When I met Jill after having children with my new husband Marc, she made a condescending remark about me needing to get use to the idea of cooking meals as a new bride.
Jill didn't seem to know my history. Or, if she did, she didn't acknowledge it. I'd been there. I'd had bridal showers prior to marrying Randy. I'd been a new bride 12 years prior to the day of her remark! I'd picked out table settings and decor and set tables and collected recipes and cooked dinners. This was not my first rodeo.
But who would give me credit for time spent trying to fake it until I could make it with Randy?
No, I shouldn't have married Randy, but I did. I went through apartment hunting with him too many times as no place was ever good enough for him. I went through moving and setting up our 'home'. I had been the new bride.
So, yes, I resented her comment.
And this is another reason I wrote the memoir. The people I want to have read it never will. But I got it out there. The depths of what some women go through is deep.
What I went through gave me Complex PTSD (C-PTSD), a psychological condition that can develop in individuals who have experienced prolonged or repeated trauma over an extended period. Often, it happens to a person who feels trapped. And I was trapped. Trapped by the rules of my religious upbringing, trapped by the title of wife to a man who didn't want to be married but wouldn't sign divorce papers. I was trapped in poverty, living off a ministry wage hardly being able to afford rent on my own. I was trapped in Randy's emotional abuse.
And the C-PTSD brought on pervasive feelings of shame, guilt, worthlessness, and emotional anxiety.
When my daughter was about to marry, though over 30 years had passed, the C-PTSD was triggered again. I didn't want her making a mistake as I had. And I came down with General Anxiety Disorder (GAD). Our emotions are powerful.
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