The husband had been low since last weekend. I didn’t have a clear idea if why. He’d been on his room quite a lot and there’d not been a lot of time to speak.

When he came downstairs yesterday afternoon I asked him what was upsetting him. He was impatient and thought that I should just know. He then listed a few things, some of which I knew, some I didn’t.

I could feel the anxiety crawling around my brain and my body, a migraine threatened, so I took some preemptive medication.

The conversation was mostly about how he feels controlled by my communication requirements. I say to him that we could do what we’ve always done and we will get the same results – that is he can talk for hours without a break, or shout, or whatever, and I will have some kind of meltdown as a matter of certainty.

I do not know how we get past this.

While he was talking yesterday, I made sure that I had little breaks to the loo or to make coffee, I say on the floor and pushed my hands into the wood to help me feel grounded and stave off shutdown, and I played with a new bracelet I had that had an interesting feel to it.

At one point he seemed to be saying that he was attracted to masculinity and that I wasn’t masculine any more. But then he said that my idea of expressing my femininity is wearing pink. Then he said that I’d got upset that he wasn’t as masculine as I be wanted him to be. There is truth there, I was upset when he started wearing some less traditionally masculine clothes – I felt a little threatened by it, I suppose.

I cannot remember how it came to pass, but he asked me something and I said “you hurt me.” I do not remember what he asked, but then he started to press me for what ways he’d hurt me.

My throat constricted and I wanted to retreat deep into myself. I pushed my hands into the floor and breathed.

He was very insistent. I’d “planted a seed”that would gnaw at him.

“Please don’t matter me go there.” I pleaded, but he wouldn’t let it go.

I asked whether I could just bullet point things, I don’t think I got an answer, but I was only half present.

So I listed some of the ways in which he’d hurt me – traumatised me – time and again.

What was worse was I could see in my minds eye how he looked in those moments, his pupils fixed and his face distorted in rage.

I remember saying that there were three things that made it impossible for me to sound anger: my father’s unpredictable anger, an inability to differentiate between anger, aggression, and assertiveness (sometimes), and his rages and the things he’d done and said when in them.

I tried to separate the man I love from the, well, in my head I said monster, but I know didn’t use that word, although I don’t know what word I did use.

How was I able to separate this – abuser – from the good, kind, loving man? The things he said and did would only happen during a PTSD/bipolar episode. He isn’t responsible for them, I cannot hold him to account. I put these things in a compartment in my mind, behind a door. But I know that this door isn’t locked, as much as I might wish that it was, and the memories creep out and haunt me still. They do affect my thoughts, feelings, and therefore my actions.

I punished the “well” version of my husband for the things the “sick” version did.

I complain that he cannot let of the past, yet as I write here, I realise that I cannot either. I wish I could command my brain to erase it.

He kept talking. I’m said that I couldn’t talk any more.

I wanted to hide under the duvet, but I couldn’t move for a while.

I forced myself to stay downstairs. I should have gone to bed because all I could feel was the horror of that face of rage.

We watched some telly, but I went to bed early because I could not stand to be around him.

I took some beta-blockers to try to calm myself.

I went off to sleep after an hour, perhaps, as I was tired. But I woke at around 3am and drifted in and out of sleep, those pin-prick eyes and murderous face drifting in and out of my vision.

I’m bloody knackered this morning.

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Something I learnt while I was driving to my dad’s: I was on the motorway a car pulled out in front of me, I had this feeling of electricity in my hands and body. Sometimes I experience fear as pain. Is that common? Do other people have that too?