03/31/98
05/11/98
Graduation
Saturday, August 15, 2009
Tuesday, August 4, 2009
Panic
I'm sitting at my desk working away when it hits me. My breath catches in my chest and suddenly I am very warm. My chest hurts. So bad that for a moment I wonder if I'm having a heart attack.
I get up, go to the elevators, outside for air. I sit on the bench, it is warm outside, almost too warm to make me feel better. I stare at the ants scurrying around on the ground. My eyesight goes fuzzy. Suddenly I realize I'm not breathing....
I get up. Walking, walking will make it feel better. We are now a good 10 minutes in and I still feel like my chest is about to explode. One walk around the block and I'm starting to feel a little better. I head back to my desk.
I begin to work again but the dull ache is still there. I take my pulse... 107... is that high? Low? I don't know. All I know is it hurts. It hurts to breathe and I can feel every beat my heart makes. 45 minutes and counting....
No rhyme, no reason... welcome to my world....
I get up, go to the elevators, outside for air. I sit on the bench, it is warm outside, almost too warm to make me feel better. I stare at the ants scurrying around on the ground. My eyesight goes fuzzy. Suddenly I realize I'm not breathing....
I get up. Walking, walking will make it feel better. We are now a good 10 minutes in and I still feel like my chest is about to explode. One walk around the block and I'm starting to feel a little better. I head back to my desk.
I begin to work again but the dull ache is still there. I take my pulse... 107... is that high? Low? I don't know. All I know is it hurts. It hurts to breathe and I can feel every beat my heart makes. 45 minutes and counting....
No rhyme, no reason... welcome to my world....
Sunday, August 2, 2009
Saturday, August 1, 2009
The Early Days
I'm going to Link to some of the posts I put up awhile ago about how DH and I first started out. I'm also going to go back and put some of the new ones in order. When I started this blog I tried to keep things in cronological order and it kind of got all jumbled up so I'm going to try to bring it back to the standard blog format I put up here.
Sorry for the confusion.... now you know what it is like to live inside my head. :-)
Loss of a Pet
10/05/1996
10/06/1996
10/07/1996
And the Walls Come Tumbling Down...
11/12/1996
Sorry for the confusion.... now you know what it is like to live inside my head. :-)
Loss of a Pet
10/05/1996
10/06/1996
10/07/1996
And the Walls Come Tumbling Down...
11/12/1996
Haunted
This month has, by far been one of my worst in all of this. When I started telling my story back at the end of May I started digging up a lot of old demons. For the most part I was able to keep them under control by coming here. I was here, I was writing and when I was upset I would pour it out here.
My whole goal in all of this is to eventually have it all written down here so that it can stop playing over and over in my head like a bad home movie. And for a month or so that was working really well. Then my sister was in an accident and suddenly my focus turned to her and not to here.
And it got bad.
.
.
.
Really bad....
.
.
.
Really quickly.
.
.
.
So much so that in the last two weeks I have slept all of very little and eaten all of less. When I am stressed I don't eat. Coping mechanism left over from before I suppose. When I don't eat the voices in my head get worse and my mental state goes downhill relatively rapidly. It's a vicious circle.
The not sleeping thing though, that is new to me. When DH was actively using I didn't sleep but it was because I was up every hour calling him or checking to see if he was still on the couch. When he left I didn't worry so I just slept. Now, I lay there and my mind just races.
I was with M last night and we were discussing this. My need to sleep and eat and process all of this and he asked my why am I not sleeping now if I was sleeping before. And that, my dear friends, is when it finally dawned on me that I stopped sleeping when I stopped writing.
All of that stuff I was pouring out here was instead festering in my head. I am haunted by all of the things that happened and the only way to make them go away is to write them all down here and release them out into the world.
Soo....
Here I am....
.
.
.
Again.....
Trying desperately to make the memories stop haunting me.
My whole goal in all of this is to eventually have it all written down here so that it can stop playing over and over in my head like a bad home movie. And for a month or so that was working really well. Then my sister was in an accident and suddenly my focus turned to her and not to here.
And it got bad.
.
.
.
Really bad....
.
.
.
