How do you heal?

I am really struggling these days. How to you heal? How you pretend everything is okay? In a couple of weeks, dd2's school is having an event, both parents have to be there, and i know the right thing to do is to put a smile on my face and be pleasant.

He threatened to put a bullet through my head. he said he would murder DD1 in her sleep. He choked our dog. He smashed and broke their toys, I never knew what would set him off, screaming, swearing, pushing and shoving them. i just watched part of _boyhood_ and the explosions of the stepdad, that was how it was like living with him. my psychologist and therapist friends observed he was a dry alcoholic--he would have the alcoholic rages without the alcohol.

And now...i have to pretend everything is okay and i'm fine.

i know it's the right thing to do--to go and put a brave face (we even have to sit together), but how do you do it? how do you get to a place where it's ok?

I know part of this PTSD thinking is being triggered by the legal writing that has been going on.  I keep thinking and re-thinking—did I do the right thing?  Escalating conflict through an attorney?  Then I think back on the last three months—the refusal to support DD1’s dance, the last two years of neglecting a financial obligation, the potential for a good education for the girls.  It wasn’t a rushed decision.  The co-parenting mediator even used the words “passive-aggressive” to describe him.

I have to find comfort that I’m doing the right thing, even though I feel scared. 

My friend offered me a book called _Healing is a Choice_.  It’s about forgiveness, but not forgetting, and finding a means to heal so your life is not consumed by the actions of the past.

Some days I’m really good at this.  Other days, like today, not so much. 

I guess I can only keep on swimming.