The Lake Years

Gloria Peacock Kimmel added 11 new photos.

2 hrs · 

This continues the Dirt Road Year and what Happened Next.

The Lake Years
I don't think it was a week after our one year lease was up that we were packing up our truck and moving over to my daughters property by the lake. Her new home was finished but the electricity and things were not hooked up yet. We paid for that to be done and she bought us a Fema Trailer to live in. I think it was 22 feet long. I bought a 12x12 outbuilding to house our things and we put all of my beloved things in storage or outside.

Karl was working off and on and I was starting to feel some better by 2007. Enough so that I thought I would try Nursing again. I thought Home Health would be the easiest because I could set my own hours so when Karl walked out in March of 2007 and it was either work or starve, off to work I went. He did that fairly often during our 20 year marriage so I had experience at being left at the worst possible time and I always pulled my boot straps up and did what I had to do, to feed my children. Of course when I became a Nurse all of that changed. I have a steady income and he could come and go without totally devastating our socioeconomic system.

After a couple of months of Karl trying to make it on his on, he came crawling back to his safety net and like a fool, I let him come back. It is no wonder that my children did not believe in me. I kept letting him come and go and it kept disrupting any kind of stability that we knew while he was gone.

He quickly settled into his pattern of drinking, smoking and his crazy weapons and ammo all over the house. I was so tired of having him point a weapon at me with the red sight shot on my chest and I knew that a breaking point had to come and it did in July. He came home from his work and said, "I want to buy a new motorcycle but you have to sign because my credit isn't good." I told him, "no, I am not signing anything with you. You keep walking out and I am not going to be left with a motorcycle payment."

He was so angry at me that I thought in that moment he might hit me. I had experience with that too. The time I tried to keep him from driving out our driveway in Ny drunk as can be. So drunk he staggered to get into the car. I tried to keep the door closed and he put me in a choke hold and lifted me off the ground. I Looked in horror as my 9 year old was watching this scene from the porch. He finally released me and I walked back to the house while he got in the car to get more beer.

My daughter was terrified and crying and I felt like such a heel for exposing her to the life we had. I did the best I could but it wasn't good enough. He left again up for about half a year and the family was good but he always begged his way back and because I did not want another marriage to fail, I kept letting him come back. What I failed to realize is that our marriage starting out failing and had kept failing ever since. I loved him with all my heart but he was a Narcissistic Sociopath and incapable of loving anything or anyone but himself.

With Karl gone and my divorce final, I could then contemplate my future. I had joined a Daily Strength Break ups and Divorce site in March and was reading about others men and women devastated by relationships built on betrayal, anger and abuse. I just read from March to December and then I met my buddy Rick. I then started to branch out, wrote a journal and made some friends.

My days of working only last 4 months. Long enough to mess us a disability claim. You have to start over once you do that it took away 3 years of back pay. I was squeaking by a living, selling anything and every thing I had to buy groceries as Karl was contributing 150 dollars a month. I ate on 45 of it and gave the rest of it to my kid for food. I sold things for anything else we would need.

In Jan of 08, I said I have got to do something to feel better in my spirit and for the first time in my life, I started exploring why I made such poor choices for my life. Why did I pick alcoholics, serial cheaters and the bigger question. Why did I stay with them when I knew that they did these things to me?

That is the greatest misunderstanding of all time to someone that has never experienced abuse. You don't just leave for the most part until something triggers you too and that could be the first time or that could be the tenth time. You have to fix you, before you can make better decisions, so I decided that it was time to fix me.

I joined Al-Anon, an organization for friends and family of alcoholics. I was the adult child of two alcoholics and it affected my decision making. I had a familiar and when it came to relationships, I picked what I knew and understood. It took some time for me to learn that in order to change your life, you have to change your familiar.

It was such a long process to learn to love me. To learn that I deserved better than what I had. To learn compassion for myself instead of every one else. To not be an over helper. To not ignore glaring red flags, but I began the work. I did not get here overnight and I wasn't going to get out of it overnight.

DS became my daily nourishment. Others had walked my path and I did not feel so alone. Others had been in abusive relationships and they went back or took them back so there was no judgement about my decisions. It felt great to be in an atmosphere of acceptance.

