I divorced the abusive, alcoholic sperm donor of a first husband. While I think I did a really great job at healing and growing from the experience, when I was on holiday last month, something happened that absolutely stopped me in my tracks and brought me right back to the gut-wrenching physical feelings of being around someone so very angry.

My friends had a cookout and there were many folks there. We were all enjoying a beautiful sunny and warm day with good food, good drink and good company.

All of a sudden, one of the family members bolted out of his chair, ran to the road and began chasing two younger lads down the road, while screaming and yelling at them.

This whole scenario took me by such surprise and my stomach just turned and turned, my heart started racing and I was totally frozen in my chair and in my mind....but in my mind I was frozen back in time to when I was married to the abuser. The anger that this guy had that was chasing the young men was something I hadn't seen or dealt with in so many years.

Now, I'm not saying that this guy didn't have a right to be angry with them or to yell what he did. That is not the point of my post. What I am saying is that I really thought I had worked through the feelings of fear and anxiety I had once felt by being yelled at, chased, hit and degraded in front of family and friends. Now, I'm wondering if I really ever did work through it all or if this was just a quick response to a specific stimuli from the past and I'll always have that kind of reaction?

I did recover from it fairly quickly. I was able to catch my breathe and do self talk and bring myself back to the present and remind myself that it was not me this guy was going after or showing his anger to. But goodness gracious....I think about it now and I can still feel my stomach tightening.

All I can say is, I really hope that kind of scenario doesn't happen again around me. It did not feel good at all and I wasn't even the recipient.