Really quickly.
.
.
.
So much so that in the last two weeks I have slept all of very little and eaten all of less. When I am stressed I don't eat. Coping mechanism left over from before I suppose. When I don't eat the voices in my head get worse and my mental state goes downhill relatively rapidly. It's a vicious circle.
The not sleeping thing though, that is new to me. When DH was actively using I didn't sleep but it was because I was up every hour calling him or checking to see if he was still on the couch. When he left I didn't worry so I just slept. Now, I lay there and my mind just races.
I was with M last night and we were discussing this. My need to sleep and eat and process all of this and he asked my why am I not sleeping now if I was sleeping before. And that, my dear friends, is when it finally dawned on me that I stopped sleeping when I stopped writing.
All of that stuff I was pouring out here was instead festering in my head. I am haunted by all of the things that happened and the only way to make them go away is to write them all down here and release them out into the world.
Soo....
Here I am....
.
.
.
Again.....
Trying desperately to make the memories stop haunting me.
Monday, July 27, 2009
Video
I stumbled upon this video tonight and I just couldn't look away. It's not the sound so much as it is the story line. My heart stopped, my breath caught in my chest and there it was... various parts of my life, played out like a movie.
I put this video on the sidebar, because I don't want to loose it for awhile but I'm also posting it here because it's a bit bigger. She's not a well known star in the US but this song just hit a place for me.....
Censorship and Sh!t
So I made a mistake again today. Probably one of many. I posted something on my facebook status. A quote from Annie:
Will you sign!.... That's fine!..... The dotted line... Don't whine... You can't decline!... Just sign!... Sign!
At the time it crossed my mind that my SIL might read it. She is still my friend on facebook and I wasn't sure what she would think.
I should have known.
Even knowing all the hell he put me through, even knowing all the danger he put her nephew through, even witnessing some of the physical and mental abuse first hand she still, at the end of the day, sided with her brother. Or at least that's how it felt. Her comment:
Congrats! Hope everyone can be happy and still get along! Were happy for you both!
Happy for both of us?? Really, your asshole brother abandoned his family and you're happy for both of us? At the end of the day she doesn't have any more balls or ability to pick sides and stand up for what is right than her brother does.
And to add icing to my proverbial cake five minutes later her best friend got on and left this gem:
Congrats! 40% to 50% of first marriages end in divorce. Your not alone!
And so I'm torn. In a perfect world we would all be able to get along but as my friend so eloquently pointed out to me tonight when I called her to ask about this, this is not a perfect world. I have to be all or nothing because everything that I say, every mention I have of M, every time I am not with the Munchkin because I am out doing something else is going to be one more thing that one of them can take and try to use to make my life a living hell.
I have this blog. Thank GOD I have this blog but I also have my family blog. The place I started and the place I wanted to go back to when all of dust settled and now I'm not sure I can. They know that place. They have the blog address and the only thing to do would be to move it and start over. I don't want to do that.
So, regrettably I took down the status update on facebook. And whenever he signs the papers, which for the person who asked, yes he is just stalling because he is an ass.... I will unfriend everyone from DH's family. I don't know how else to do it. I want them to be in my life but I also need my space. I need to be able to be myself and not have them looking over my shoulder and judging me.
Why does this seriously have to be this hard? I am NOT into censorship. I want to be able to be open and honest with my life. I want to be able to just be happy and have them leave me alone. Is that too much to ask??
Will you sign!.... That's fine!..... The dotted line... Don't whine... You can't decline!... Just sign!... Sign!
At the time it crossed my mind that my SIL might read it. She is still my friend on facebook and I wasn't sure what she would think.
I should have known.
Even knowing all the hell he put me through, even knowing all the danger he put her nephew through, even witnessing some of the physical and mental abuse first hand she still, at the end of the day, sided with her brother. Or at least that's how it felt. Her comment:
Congrats! Hope everyone can be happy and still get along! Were happy for you both!
Happy for both of us?? Really, your asshole brother abandoned his family and you're happy for both of us? At the end of the day she doesn't have any more balls or ability to pick sides and stand up for what is right than her brother does.
