the house accompanied by police at a time that's convenient for me to retrieve the rest of his belongings. He said this morning, before he hit me, that he would keep paying rent; I'm not assuming that he will, and we can't afford this house on our own, so I don't know what we're going to do. I've called Case Management at BARCC and will be working with them to figure out my options. Locks need to be changed. Rent needs to be covered. Judah owes us several thousand dollars for his share of utilities and groceries for the past ~8 months; I'm assuming a civil suit will be what I'll have to do to get that. I'm losing my mobility here, too. I'm losing a lot. I'm losing almost everything.
I didn't want any of this. I just want my partner back. I don't understand anything. I don't know what happened. I don't understand. That's what I keep saying, "I don't understand." And "I'm so sorry."
Everyone we know says the same thing - this isn't Judah. Something is very wrong. Very horribly wrong. And the hell is I want to help. Yes. Still. But I can't. I can't take any more.
This is where we are.
I appreciate all of the offers of help and crashspace and phone calls. I can't respond to them all individually at this time, but I'm reading them all, and I thank you.
What I need:
* To be in my house and start making it feel safe again.
* Social interaction when I'm ready - the events of recent months had me hermitting hard because I was scared and uncertain. Small-group social to start with.
* I don't do telephones if I can possibly avoid it. I do Gchat and Twitter and e-mail, but I'm pretty overwhelmed right now and I won't respond quickly and may not have the spoons to respond at that time.
Um, I don't know what else. I am dazed. I have emilytheslayer with me now. Tonight is Elayna's prom. Emily's doing her nails. Tomorrow I will go to a party. I don't know what then.
But hey. I can finally blog about my life again.
Judah and I have been dating for two and a half years. We've been living together for a year and three months. (We can't afford the rent here without him. This is a thing on the List to deal with.)
Last year, he became depressed over financial/work stuff, and then the depression continued when he was sick and didn't have the diabetes diagnosis yet. During that time, everything was totally okay with us.
About a month ago, that changed. The following things cascaded:
May 13: Judah cheated on me - engaged in sexual activity below the waist with someone before she'd gotten STI tests run. (Her tests were 5 years old.) He initially lied about the extent of the cheating. This was amazingly painful. I spent the following week trying to counsel him through this, especially because the person he cheated with decided to be childish and irresponsible and hurt him. I worked hard on this, because I was going on a weeklong trip 5/21-5/28 and needed us to be stable before I left. We worked out a very specific agreement of what we wanted and the rules we were operating under.
I left on my trip 5/21. On 5/22, Judah violated the agreement by making out with a stranger. I was upset about this, but tried to deal with it quietly - until it turned out that he then spent the entire evening with the stranger Saturday 5/26 whilst texting me that he was with two other people, deliberately not mentioning his makeout buddy.
This was the point at which I asked him about the HPV test results of the person he'd full-on cheated with, to the degree that if she did have HPV, he could have it and pass it to me. He claimed that she had not gotten her results back. I expressed that this was improbable, given that she was tested on 5/17. He insisted. He also slipped up at this time and admitted that the two of them had been texting all week, despite previously telling me that he'd had no contact with her.
I was squeamish about him going to a deliberately-hedonistic party on 5/26, given all this. He swore I could trust him. He engaged in sexual activity with multiple people at the party. He then texted me to say he was sad that he couldn't make out with people. This, Wisconners, is when I had to walk out of Genderfloomp. I talked to him and gave him permission to make out with a particular person.
Because at that point I didn't know that he'd already been sexual with people and he'd lied about those test results. The woman I gave him permission to make out with? She knew. So that's shitty.
On Monday 5/27, he told me all about the sex stuff he hadn't told me about previously. And when I was upset, he dropped the bomb that he had those HPV results, and that the person he cheated on me with did in fact have high-risk, cancer-causing HPV.
So Monday was a horrible night. Not just because of that. But because my Judah had become a stranger, a monster. He spat out vicious sadistic nastiness. He shot to wound, he shot to maim. He said and did things I hadn't thought he was capable of.
And - desperate, horrified, confused - I was still trying to make it work. Because this wasn't him. I didn't understand. I still don't understand. I can blame the new friends he'd spent the week with for part of it maybe? I don't know. I genuinely don't know.
I flew home Tuesday still hoping that this could work. We talked. Talked past each other, mostly - when Judah is wound up, he is incapable of listening. I thought if we just kept trying, he'd hear me. He'd listen.
And on Wednesday afternoon, I thought he had. We had what I thought was a breakthrough. We cried, we held each other. He promised to go to therapy.
And then Wednesday evening, his mood turned. He became Judah the Sadist again, this monster wearing my love's face. He attacked viciously. For hours.
And eventually we went to bed, when I thought we were as stable as we were going to be.
This is where it could get triggery.
For the past six years, I have taken Lunesta to sleep every night. I literally cannot sleep without it, and stress and sleep dep are my two big seizure triggers. So I take the maximum legal dose of a strong sedative.
When I am on Lunesta, I am so unconscious that it takes half an hour to even partially revive me. It is worse than being blackout drunk. I am 100% incapacitated. Everyone I sleep in the same bed with knows that. Everyone.