I wrote a journal of the things I was learning at the lake. I will never forget the first time I just smiled at life. I was walking back from my morning meditation and prayer and it just happened. I felt good in my spirit. I started walking and that is when the real lesson began. God would show me something and give me the message.. One day I was walking and 5 deer of different sizes crossed the road right in front of me. I stopped dead in my tracks like I had been hit by a thunderbolt. The first deer was my health followed by my job, My house, The contents and finally my husband. The deer and the problems in my life kept getting smaller and I managed each one as it came to me. God was telling me I would survive and not only would I survive, I would be a thing of beauty running free some day.

I continued my walks and one night I went over to my daughters home. She has just installed a 55 gallon fish tank recently and last night it was finally ready to add the fish. She bought a few and wanted me to come over and see them and admire. I was watching the fish going up to that mirror on the back of the tank and I was fascinated by the way they seemed to think there was another fish on the other side. They looked to be preening themselves for the beautiful fish they could see. They did not understand that it was really themselves that they were looking at. They just thought there was some "hottt" fish on the other side.. It got me to thinking how many of us look in a mirror and go Ewww and think about all of the bad things we see everyday? I said to myself, " I want to be the fish in the mirror."

But how did I accomplish this? I thought well, I will look at myself in the mirror and say something good about myself. I had to stay there long enough for something to come to mind. The first day, I thought I would die from trying to look at myself in the mirror for 10 minutes and nothing came to mind. I did not see myself as others saw me. I saw and heard his voice inside my head and he had used that to tear me down for almost 20 years.

The second day as I stared hard at myself in the mirror I said, " Well I guess my hair is alright." That was the best I could do but I kept at it determined to make myself see what others saw when they looked at me. Anytime a negative thought about myself came into my mind, I said, "Stop." And replaced it with something kind. It took 10 days before I truly saw my incredible Native American eyes and when I finally saw them, it was with tears silently streaming down my cheeks. I saw myself and I was worthy. It took much more work in group, in my Al-Anon meetings and at the lake to heal my spirit. Someone told me that it takes a month for every year you are married for you to begin to shed the Stocks they put you in. To rid yourself of the control they have in your mind even after they are gone and it took me longer than that. I had an entire lifetime to process. I had moved from relationship to relationship trying to find someone to love me. When I needed was just love myself and that came one day at the lake.

Someone on DS asked me if I had found love and I said, "Sort of."

It was early in the morning and I was praying and I felt that I should walk down to the waters edge and look in. When I did that, I saw myself reflected there in the water. I had found someone to love, myself, and that was the true beginning of healing for me. I had to exorcise everything he had put in my mind over the last years. I had to understand that his behavior was not ok and that I deserved better.

A friend told me that I was happy with crumbs because that is all he ever gave me but that I should want the whole piece of bread or the whole loaf. That I should be valued that much by anyone in my life but I had been happy with the barest crumbs for so long that it would take another journey for me to want more.

As I lost weight Karl came sniffing around. He came over to deliver child support of 150 dollars and to see Will but they had a very strained relationship and I understood that he was back on the track to win me back. I looked good again after losing the prednisone weight and he pursued me relentlessly, using every bit of charm he could muster. I went to the movies with him riding on the back of his motorcycle and held onto him. It was familiar and it terrified me. It was the only time I went anywhere with him and I told him I can't do this again. He came inside my little sanctuary and asked why I won't give him another try. It has been 20 years, he said. Why can't we try. And I told him because he was not capable of loving anyone but himself. The outward charm left him when I said this and the anger rose and I saw that he was himself but I had changed. I saw him differently than I did. He was no longer the handsome guy that charmed his way into my heart. He was a user looking for a giver again, but I wasn't buying what he was dishing.

My kids were terrified that I would fall for it again and they told me that they were holding their breath during this time, hoping against hope that I would not go back and would keep walking forward.

It was the first time that I was able to see red flags and I was so thankful for my DS group and Al-Anon. My eyes were clearing after wearing a hood most of my life.

I will continue this story in Part Two. The Dating Scene.
Love to all, Kimmee

(The pictures of my illness and transformation )