The Second "Therapy" Session

There's this heart-flutter that happens when I know He is coming over or will be dealing with my wife. It's not good. It's like a shot of adrenaline keeps being pumped into my chest. My skin tingles and the teeth in the very back of my mouth feel like they're being scraped by razor blades. The base of my skull has jagged nails inserted into the soft nerve sack that is my central nervous system. My stomach is upset and hungry at the same time. There is no comfort.

There is nothing I can do.

There is nothing I can do to help her. She must deal with Him on her own. She must go to the therapy session with the man who wants to hurt her. And she must do it without me. Without anyone.

My imagination starts to run away with thoughts of Him going into a crazy fit when presented with his own dementia and psychoses, at which point he pulls out his gun -- which he carries on his person at all times because, oh, let's say his world is just that dangerous and deadly that he must arm himself as if he were living in the wild west -- and blows away my wife, followed by the counselor, followed by himself.

One of my co-workers told me that these were signs of PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). I guess I'm not surprised. I've only been living with this violent, aggressive, abusive, psychotic and delusional criminally insane ex-husband for three years. My wife has been dealing with it for almost 16 years. Our boys have had it for their entire lives.

How does it happen that someone like this is allowed to do this to people? And I'm certain they aren't the only ones. This kind of abusive, I feel certain, happens every day to good people just like the people in my family. There is no regulation on who can become a father. There isn't an easy way to prove that abuse is happening unless there is an injury. So my boys and my wife have to be visibly injured before criminal action can be taken against this beast.

But this is how my head gets away with me.

Just because my wife is meeting Him in the counselor's office today and I haven't heard from her yet doesn't mean she's dead. Doesn't mean he's killed her. Doesn't mean she's even hurting. It's only been 30 minutes.