Timeline 2015 – Present

I should have used a picture of some of the tomatoes I grew in 2015. Shortly after my husband died, I got it into my head that I needed to grow something. Tomatoes were one item I grew. Where I am standing in the picture, later on in the year had a line of pots with tomato plants in them. It was good therapy for me as there was so much to do after my husband died. 2015 is a blur; it went quicker than I thought it would. In some ways it was the calm before the storm. There was a lot of stress, apart from dealing with my husband’s funeral and his estate; I was slowly starting to see the truth about him.

New place to live and new haircut. My son and I had moved back to where my in-laws were living and where my eldest son was going to university. Moving back to an area that I had looked forward to leaving was incredibly difficult. It still is difficult living here. More so since I have faced the truth about the relationship I had with my husband.

My son took this picture of me one day when we had gone out for a walk. It sums up how I was feeling, lonely, isolated, with thoughts of suicide constantly running through my head. How I survived 2019 is a miracle, but with my son’s support I did. No child should ever have to go to bed thinking if their parent would still be alive in the morning. But that is exactly what my son did and sometimes does to this day.

There was so much turmoil going through me when this picture was taken. In the depths of a pandemic, the likes of which the world hasn’t seen since the Spanish Flu, trying to figure out a way forward, living a new way of life. Or was it, self-isolating, wearing a mask, keeping my distance, no hugs and living in a virtual world? It sounds like the life I had before the pandemic hit. Self-isolating, that has been by choice; I am battered and bruised to the point where there are times when I don’t want to have anything to do with anyone. There are the physical masks that we wear, but for years I have been hiding behind my invisible mask. The masks that I know I am wearing in all the pictures. Yes, it is easier to keep your distance; you don’t get hurt that way. Words and actions do hurt and I have found it easier to keep my distance from most people. There are the phony hugs and the real hugs and I have had enough phony hugs over the years that I haven’t missed being hugged. As for living in a virtual world, there is something safe about it, in many ways it is a way of rebuilding your confidence as you start to get out into the world again.

Looking back at the photographs I find it incredible at how far camera technology has come. The first pictures back in 1988 through to the ones in 2002 were taken with a 35mm camera. From then on it was a digital camera; some were even taken with phone cameras. Then there is this one, my version of a selfie taken with my computer webcam. However no matter what type of camera took the picture, they all tell the same story, you can’t just by looking at me tell that I was in an abusive relationship. Nor in the pictures from 2015 can you tell how much mental pain I am in. The crippling anxiety I suffer, the flashbacks that can occur at anytime and the lack of belief I have in myself. All these are the result of the years of abuse, yet you can’t tell just by looking at me.

While this may be the last picture in this timeline for the moment I hope to add more and ones that do have more positive captions to go with the pictures.