The Nothing

There are a lot of things that are hard in this world.  There are a lot of emotions that will topple you, there are feelings that will bury you and there are situations that you feel you will never survive.  I have been through a lot as a spouse with a husband who has PTSD.  Nothing compared to him, of course, but enough.

I have been belittled, made to feel unimportant, made to feel stupid.  I have been told that I don't matter, I have been called horrible names for asking simple questions.  I have felt threatened, I have felt scared, I have felt overwhelmed and unsure of what to do or where to turn next.

What has been the worst is the indifference.  The times where there is nothing.

It might not seem like much, someone being indifferent to you.  You go about your day, never bothered, never criticized, never harassed.  But it means you go about your day with nothing at all.

There are not many rewards things in this life.  A laugh that sounds almost like it used to.  A smile where he never did before.  A glimmer of who he once was, who you once were, what your life once was.  It is the little things, the little triumphs that you have to cherish, because not much else will get you through on the days when you have nothing at all.  On the days, the weeks, the months that he is indifferent to you.

I speak to him and he walks away.  I touch him and he recoils.  I look at him with no eye contact.  I lie next to him in bed, every night and we never say a word.  He no longer kisses me goodnight.  He doesn't even tell me if he is going to sleep or going to stay up on his laptop.  Nothing.

He can be like this for weeks, sometimes months.  And there are days when the silence and the loneliness is too much to bear and I would love to have him screaming at me.  There are times when I would rather feel his anger, than nothing.  At least when he is angry he is noticing me. At least it is something.

It's hard to live a life where you don't feel cared for, loved or respected.  And it's hard to live a life where the screaming and the pain is better than the nothing that will follow.

I can feel my heart becoming defeated.  I can feel myself only going through the motions because I am becoming numb.  Because numb is better than the nothing and I never know how long the nothing is going to last.