Easy Silence

Easy silence that you make for me
It’s okay when there’s nothing more to say to me
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
 
On our drive to the anything-but-quiet Vegas Market furniture show, I rediscovered the song Easy Silence by the Dixie Chicks.
 
I turned to Scott and said, “this is how I feel about you.”  Before our separation, I wouldn’t have been able to pinpoint this one particular aspect of our relationship because for 18 years, I didn’t know what the opposite felt like.  I thought all relationships came with easy silence.
 
We can literally go anywhere together and there’s a natural sense of ease. Conversations are easy. Laughter is easy. Silence is easy.
 
When you endure emotional and verbal abuse, you likely get punished with silence. It’s one of the universal tactics that hurts the most. You don’t quite know what you did to set him off, and most times, the initial way he’ll punish is with silence.  There’s no talking about what happened. There’s only silence and stomping out, at first. Then, either the I’ve-come-back-to-yell-at you-yelling begins or a barrage of angry texts pummels you until you are all out of tears and strength.
 
Even now—a year after I climbed out of the trenches—there are times I find myself triggered when I wrongly perceive Scott is being quiet on purpose, which I cognitively know is something he doesn’t do.  He’s not that guy, but still my chest tightens and I hold my breath asking if he’s OK.  He reassures me he is and I exhale. And he hugs me.
 
While my knee-jerk triggered reaction to silence has lessened quite a bit, it still hasn’t completely evaporated. Apparently, it takes time to heal from narcissistic/sociopathic abuse.
 
Shannon Thomas, author of Healing from Hidden Abuse, says “leaving a relationship with a narcissist sociopath or psychopath is never going to follow the traditional recovery time for a breakup. Often a survivor of a toxic relationship will question why it takes so long for them to heal and feel whole again. It takes much longer than a normal break up because recovery from psychological abuse involves completely rebuilding self-worth, restoring normal adrenaline levels, and finding an inner strength not previously know.  All of that takes time.”
 
Scott helped create an easy silence for me—one I will never take for granted. And one that I know in the not too distant future, I will never question.
 
Can you hear that? It’s beautiful silence.
 
And the peaceful quiet you create for me
And the way you keep the world at bay for me
​
 
P.S. I wrote this in the car on the way back from Vegas in the silence of the drive.  When I read it to him, he teared up and said he didn’t fully realize why I had been asking him if he was OK when he was quiet.
 
P.S.S.  About 5 minutes later, we were laughing and singing the song “Jump” by the Pointer Sisters.  I love this man.