And to add icing to my proverbial cake five minutes later her best friend got on and left this gem:
Congrats! 40% to 50% of first marriages end in divorce. Your not alone!
And so I'm torn. In a perfect world we would all be able to get along but as my friend so eloquently pointed out to me tonight when I called her to ask about this, this is not a perfect world. I have to be all or nothing because everything that I say, every mention I have of M, every time I am not with the Munchkin because I am out doing something else is going to be one more thing that one of them can take and try to use to make my life a living hell.
I have this blog. Thank GOD I have this blog but I also have my family blog. The place I started and the place I wanted to go back to when all of dust settled and now I'm not sure I can. They know that place. They have the blog address and the only thing to do would be to move it and start over. I don't want to do that.
So, regrettably I took down the status update on facebook. And whenever he signs the papers, which for the person who asked, yes he is just stalling because he is an ass.... I will unfriend everyone from DH's family. I don't know how else to do it. I want them to be in my life but I also need my space. I need to be able to be myself and not have them looking over my shoulder and judging me.
Why does this seriously have to be this hard? I am NOT into censorship. I want to be able to be open and honest with my life. I want to be able to just be happy and have them leave me alone. Is that too much to ask??
Sunday, July 26, 2009
Angry
I was surfing the net this evening and I jumped on to Facebook to poke around. There in the corner is a friend suggestion. Facebook thinks you might know DH. You have 3 friends in common. Is there a way to suggest that Facebook kiss my big hairy ass?? Of course I know him and I in no way want to be his friend.
But... morbid curiosity couldn't keep me away so I popped over to his page and imagine my surprise to see pictures of the munchkin on his site. WTF?? There they were, him and the munchikin as if they were just one big happy family.
And at first, it was just a little twinge. Then more of a rage boiled up and before you know it I am crying big heavy wet tears while throwing laundry this way and that.
This morning, I got the news that a friend of mine lost her baby. Full term, I'm not sure of any of the details but she is a good person. An AWESOME mother and this happens to her. She doesn't get to keep her precious daughter and my ex who is for all intents and purposes a looser deadbeat gets to post pictures of his son on Facebook?? What the hell kind of world are we living in??
I just wanted to post on his wall... all caps... I want to scream it out into the world. He was abusive to his wife in front of his son. He LEFT us!! He ran away and left us alone to fend for ourselves so that he could go out and screw random women and get high. For weeks on end when The Munchkin was really little and completely this time.
He is NOT the model father. He is NOT the perfect dad that looks oh so cute in those pictures. Stop ooogling over my son people. He had NO hand in the adorable little boy he is becoming.
He
LEFT
US!!!
Yet then, somehow, I come back to my center. I know I am doing the right thing for my son. I know that anyone who knows the story, knows that what they see there is just a show. He sees him part of one day, I see him the other six and a half. When he is sad or hurt it is me that is there to pick him up.
When he cries out in the night, it is me he calls for. This much I know. And in another year when DH falls, because at this point I feel certain it will be a when not and if, it will be me that will be here to pick him up and show him how much he is loved by everyone else in his life.
But right now, I'm just angry. Why does doing the right thing have to feel so wrong? Why can't DH just sign the stupid divorce papers so that I can feel closure to that part of my life? Why does this journey have to feel like two steps forward and one hard fall on my ass backwards?
But... morbid curiosity couldn't keep me away so I popped over to his page and imagine my surprise to see pictures of the munchkin on his site. WTF?? There they were, him and the munchikin as if they were just one big happy family.
And at first, it was just a little twinge. Then more of a rage boiled up and before you know it I am crying big heavy wet tears while throwing laundry this way and that.
This morning, I got the news that a friend of mine lost her baby. Full term, I'm not sure of any of the details but she is a good person. An AWESOME mother and this happens to her. She doesn't get to keep her precious daughter and my ex who is for all intents and purposes a looser deadbeat gets to post pictures of his son on Facebook?? What the hell kind of world are we living in??
I just wanted to post on his wall... all caps... I want to scream it out into the world. He was abusive to his wife in front of his son. He LEFT us!! He ran away and left us alone to fend for ourselves so that he could go out and screw random women and get high. For weeks on end when The Munchkin was really little and completely this time.
