I woke scared. Every day and every night

It’s not until you escape that you realise how bad it was.

When you are in constant fear you somehow just don’t realise it. You get used to the sinking feeling in your stomach, or to the racing heart, or to the cold sweats. You get used to it to be able to cope.

And that’s how I lived for at least the last 8 months, probably even 2 years. It’s that bad that I can’t even remember clearly how long.

When your partner has a drinking problem it’s bad enough. But when that drinking problem follows the pattern that my girlfriend’s did, it’s terrifying.

That’s how I have been for so long I can’t even remember — terrified.

I used to wish my girlfriend had a ‘normal’ drinking problem. The kind that makes you drink regularly, be in a constant state of inebriation. At least then I could have predicted it and I would have known how to deal with it.

But her problem was literally a drink driving problem — she would buy a bottle of vodka or whiskey and drink it in the car. Drink all of it in the car. While driving. In 10 or 15 minutes. On the way home from work. Or on the way to the shops. Even when she had her children in the car.

And she wouldn’t do it every day. It used to be infrequent, maybe once a week or two. Even for periods of three months she claimed to be off it. But always it would come back. And as time went on it got worse. By the point we split she was up to doing it every two or three days. The infrequency made everything even more terrifying for me, was I getting the amazing smart beautiful girl I fell in love with or was I getting the abusive drunk who couldn’t see the danger she was putting herself and everyone else in.

People describe ‘walking on eggshells’, but this was more like navigating a minefield. That moment I realised she was drunk I could feel my strength draining from me.

And yet I loved her and still do. I tried so hard to help her.

I lived every argument in bright vivid technicolor reality. I can’t get the images out of my head. I wake constantly with them still. I remember every word she spat, every punch she threw, every threat she made. They all burned into my heart.

She wasn’t present during our arguments. Her body was there. Her voice was there. But she wasn’t. The girl I fell in love with wasn’t there.

When she was sober she wanted my help, she told me to ignore anything she had said when drunk, she claimed she blacked out before the bottle shop, and never remembered any of the arguments. She never wanted to hear how she had behaved, she told me she knew she had done horrible things but didn’t want me rubbing her face in it. So I don’t think she ever knew. I don’t think she knows even now. Or at least doesn’t know the truth.

Night after night I would have nightmares, cold sweats, would wake up screaming inside my head. Every day I would wake up more tired than I went to sleep. I started sleeping in the afternoon to catch up, it was the only time I didn’t have nightmares.

She would ask how I slept, and I always said ‘not so good’ or ‘action packed dreams’ … what I wanted to say was “I’m terrified” but I held my tongue.

The intermittent nature of it meant there was no trigger I could identify. Was it work? Was it her fitness? Was it me? Was it her ex? Was it the court case?

So I stayed quiet. I did everything I could to not be the trigger for it. I shrank and shrank and shrank.

And I finally thought, really thought, I had convinced her to get help. This would be the tenth or fifteenth or maybe more time she had said she would. But I really believed it this time.

And I stupidly hoped again. I really hoped. I had been dashed on the rocks so many times. Crushed over and over.

But this time would be different.

And it was. It really was. At least I hope it was.

But the arguments shifted now.

As with all alcoholics, she lied.

She lied constantly about stuff that didn’t matter. None of it mattered. I would have forgiven her anything had she been truthful.

And the lies, and the mistrust sparked arguments.

Only two arguments.

The last got out of hand. I was broken. Totally broken. And all my strength was being used to hold myself together and not to disintegrate into a million pieces.

When I found she had been keeping a secret bank account and withdrawing money from our shared funds it felt like everything I had hoped for was gone. I had put everything into trying to help her through this recovery period, and I had nothing left.

And the argument got out of control. I said lots of things I regret. And that argument ended it.

And still I love her. And still I love the children.

And I’m still terrified. I still wake screaming. I still wake with cold sweats. And hallucinations.

I live through all the arguments we had every night in my dreams.

I live through all the fears I had. Of getting that phone call one night to tell me her car was in a ditch, or that the children had been killed, or that she had been killed.

And now too many of my thoughts involve killing myself. Because I can’t help her. I can’t protect the children.

And I can’t live with the ticking time bomb that someone I love is going to die, and I can’t do anything to stop it.