This Is What Escaping Anger Looks Like: Bargaining!

A sample from Book 6

You freaking bargain your way out of it! With a vengeance. Everyone will bargain differently. The following is from the Introduction of my 6th Book in My 12-Book Series. The Bargaining stage! In this book I will show you what the bargaining stage looks like. The fight is real! And you are not just up against your anger, but up against everything else around you!

“In her article ‘The 5 Stages of Loss and Grief,’ Julie Axelrod writes―

Bargaining: The normal reaction to feelings of helplessness and vulnerability is often a need to regain control…Secretly, we may make a deal with God or our higher power in an attempt to postpone the inevitable. This is a weaker line of defense to protect us from the painful reality. The grieving spouse makes deals as well. They blame themselves for the failed marriage. They promise everyone they will change, be a better person. They throw themselves in a new relationship to mask their hurt. They pretend to be happy so that others will want to be around them. They pretend nothing bothers them, that they wanted their marriage to end way before, that their spouse did them a favor. The lies cover their painful reality which they, themselves, try to deny.

To put it lightly: I was out of control for a while. This book covers the basic survival mode when it comes to being a woman forced into a place she never intended, nor dreamed, she’d every go.

It’s the year 2013 and this collection is about the emotions I experienced as a woman, in the darkness, when it came to rebooting the heart: ie—the shut down of the woman inside of us during the stages of abuse, the awakening of our sexual self immediately following the explosion leading to the renewed awakening of our inner womanhood and discovering that we can love again.

Something in me woke up deep inside when the darkness fell upon me.Of course, during that time, I couldn’t focus on much of anything except for one: The human condition. Call it a revelation, spiritual insight, whatever…I can’t explain it exactly, but it was real and it happened.

As you’ve read in my previous books, before 2011, I pretty much stayed to myself, burying myself in pretty much whatever I could. After the gates of hell opened, things changed. The only thing I could do was talk to people. And talk I did.

The things God was putting before my eyes was, at times, unnerving, as you probably noticed in my previous book, but, at the same time, all of it was exciting. I felt so naive during this time. I didn’t realize how blind I had become to the outside world. And I wrote about all of it! As I said before in my previous books, I had not one clue to why I was writing all the things I did, but I wrote, no matter how sad, how miserable, how lost I was: I wrote!

I see now the why of it, of course. At times, during these beginning years of my journey, I thought I really lost my mind. I really did. I was cold. I felt nothing and, at the same time, everything. People were talking but I wasn’t listening. When I finally got to that place where I could actually focus and comprehend deep thought again, I began to understand. I didn’t lose my mind. I was following what some refer to as the protocol of surviving not only abuse, but also divorce in general, when the woman is not at fault.

This book is about fighting the emptiness in heart, as well as, the continuous of rediscovering the woman that was buried for so long. This year is my Bargaining stage of the five stages of loss and grief. And I did a lot of it! This is the shortest of all the books in this series for good reason. I worked. I struggled. I was doing. Getting my fucking life back! It wasn’t easy. Rediscovering yourself isn’t easy.

Our sexuality is a major part of that rediscovery. There’s no getting around it. I bargained my way through denial with people. That may sound cold but it is what it is. When we bargain, we use many things to replace our reality. It’s all the same whether it is people, drugs, sex, booze…the outcome is the same: We deny.

During this particular part of my journey, I’ve learned that it’s easy to buy into the notion that a woman has the power to learn how to have sex like a man (as I learned really well in the previous book), and once she learns that, she can be just like her x: Cold, selfish, emotionless. It’s an illusion. It’s the bargaining of self, thinking if you can be this way than you won’t have to experience that or this. It’s almost like an experimentation thing. For me, I had to learn the truth about myself. I questioned the sexuality in myself and [x] for years in our marriage. Many, many reasons, actions, etc., led me to these questions. All justifiable.

During this period in my life, I was given the opportunity to explore this truth. And I did. I learned I’m not gay. That was reassuring because if you’ve been in that constant argument with yourself about your’s and your x’s sexuality then how can you move forward and get into another relationship if you don’t know.

I, personally, had to get pass that one particular question before I could move on to anything else. After that self-discovery and learning the truth about myself, my heart began to feel something. It wasn’t love, but it was something. That was a serious turning point in the year 2013. I didn’t act on it. In fact, I abandoned the chance at a relationship at that time because I just wasn’t ready. I can assure you, finding out you can actually feel some type of love again is sincerely welcoming news, but…but (there’s always a but) it is not easy, and it doesn’t come quick. For me, love wouldn’t show its full face until the year 2015.

In 2013, at least, I was learning to feel again, and that was something! And this isn’t because love isn’t out there; instead, it’s because you close your heart up so tight (without wanting to) after the darkness fearing a repeat of the past. The one serious lesson I learned was the ability to let go. No, that doesn’t come easy either, and the Bargaining Stage, which does show its face during the Anger Stage, isn’t the hardest stage. Sorry. I know that’s bad news, but you didn’t come here to have shit sugarcoated. You won’t be disappointed.

The Bargaining Stage is a mask. Once you learn to let go, the next stage reveals the depths of its ugly face: Depression…the saddest stage to enter. You have to face the fact that you are beautiful outside and inside. During the Anger and Bargaining stages, you are fucking beautiful. You come to seriously know this and you want the world to know you are beautiful. In your mind, you are screaming: Fuck the x, fuck the family, fuck the friends…I’m beautiful, baby, and I will flaunt it!

That’s my entire bargaining self in the years 2012 and 2013. Bargaining. You refuse to look inside. You are denying your reality. It works…for your present reality. You’d do anything to live in the moment because you don’t want to face the tragedy of what’s happened to you. It’s easier to deny. Enjoy the ride.

Reality will come and slap you upside the head with a vengeance. You will plumage down again. You won’t have a choice. I assure you. You won’t. Here’s some advice: Work. Keep yourself as busy as possible. Exercise. Get as much of it as possible. You are building a new you. Make it count.

There’s not one single answer in drugs, booze, sex. Not one. Sorry. You won’t find a damn thing in those things, even though you are going to thoroughly enjoy them during this stage. You have to learn to love you!

Absent of all the things that help you deny you. The whole purpose of my story is to help you get through this grieving process as quickly as possible, and with as little damage as possible. You have a goal: You are making your way to love. Not just love of self, but love of another. You are not going to remain alone. Be like me: Refuse that shit. You deserve love….”

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Paperback: The Silent Abuse Survivor’s Guide…Fighting Anger…Bargaining Self Into Sanity Book 6

Kindle: The Silent Abuse Survivor’s Guide…Fighting Anger…Bargaining Self Into Sanity Book 6