I slowly gradually Lunesta-woke to find Judah's fingers inside me.
This continued for a bit, because I was too incapacitated to react. I was aware, but I couldn't make my body respond or my voice work. He may tell you I wanted it because my unconscious body responded in an encouraging way. Key phrase there: My unconscious body.
I communicated a no. He withdrew. I conked back to sleep because Lunesta.
He was in a Mood the next morning. I decided to wait to address it til he got home. But then I took a nap, and had a nightmare about his friend who's been encouraging him to cheat and lie doing the exact same thing to me. So I knew my brain needed to deal with this, and I Gchatted him.
His response was along the lines of "sorry you feel that way".
We talked about other things. He later told me that everything following that statement was a lie, but at the time, I believed that he was negotiating with me in good faith.
And then he surprise did not come home. He'd fled to a mutual friend's and gotten drunk, and he became Judah the Sadist on the phone and in chat. I thought he was going to come home and talk about what must surely have been a horrible misunderstanding.
But he excorciated me. Vicious. Cruel. The nightmare wearing my lover's face.
And I hadn't been talking about any of what he'd been doing, and the trauma I'd been going through - because I didn't want to make him seem like a monster. I was protecting him. This whole time. I was scared and confused and fucked over and fucked up and protecting him.
But he hung up on me, and wouldn't respond, and I was triggered and traumatized and terrified.
So I called michaeldthomas, who is my Person and also has crisis-line experience. And he reminded me that if anyone told me what I was telling him, I'd be saying "Yes, that's rape. That was not a misunderstanding. It was rape, and you know your options."
And I would. But augh, people. He broke me. Judah. Broke. Me. Shattered. I was curled up on the kitchen floor weeping and desperate and begging for there to be some way Judah was not doing these things to me on purpose.
But we can't find a way. We can't.
I called and made a police report.
And then told him via e-mail that I'd done so.
And I actually had to keep myself from typing "I'm sorry."
Actually had to do that.
Is how much I love him and how much he broke me.
So just so you know what it takes to make me give up on you if I love you? Apparently rape is not enough. I don't know what this says about me and I can't really think about it right now.
Judah came over today, ostensibly to talk and work on things but really to grab stuff and rub. When he cold-voice told me this, I was upset; I followed him downstairs asking him why and what happened. I followed him into the storage room, where he then decided he didn't like me being between him and the door.
And so he grabbed my left arm and threw me against the wall.
I got up - he was looming, yelling, too close, and I pushed at his chest with my open hands, and he did it again. He twisted my wrist. He stomped on my foot. I don't know what else. It's a blur. I know those because those were the parts there were reddened or had abrasions. When he was done, he went upstairs.
I followed, grabbed the phone, and called the police.
They arrived almost instantly and interviewed us both, and I got to talk to the Sexual Assault Unit sergeant. I decided to file for a restraining order. So did Judah. Just because? I don't know. We went to the courthouse. There was a long interview process with multiple people. They finally found us a judge, and we told our stores. I told the truth. He claimed a bunch of physically impossible stuff.
The judge believed me. He granted me a three-month restraining order against Judah. Because I am genuinely afraid. This monster wearing his face is not the person I know. I don't know what happened, and I cannot predict his actions, and I am afraid.
He did not grant Judah a restraining order against me. He deemed the potential threat of violence from me to Judah highly unlikely.
So this is where we are. Judah will come to the house accompanied by police at a time that's convenient for me to retrieve the rest of his belongings. He said this morning, before he hit me, that he would keep paying rent; I'm not assuming that he will, and we can't afford this house on our own, so I don't know what we're going to do. I've called Case Management at BARCC and will be working with them to figure out my options. Locks need to be changed. Rent needs to be covered. Judah owes us several thousand dollars for his share of utilities and groceries for the past ~8 months; I'm assuming a civil suit will be what I'll have to do to get that. I'm losing my mobility here, too. I'm losing a lot. I'm losing almost everything.
I didn't want any of this. I just want my partner back. I don't understand anything. I don't know what happened. I don't understand. That's what I keep saying, "I don't understand." And "I'm so sorry."
Everyone we know says the same thing - this isn't Judah. Something is very wrong. Very horribly wrong. And the hell is I want to help. Yes. Still. But I can't. I can't take any more.
This is where we are.
I appreciate all of the offers of help and crashspace and phone calls. I can't respond to them all individually at this time, but I'm reading them all, and I thank you.
What I need:
* To be in my house and start making it feel safe again.
* Social interaction when I'm ready - the events of recent months had me hermitting hard because I was scared and uncertain. Small-group social to start with.
* I don't do telephones if I can possibly avoid it. I do Gchat and Twitter and e-mail, but I'm pretty overwhelmed right now and I won't respond quickly and may not have the spoons to respond at that time.
Um, I don't know what else. I am dazed. I have emilytheslayer with me now. Tonight is Elayna's prom. Emily's doing her nails. Tomorrow I will go to a party. I don't know what then.
But hey. I can finally blog about my life again.