Back home with my abuser

Well, after he stole the children and hid them from me I panicked. I ended up in the hospital, then in a kind of halfway home for the mentally unstable. It was ridiculous. Nobody even thought to ask me about what I was living at home. Nobody considered that I was living under duress. Nobody once asked me what brought me to wanting to kill myself. WTF? I still can't believe it to this day. The kind of abuse that I was going through day after day was enough to drive anyone batty. I am surprised that I stayed as sane as I did. The constant, demeaning and bullying. He wouldn't let me sleep, keeping me up at night to have sex even though I had four children four and under that kept me awake every night. I begged to sleep in the afternoon on the weekends. Just for a half an hour. He refused to take care of the children. When I sat down and looked at the floor, it would be rolling. I was seeing shadows. My skin was itchy all over. I was depressed and crying all the time. I was cutting myself every time my ex yelled at me. Which was often. Now I look back and realize that I was sleep deprived.

A 2001 study at Chicago Medical Institute suggested that sleep deprivation may be linked to serious diseases, such as heart disease and mental illnesses including psychosis and bipolar disorder.^{[citation needed]} The link between sleep deprivation and psychosis was further documented in 2007 through a study at Harvard Medical School and the University of California at Berkeley. The study revealed, using MRI scans, that sleep deprivation causes the brain to become incapable of putting an emotional event into the proper perspective and incapable of making a controlled, suitable response to the event. Sleep deprivation may have been the underlying cause of the overdose deaths of celebrities Heath Ledger, and Anna Nicole Smith.^[22] 

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Sleep_deprivation 

I was not only sleep deprived I was showing symptoms of post traumatic stress disorder. My life was spinning out of control and my abuser was treated like he was a hero enduring a crazy woman. He would talk to everyone how I was controlling and wanted to tell him what to do all the time. This was a huge insult in the christian community. It meant that I was not being submitted to god. So on top of not pleasing my husband I was also not pleasing god. I believed his fucking lies. It is very hard for me to look back on all this and realize all of his lies that I swallowed. Why oh why did someone not ask what was going on at home?

I was not allowed to talk to other people or spend time with friends unless he approved. If I dared there was hell to pay. He would be angry and screaming at me, calling me names or he would be cold and distant, treating me like I was not even there, ignoring everything I said. I would speak and he would walk right out of the room as if I had not said a word. It was torture. There were many signs that I was in an abusive relationship but no one bothered to find out what I was living. It was all about how my ex felt.

 SIGNS THAT YOU’RE IN AN ABUSIVE RELATIONSHIPYour Inner Thoughts and FeelingsYour Partner’s Belittling Behavior

Do you:

• feel afraid of your partner much of the time?
• avoid certain topics out of fear of angering your partner?
• feel that you can’t do anything right for your partner?
• believe that you deserve to be hurt or mistreated?
• wonder if you’re the one who is crazy?
• feel emotionally numb or helpless? 

Does your partner:

• humiliate or yell at you?
• criticize you and put you down?
• treat you so badly that you’re embarrassed for your friends or family to see?
• ignore or put down your opinions or accomplishments?
• blame you for their own abusive behavior?
• see you as property or a sex object, rather than as a person?

Your Partner’s Violent Behavior or ThreatsYour Partner’s Controlling Behavior

Does your partner:

• have a bad and unpredictable temper?
• hurt you, or threaten to hurt or kill you? 
• threaten to take your children away or harm them?
• threaten to commit suicide if you leave?
• force you to have sex?
• destroy your belongings?

Does your partner:

• act excessively jealous and possessive?
• control where you go or what you do?
• keep you from seeing your friends or family?
• limit your access to money, the phone, or the car?
• constantly check up on you?

http://www.helpguide.org/mental/domestic_violence_abuse_types_signs_causes_effects.htm

 This whole questionnaire applied to me. After five years of married life. What the fuck was I doing staying there?