Steps back to Zen

It’s been a few days since I last wrote and surviving the Toad with my new zen-like approach has not been as straightforward as I hoped.  Every day seems to bring up a raft of stuff despite stern words to myself to ‘get a grip’.  By stuff I mean feelings;  feelings of abandonment as I feel my son pull away from me and feelings of anger that the Toad is deliberately driving a wedge between my boy and me; feelings of grief for the past when my son felt safe to show his love for me; feelings of despair that I will be a prisoner in this country for many years to come and feelings of anxiety that I am buggering up my health with all these bloody emotions.  It has drained me of my usual joie de vivre and I’m dragging myself around not really achieving anything.  As soon as I feel I’m getting on top of all these feelings, another lawyer’s letter pops chirpily into my inbox.

“Toad wants this weekend instead of his usual weekend”

“Toad wants to extend the weekend to four days”

“Toad wants to move the court case forward”

You get the picture.  Every email brings on spurts of adrenalin which last for hours.  I used to be tougher than this.  I view myself as capable, logical, fun and a natural problem solver.  Now I am behaving like a shrinking, wet, weak victim/violet after six years in survivor mode.

It was different at the start as I always believed things would calm down.  That the weird stuff that Toad did such as smearing poo over the outside loo. breaking into my house every time I was out, stalking me, diverting my emails to his email address, trying to groom my friends and boyfriends, turning the neighbours against me with lies, appearing at my place in the middle of the night and shining a torch into the bedrooms, stealing, crying hysterically on my deck and so on would come to an end.   It took three years and then peace.  Blissful peace – well compared to the above it was very peaceful – as he had met someone else.  It took 18 months for him to get her under the thumb, impregnate her, access her money and then it all started up again.  This time he has wised up.  Smearing poo achieved nothing but the lawyers letters funded by the new partner is working.  He is forcing me to respond.  Now he’s fighting for full custody.  His reason for taking my boy far away from me?  There are none.  Clearly he’s going to lose but it’s a bit of a Trojan horse and he has other requests up his sleeve which are emerging.  And the pleasure of denying me my annual trip to see my family on the other side of the world is making this all worth while for him.  

In the face of that I have vowed to be zen.  To accept.  To submit.  Because the consequences of not doing so in terms of my health is not a good outcome for my son or myself.  In the meantime, I am considering attending my mum’s birthday party on my own – the first time I have not taken him to see my family.  The Toad has given me permission to take him out of the country for two weeks.  But can I put my son through four days of travel and a week of jet lag for ten days at home?  I don’t think I have the energy or strength to carry him through it and deal with the fall out.

Back to acceptance.  Steps as follows.

Step 1 is to write.  Tick.

Step 2 may have to be a return to Headspace, the meditation app for a daily dose of calm.  

Step 3…not sure yet.  Maybe that’s for the next blog.