[NP_Complete]

Long story short, I'm in a 20+ year emotionally abusive marriage that had escalated in the last three weeks to threats to kill me, an incident of physical violence and culminated 5 days ago with him setting a fire in our living room floor. He barricaded himself in the house and a 6 hour standoff with the police ensued. Our neighbors were evacuated and the neighborhood was cordoned off. He was arrested and is currently in jail. This was the breaking news in our fairly large city.

I don't know if this counts as trauma since no one was hurt and there was only property damage, but it seemed fairly traumatic to me. I was humiliated by this whole thing. Since this has happened I've had multiple panic attacks. One panic attack was in the middle of the grocery store and seemingly happened for no reason. I've had a lot of anxiety in general. Being around people for too long makes me anxious, even people that should be safe like my therapy group. I'm not sleeping well. I'm exhausted all the time. I feel emotionally overwhelmed and depressed. I've been suicidal. I just want to lay in bed and hide under the covers. I have things I need to do, but I can only get things done in small increments.

Are any of these reactions to an event like this even remotely normal? I'm starting to feel like a crazy person.

[Open Eyes]

First of all what you described that took place it traumatic. Also, your life was threatened and your husband clearly has HUGE PROBLEMS and it's good that he is locked up right now.

It's understandable that with him absent along with how badly things escalated that right now you don't even know quite how to feel. You are in shock right now and that is a normal reaction to what you experienced and then suddenly it's over and the ABUSER is taken away and things are quiet. You have no idea how to process any of this and sadly you have been trapped for so many years with an abusive individual so you don't REALLY KNOW what it means to actually FEEL SAFE either.

What you do need to seek is help where you can see a therapist and make plans towards getting away from this abuser PERMANENTLY and start your long journey towards learning what SAFE actually means because this is ALIEN to you at this point. When someone spends so many years with an abuser, that person had no idea what living their life actually being SAFE means instead all they know is how to live their life according to the abuser. It's actually the same thing as someone being locked up for so many years that once they are set free they have no idea how to live that way anymore.
A lot of times these individuals just commit another crime so they can go back to being locked up because that's all they know how to be.

Yes, what happened to you is so not normal that it's shocking and in the news and a lot of people see it as a bad thing. To YOU some of this life you were living actually became YOUR NORMAL, yet a part of you did not want others to see that, yes, that is embarrassing and you know it was not right.

Take this as a blessing in that you have a chance now to get help, get away from that kind of life and find your way towards finally learning how to live your life "safer and more normal", and that will take some time and therapy.

[Skeezyks]

Hello NP: I'm sorry you had to live through this traumatic experience. Here are links to 3 articles from PsychCentral's archives on the subject of escaping abusive relationships:

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archiv...-relationship/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archiv...-relationship/

https://psychcentral.com/blog/archiv...-relationship/

Also... you may want to consider checking out the National Domestic Violence Hotline:

The National Domestic Violence Hotline | 24/7 Confidential Support

1 (800) 799-7233

I wish you well...

[NP_Complete]

Thank you both. This has been incredibly stressful for me. I'm just trying to figure everything out and make some sense out of it and make sure I'm not completely insane for how I'm feeling about it. I do have a therapist and a DV therapy group I'm attending and I've gotten a lot of support this week, including the forums here.

[Feral-kun]

You are not crazy at all. Unfortunately I have been in relationships like that, so bad that I would hide inside all day with the curtains closed, for fear of the neighbors seeing me. Ultimately I ended up moving to a different state to start over, where the neighbors had no clue who I was.