He is NOT the model father. He is NOT the perfect dad that looks oh so cute in those pictures. Stop ooogling over my son people. He had NO hand in the adorable little boy he is becoming.
He
LEFT
US!!!
Yet then, somehow, I come back to my center. I know I am doing the right thing for my son. I know that anyone who knows the story, knows that what they see there is just a show. He sees him part of one day, I see him the other six and a half. When he is sad or hurt it is me that is there to pick him up.
When he cries out in the night, it is me he calls for. This much I know. And in another year when DH falls, because at this point I feel certain it will be a when not and if, it will be me that will be here to pick him up and show him how much he is loved by everyone else in his life.
But right now, I'm just angry. Why does doing the right thing have to feel so wrong? Why can't DH just sign the stupid divorce papers so that I can feel closure to that part of my life? Why does this journey have to feel like two steps forward and one hard fall on my ass backwards?
Wednesday, July 22, 2009
Letting Go and Walking Away
I told M about the BPD. I realize that I haven't been diagnosed but it was eating at me. On our very first date I told him I was crazy. I didn't have a name for it then but I knew something about the way my head worked was different than other people's so this was not really a surprise to him.
His only concern... you aren't going to go all Fatal Attraction on me are you?
You know... it's funny. I've never seen that movie but I'm pretty sure that I have the basic premise. And I can tell you right now, two years ago the answer might have been yes. I look back on what I did to try to keep DH around, chasing him in my car, tracking him down at friends houses, calling him 300 times per hour and I think to myself that shit is pretty F#$%'d up.
Luckily, now I can just laugh and tell him no. Won't be doing that. In fact the conversation we had was completely the opposite of that. I've learned one important thing thus far in this journey.
Nothing I say or do can make someone stay if they don't want to.
So I told him, flat out, if we get to a point where he asks me to leave. I will leave. I will walk away and not come back. No phone calls, no e-mails, no texts. He will know where to find me if he needs me.
He of course didn't believe me, figured there would have to be at least one. There is always one. That one last what happened.
But for me, someone who has been burned SOO badly and someone who spent so many years trying to keep someone around who just wanted to go I honestly don't think there would be.
Done is done in my book. All it ever got me with DH was more pain and more heartache trying to salvage something that one party didn't want.
The only part that worries me about this is I don't want to put up a wall and not let M in simply because I want to be able to walk away. I can't plan for the demise.... but I don't want it to hurt either.... yeah.... might be too late for the second one.....
His only concern... you aren't going to go all Fatal Attraction on me are you?
You know... it's funny. I've never seen that movie but I'm pretty sure that I have the basic premise. And I can tell you right now, two years ago the answer might have been yes. I look back on what I did to try to keep DH around, chasing him in my car, tracking him down at friends houses, calling him 300 times per hour and I think to myself that shit is pretty F#$%'d up.
Luckily, now I can just laugh and tell him no. Won't be doing that. In fact the conversation we had was completely the opposite of that. I've learned one important thing thus far in this journey.
Nothing I say or do can make someone stay if they don't want to.
So I told him, flat out, if we get to a point where he asks me to leave. I will leave. I will walk away and not come back. No phone calls, no e-mails, no texts. He will know where to find me if he needs me.
He of course didn't believe me, figured there would have to be at least one. There is always one. That one last what happened.
But for me, someone who has been burned SOO badly and someone who spent so many years trying to keep someone around who just wanted to go I honestly don't think there would be.
Done is done in my book. All it ever got me with DH was more pain and more heartache trying to salvage something that one party didn't want.
The only part that worries me about this is I don't want to put up a wall and not let M in simply because I want to be able to walk away. I can't plan for the demise.... but I don't want it to hurt either.... yeah.... might be too late for the second one.....
Love or Not?
I've been doing a lot of thinking about DH's and my relationship lately.
For awhile I was sure that I loved him.
Then I was sure I never loved him.
There was a period that I thought perhaps I loved him but just wasn't "in love" with him any more.
Now, I just don't know.
