Post 9 – The Chain on the Door
I came home from the store with groceries, milk for our daughter, and a tightness in my chest I had learned to ignore. The apartment was quiet. Too quiet.
Esther was supposed to be playing or napping. Instead, I heard her crying—desperate, stuck. The door was chained shut from the inside. I pushed it, calling Jeff’s name. No answer. Just her wailing, muffled. And then... I smelled the Vaseline.
I craned my neck through the narrow opening. That’s when I saw him—pants down, hand slick with lube, sitting on the couch, laptop open. He wasn’t watching porn. He was watching her—his ex-wife. He’d saved photos. And there, just steps away from our crying toddler behind a baby gate, he was pleasuring himself to them.
I froze. A thousand alarms went off in my head, but he didn’t flinch. He didn’t stop. He acted like I wasn’t even there. Like our daughter didn’t matter. Like I didn’t exist.
When he finally came to the door, his eyes were cold. No shame. No apology. Only defensiveness: “You’re being dramatic.” “I wasn’t doing anything.” “She’s crying because of you.”
Rewriting Reality – The Beginning of a Narcissistic Collapse
I believed what I saw. But over the next week, he convinced me I hadn’t. That I must have misunderstood. That maybe the door had just swung open and I imagined the rest.
But the truth lodged itself in my body like a splinter I could never dig out.
A week later, he snapped. That was the week of the “potato” incident—where he bashed my head into the floor in a rage. And I’ve never forgotten that timeline. Because I now know the sequence: discovery, shame, denial, collapse... and violence.
Tactics Breakdown – What He Did and How
- Chain Isolation: Locked the door from the inside, keeping both me and our toddler out of safety and visibility
- Digital Infidelity: Used stored photos of his ex-wife while hiding from current responsibilities
- Neglect and Risk: Left our young daughter alone and crying behind a baby gate while masturbating
- Gaslighting: Denied everything despite visual evidence, planting doubt in my mind
- Abuse Cycle Trigger: One week later, violently escalated into physical abuse—the incident known as the "potato fight"
If You See It, Believe It
Your memory is not broken. Your intuition is not lying. When something feels wrong—it is.
If someone uses your shock or silence to rewrite the story, you are not crazy. You are being conditioned. And it’s not your fault.
Speak it. Write it. Reclaim it.
📞 National Domestic Violence Hotline
Call: 800-799-SAFE (7233)
Chat: www.thehotline.org
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