Picking Up the Pieces of Things Lost in the Divorce: Battlestar Galactica

One of the fallouts of the divorce was losing the things that I shared with the ex. Things that he appropriated and then tried to own them, and share them with his mistress. It took years for me to regain these things, to be able to partake in these things without getting overwhelmed with negative triggers. One of these days I will spend some time retracing the steps of his manipulation. 

One of these things was the show Battlestar Galactica. The ex and I had a shared enjoyment of sci-fi, but we came to it from different disciplines. I started watching Battlestar Galactica when the reboot premiered on SciFi channel (before they changed their name to SyFy, I can go on about how much I hate that change some other time).

 

This was 2003. I watched the SciFi channel a lot more than he did, and there were shows that I used to record on my TiVO to watch when I would be home from deployment or in between workups. This period marked my final years at sea, he was on shore duty at the time. Unfortunately I was away at sea more than I was at home, so it wasn’t until several years later that I was able to get caught up. 

 

One of the unfortunate things I regret about the marriage was that I put up with his abusive behavior for far longer than I should have. It has taken me every one of the years after the divorce to regain my self-confidence and self-esteem. I doubted everything about myself, including my own judgement regarding his emotional and psychological abusive treatment. 

 

The thing I am the most angry about is that I allowed him to steal the joy from the very things that I enjoyed. I know it was all part of the abuse. But I am still pissed off about it. When watching Battlestar Galactica he would comment on the women on the show. Making a point to make comments about their attractiveness, sexual comments. He was a textbook case abuser, so I won’t beat that point to death in this post. The point is that he did his best to take everything that was me, everything I enjoyed and then he turned it against me.

 

The one thing that was true in that marriage is that he catalogued everything about me. I went into the marriage wholeheartedly, and I did not realize that I was sleeping with the enemy until it was too late. So from the beginning I gave away all my secrets. I let him into my confidence. He set himself up as my best friend and then used all of that information against me to manipulate me for over a decade. 

 

Everything that we used to enjoy, everything that I shared with him became a trigger later on. Especially things I used for entertainment or for escape. Such as books and television shows and movies. Battlestar Galactica was one of those things. It took me years to be able to watch it again after the divorce. I say all of this because it is now 7 years later since I broke free and I have been watching the show again in the midst of the stay at home orders thanks to COVID19. 

 

This is the first time I have watched any of the episodes and movies and miniseries and not been triggered. I had tried in the past when I was in the apartment and it was a failed experiment.

 

I got the urge to watch it again recently, especially when I stumbled upon an article that the SYFY channel was re-airing all the episodes in a marathon. I sought out the mini-series first and it was a glorious experience. I watched it through once, and all the feelings that used to overwhelm me when I would try to watch the show didn’t rise up. I watched it again, then I watched the series, and all the movies that came after. I was free. 

 

And it may not seem like a big deal. It’s just a TV show. But one of the things that drew me to the program was it’s military-esque realism. They use many of the terms and lingo that I learned while in the Navy. It is a fleet in space instead of on water. And when I couldn’t watch the show, I felt like that bastard had taken another thing about me and weaponized it against me.  

 

2020 may be a shit show of a year, and it may take ages before life becomes something like what we had. But I am rejoicing in this small victory. I have regained a piece of me.