Le Dervishe has held out longer than I predicted, but is sitting quietly on my lap looking sleepy. I had to corral him to keep him from tormenting his brother and sister, and this will be my only chance to type this evening, so we'll see how far I get.

Since I fought another successful battle of the mind today, perhaps it is (finally!) time to get around to this part. I went to post it over two months ago, but the computer ate it, and I just haven't tried to cover the same ground again until now.

I have mentioned before how, just when MC started to stagnate, that my recovery began to fray around the edges, but by sometime in October it was starting to show serious cracks. I just didn't understand why. AJ was still doing everything he could and should, I wasn't sick from the PG anymore, life was going well, but my brain was like a black hole, devouring itself on the inside.

By late October, it had gotten so bad I couldn't even pray, at least not with any success. Through the whole ordeal, I had knelt for hours, wrestling with the Angel, demanding a blessing, and asking that the powers of darkness be rebuked. And they were, I could sometimes see it happen before my eyes, as AJ would (ever so briefly) show a little hint of sanity, such as when he realized how his leaving would devastate the children right after I began to pray that he would think of them.

But then my wound was so great that I wasn't capable of the same deep communication I had gotten used to. I would start out my prayers in every spare moment, like always, but they would immediately go off track, and no matter how hard I tried to focus, I couldn't do it.

"Dear Father in heaven, thank you that I can come before you today and pray for my family and my husband. Please forgive us for our sins, especially AJ. I can't believe what he did. There was that time I was so sick, home with the kids, throwing up, crying at the computer while I clicked Refresh over and over till I saw that he had taken her out to breakfast at Perko's. Well, of course she was with him - he didn't eat $30 worth of breakfast himself! Oh, right. Forgive us for our sins, and cover us with the blood of Jesus. But that still wasn't as bad as the time he screwed both of us in the same night. I wonder if there were any other times he did that? No wonder he wanted to take a shower when he got home. That grosses me out! Imagine, going right from her to me like that! Yuck! Oh, oops, you're still there, God. Yes, well anyway, please send your Holy Spirit to us. You know all the trouble I'm having right now, and how hard it is to pray. Every time I start, I just end up thinking of all the awful things he did, like that night at the hospital where he drove all the way up here, wouldn't hear of me going with him, then called her and had her meet him in the ER. Boy, was that awful. At least the nurse was just as embarrassed as I was, and I bet they all glared at him good after I got done. But how nasty. He won't even talk to his own wife, but SHE gets to go with him to the emergency room. His "lady friend", the nurse said, when it should have been his wife!!! Oooooh, that makes me so mad! Almost as mad as when I found her drunk in his hotel room. No, no, no. Holy Spirit! I was praying, that's right..."

And so on, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.

All day long, every spare moment, my prayers continually diverted into a grievance stirring, and there was nothing - NOTHING - I could do. I tried praying harder, reading more encouraging texts, but even then my mind would wander dreadfully.

If it weren't for Still Seeking, that's probably where my recovery story would still be now.