Divorce Didn’t Kill the Abuse - It Just Gave It Wings

From Courtroom Files to Nightmare Replay - Why “Divorced and Free” Is a Sick Joke

Let me say this loud and clear: Abuse doesn’t stop just because the divorce papers are signed. I’m closing in on my second anniversary of the damn thing being final, and the bullshit is still hitting as hard and as often as it did back then.

Once the divorce is done, you’re not some familiar face hanging around the courthouse anymore. All the forms are filled out, filed away, the court order is in place, and now you’re just another file number in the system, buried under hundreds of thousands of others getting processed every year.

But our abusers don’t give a shit, they keep strutting like nothing happened. Through whatever bullshit communication channel the judge picked, they double down on their narcissistic crap.

I get nonstop threats. Threats to call child services, and the latest gem: him bragging he contacted Substack to shut down my blog for “violations.”

The relationship’s dead and buried, but his control freak addiction is raging harder than ever.

Since I booted his ass out, I’ve battled through my trauma, fought like hell, and built real strength. I’ve scraped my way to some wins, and this is just the kickoff to the fat career I’m building.

So, my dreams? They’re a fucking warzone, clashing the nightmare of my traumatic past against the peace I’ve scraped into my present and future. Not every night, but damn sure on the ones those emails hit, my brain drags me back to the black hole, forcing me to fight my way out.

Nearly eight years since I escaped that cult nightmare and four since I dumped my ex-husband’s toxic ass, and my dreams are still straight-up haunted. Anxiety’s dialed up to max, blood pressure’s spiking like crazy, and every damn gust of wind or creaky floorboard sends me diving under the covers, heart pounding like the goddamn monster from my childhood storybooks is about to lunge out from under the bed. I’m locked in that freeze trauma response way more than you readers and followers probably realize, paralyzed, stuck, while the world keeps spinning.

It doesn’t grip me as long as it used to, that exhausting freeze survival mode shit, but it still crashes in like an uninvited motherfucker. No matter how hard or far I sprint, he’s right there on my heels, spewing his same old threatening abuse. That shadow ain’t some harmless ghost, it’s real as fuck, and it’ll snag me if I don’t stay eight goddamn steps ahead, grinding through healing every single day.

Perpetrators get off scot-free, like the justice system’s handing out candy on Christmas morning to some wide-eyed six-year-old kid Santa’s got pegged as an angel.

Meanwhile, us victims? We get dumped a lifetime supply of coal, year after fucking year. Trauma on top of trauma, piling up like a goddamn avalanche. You scrape your way to some healing, and bam, it crashes right back in, knocking you flat.

My abuser’s fucking CONVICTED, and yet… that changes jack shit.

So next time you’re tempted to spout, “You’re divorced and free”, cut the “free” bullshit, because we’re trapped in a nonstop hell where the abuse doesn’t quit; it just ramps the fuck up.

Oh, and to every armchair expert who’s warned me to watch out for my Prozac and Ativan? Fuck that noise, let me spell it out: the straight-up miracle of modern science has saved my ass through countless freeze-fueled nights where all I craved was curling into a tight ball, chanting to myself that the goddamn ghost isn’t real.

Because, yeah, nothing says “healing” like popping a pill to outrun the shadows - thanks, science, for being the real MVP while the system plays favorites with the monsters. Watch me rise anyway, you jealous fucks; my empire’s just getting started.