How can it be that hard to know if you love someone or not? How am I ever going to know if I love someone new if I can't even figure this out?
Earlier this week I was back to the I know I loved him once. And somewhere, I think that might have been true. Back when we were both teenagers before all of the anger and the hurt feelings, and bad memories. Way back when, I think I did love him.
But now, the way I feel about him is VERY hard to describe. I talked to him this morning. I loathe talking to him. I loathe seeing him. It makes my skin crawl. Yet, I can't imagine him dating anyone else. And that part is REALLY hard for me to understand.
I certainly don't want him. So the only thing I can figure out is that part of me, somewhere is still so angry at him that I don't want him to be happy. I want him to be alone and miserable so he will understand what it felt like to be me for all of those years.
And I realize that's not healthy. Which is why I'm writing about it here. But there it is. My self diagnosis. I want him to get it... and I'm wasting my energy. Because I don't think he ever will.
For awhile I was sure that I loved him.
Then I was sure I never loved him.
There was a period that I thought perhaps I loved him but just wasn't "in love" with him any more.
Now, I just don't know.
How can it be that hard to know if you love someone or not? How am I ever going to know if I love someone new if I can't even figure this out?
Earlier this week I was back to the I know I loved him once. And somewhere, I think that might have been true. Back when we were both teenagers before all of the anger and the hurt feelings, and bad memories. Way back when, I think I did love him.
But now, the way I feel about him is VERY hard to describe. I talked to him this morning. I loathe talking to him. I loathe seeing him. It makes my skin crawl. Yet, I can't imagine him dating anyone else. And that part is REALLY hard for me to understand.
I certainly don't want him. So the only thing I can figure out is that part of me, somewhere is still so angry at him that I don't want him to be happy. I want him to be alone and miserable so he will understand what it felt like to be me for all of those years.
And I realize that's not healthy. Which is why I'm writing about it here. But there it is. My self diagnosis. I want him to get it... and I'm wasting my energy. Because I don't think he ever will.
Monday, July 20, 2009
I'm Back
I was sitting in a restaurant today and this song came on the radio. I think that at some point, early on in my recovery someone shared this with me but it had sort of gotten lost among all of the other pieces. Then suddenly there it was again and there I was again, right back in that place, sitting in the middle of the restaurant, fighting back tears.
For me, that was the defining moment that told me I needed to be back here.... QUICKLY. Within 2 hours I was back in a deep dark place again struggling to keep my head above water. It was like it all came flooding back.
Somewhere along the way I had convinced myself that I never loved him. That the past 12 years was something I was going to just sweep under the rug as a bad decision. I was wrong. I spent 12 years of my life defining who I was by who he was. I still don't know if I loved him, but I needed him. I won't put all the lyrics out here but I will put the chorus, the one thing that makes me want to scream out to the heavens and pound my fists in anger. The one reason that I felt so certain that I needed to leave:
Cause i don't know who i am, who i am without you
All i know is that i should
And i don't know if i could stand another hand upon you
All i know is that i should
Cause she will love you more than i could
She who dares to stand where i stood
Because him and I together were toxic. Whether we loved each other or not didn't matter. I now know that I can't define myself by someone else. I need to figure out who I am and what I am so that when I decide I am in love with another man it will be because I love him... not because I need him.
Why Do I Go Back?
I know sometimes people question my continued need for Al-anon and are confused as to why I keep attending since DH is gone. I have been thinking about it and I thought I would share this with you so that maybe it would help you understand.
************************************************
From my Courage to Change Al-anon book:
Newcommers are often surprised at the number of years longtime members have been attending Al-anon meetings. They may be even more surprised that some of us have sobriety in our homes, or no longer have any alcoholics in our lives. Why do we keep coming back? For many of us the answer is "serenity."
Sometimes I get impatient, or rebellious, or bored. I go through periods where I see little change in myself, and I begin to doubt. But even after many years of Al-Anon recovery, if I miss too many meetings, things seem to become unmanageable all over again. I have been affected by someone else 's drinking. I don't want to underestimate the lasting impact that alcoholism has had on me. So I keep coming back.
