Paolo and I in 2006 before the heart crisis!
“Paolo, where are we going? I thought we were staying in Rome?” I asked. "Francesca I am bringing you to your little town", as he thought of Spoleto being a true born and raised Roman.
We arrived at the Hotel Aurora and unpacked. He stayed with us a few days to help get settled down. Paolo and I had a quick chance to get reacquainted after this long separation of 14 months...
I arrived here so deathly sick not knowing a thing. The first quaint apartment I found, I signed a six month lease. My tourist visa was only for 3 months but what did I care...
What did I care? My mind was set on being alive at any moment since my suicidal thoughts were the one consistent and stable thing in my life. I still had not made friends with my heart for betraying me… nit with love but with illness, strokes, VTAC and actual pain. I referred to “this heart”…”the heart”, but not “my heart” as I was still mad at this heart from birth that caused me so many problems.
I had asked the doctors in the USA to put me away and let my sisters take Nia. They insisted I was not crazy. That I felt crazy but I did not display outward any crazy behavior. I begged to differ but since they have the degrees, what did I know…
Nia was 6 and I was scared. I knew I HAD to leave my life in the USA, if there was any chance of surviving. What I was out running I did not know… but I sure found out in the first 6 months in Spoleto.
Within 5 days we had our 1st apartment and I started my escape from reality. I stocked our little apartment with food and threw all our clothes on the floor. For the next 3 years we lived this way. We would dig through terrible wrinkled clean clothes and throw the dirty one in a different pile. It really was the best I could do.
Paolo, stayed by my side coming up from Rome as the drama with my unconscious started playing out. He saw I had changed. Something was dreadfully different with me… but I was supported and loved the same by Paolo.
We three survived my 1st six months in Italy as my body against my will forced upon me to enter into submission. I finally through my hands up and said,
“FINE, DESTROY ME IF YOU NEED TOO! But let’s get on with this! I will not fight you anymore. You can make me suffer all you want… I will remember what I do not remember. I will bleed it out every night like a torture sentence being forced to participate in these ongoing horror films where I are the lead actress having to save everyone from dying!”
It was 6 months straight of recovering lost memories where prior years “body memory flash backs” turned into “night terror recall” of all I actually had seen or known of violence. It was 6 months of pure hell of sheer desperation. I made friends with anyone who wanted to be my friend in this little quiet Umbrian village of Spoleto…
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