I came to Al-anon for a quick fix for my pain, but I stay because of the consistency, security, and friendship I fine each day. Because of my commitment to my own growth, I am able to handle very difficult situations with a great deal of peace, and the delight in my life continues to exceed my wildest dreams.
Today 's Reminder
I see my recovery as a healthy way of life that I can gladly share with others. Today I am actively pursuing a better life because I am working on myself.
***************************************************
So really, I go because it took me 12 years to get to this place and it might take me 12 years to emerge on the other side. If anyone thinks that my recovery happened when DH moved out they are wrong.
If you were to come to a meeting with me you would see that I don't talk about DH there. I talk about my inability to trust men, my insecurities with certain aspects of my life, etc. All things that may, or may not have existed before DH, but were certainly made worse by 12 years in a bad situation.
I think anyone who gets out of a relationship, friendship, or parent/child relationship with someone with alcoholism is sadly mistaken if they think the baggage goes away. It doesn't. You can only shove it down so far, but if you look, it is still there waiting for you. I go so I can make it go away forever. So when I look down that deep dark hole it is empty not filled with pain.
Still to this day I can not look at a picture of the Munchkin from the first 9 weeks of his life without a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because when I look at them I don't see the memory I see the, DH was missing, DH was off doing this, etc. I want that to stop.
I also still have flashbacks, had one today which is what started me thinking about writing this post. They are fewer and farther between but they are just as real, just as scary and just as much of a reminder of how far I still have to go.
Secondly, I go because now that I am starting to come out on the other side of all of the pain and confusion I am able to help people.
To show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That I have been there, I've been to hell and back and you can get to the other side.
Without longtime people sticking around who would help those who are new to the program? The long time AA people are the ones who help the newcomers, and it is the same in Al-anon.
I said it when I gave my life story and I will say it again here. Al-anon saved my life.
************************************************
From my Courage to Change Al-anon book:
Newcommers are often surprised at the number of years longtime members have been attending Al-anon meetings. They may be even more surprised that some of us have sobriety in our homes, or no longer have any alcoholics in our lives. Why do we keep coming back? For many of us the answer is "serenity."
Sometimes I get impatient, or rebellious, or bored. I go through periods where I see little change in myself, and I begin to doubt. But even after many years of Al-Anon recovery, if I miss too many meetings, things seem to become unmanageable all over again. I have been affected by someone else 's drinking. I don't want to underestimate the lasting impact that alcoholism has had on me. So I keep coming back.
I came to Al-anon for a quick fix for my pain, but I stay because of the consistency, security, and friendship I fine each day. Because of my commitment to my own growth, I am able to handle very difficult situations with a great deal of peace, and the delight in my life continues to exceed my wildest dreams.
Today 's Reminder
I see my recovery as a healthy way of life that I can gladly share with others. Today I am actively pursuing a better life because I am working on myself.
***************************************************
So really, I go because it took me 12 years to get to this place and it might take me 12 years to emerge on the other side. If anyone thinks that my recovery happened when DH moved out they are wrong.
If you were to come to a meeting with me you would see that I don't talk about DH there. I talk about my inability to trust men, my insecurities with certain aspects of my life, etc. All things that may, or may not have existed before DH, but were certainly made worse by 12 years in a bad situation.
I think anyone who gets out of a relationship, friendship, or parent/child relationship with someone with alcoholism is sadly mistaken if they think the baggage goes away. It doesn't. You can only shove it down so far, but if you look, it is still there waiting for you. I go so I can make it go away forever. So when I look down that deep dark hole it is empty not filled with pain.
Still to this day I can not look at a picture of the Munchkin from the first 9 weeks of his life without a sinking feeling in the pit of my stomach because when I look at them I don't see the memory I see the, DH was missing, DH was off doing this, etc. I want that to stop.
I also still have flashbacks, had one today which is what started me thinking about writing this post. They are fewer and farther between but they are just as real, just as scary and just as much of a reminder of how far I still have to go.
Secondly, I go because now that I am starting to come out on the other side of all of the pain and confusion I am able to help people.
To show them that there is a light at the end of the tunnel. That I have been there, I've been to hell and back and you can get to the other side.
Without longtime people sticking around who would help those who are new to the program? The long time AA people are the ones who help the newcomers, and it is the same in Al-anon.
I said it when I gave my life story and I will say it again here. Al-anon saved my life.
Thursday, July 9, 2009
Bump in the Road
My sister was in an accident. My healing must take a back seat right now to hers. When she is well I will return here and continue writing. I just wanted you to know where I have gone.
Wednesday, June 24, 2009
Acceptance
I lead a meeting last night and it finally dawned on me that the reason I've been struggling so much for the past two weeks all comes down to acceptance. In fact a lot of my problems in life have also come down to acceptance.
Accepting a situation for what it is and then deciding what to do about it. It is no more or no less it just is. For a long time I have struggled with food. I have a love/hate relationship with food. For awhile I didn't eat. Now I do but I eat certain things, sometimes LOTS of certain things.
A friend and I tried to do a healthy living challenge and as part of what I was supposed to do she tried to modify my meals. I shut down. I couldn't do it. I simply refused to participate because what I found happening was instead of letting someone control what I was eating I simply didn't eat at all. Which is not going to help me do anything but get more ill.
Yet, if I accept my body for the way it is, the way it will be, just as it is then I can start making some changes to my life without worrying if my body ever changes at all. If it does, great, if it doesn't, fine... I've accepted what it is.
For me, coming here and admitting to you that I may, or may not have had or still do have a mental health issue was the first step. Truly accepting it myself is an entirely different battle. Finally, last night I came to a conclusion.
It changes nothing.
I am no different than I was yesterday because I admit this. My life doesn't change unless I want it to and will never change unless I accept it just as it is first.
Then I found this video and I think more than anything it sums up what I was feeling and helps me to know that once I accept that I'm alright the way I am, I will find happiness whether anything changes or not.
Accepting a situation for what it is and then deciding what to do about it. It is no more or no less it just is. For a long time I have struggled with food. I have a love/hate relationship with food. For awhile I didn't eat. Now I do but I eat certain things, sometimes LOTS of certain things.
A friend and I tried to do a healthy living challenge and as part of what I was supposed to do she tried to modify my meals. I shut down. I couldn't do it. I simply refused to participate because what I found happening was instead of letting someone control what I was eating I simply didn't eat at all. Which is not going to help me do anything but get more ill.
Yet, if I accept my body for the way it is, the way it will be, just as it is then I can start making some changes to my life without worrying if my body ever changes at all. If it does, great, if it doesn't, fine... I've accepted what it is.
For me, coming here and admitting to you that I may, or may not have had or still do have a mental health issue was the first step. Truly accepting it myself is an entirely different battle. Finally, last night I came to a conclusion.
It changes nothing.
I am no different than I was yesterday because I admit this. My life doesn't change unless I want it to and will never change unless I accept it just as it is first.
Then I found this video and I think more than anything it sums up what I was feeling and helps me to know that once I accept that I'm alright the way I am, I will find happiness whether anything changes or not.
Sunday, June 21, 2009
Are you there Internet? It's Me
Hey, anyone out there? So, two weeks ago I put up part two of my story and then I got a comment, something that shut me down and made me take a step back and do some more evaluating of my life.
About two or three months ago on a blog I read a woman posted about having a disorder. A post that hit all to close to home with me. I read it, re-read it and then tried to force it from my mind. Two weeks ago I invited her here. I'm not sure if she was the one who put up the comment I got (maybe others think I'm crazy too) but it was the reminder I needed that I needed to evaluate my life a little more. (As if all of this hasn't been enough.) So I took a break.
What she posted was Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
About two or three months ago on a blog I read a woman posted about having a disorder. A post that hit all to close to home with me. I read it, re-read it and then tried to force it from my mind. Two weeks ago I invited her here. I'm not sure if she was the one who put up the comment I got (maybe others think I'm crazy too) but it was the reminder I needed that I needed to evaluate my life a little more. (As if all of this hasn't been enough.) So I took a break.
What she posted was Borderline Personality Disorder (BPD).
- Frantic efforts to avoid real or imagined abandonment.
- A pattern of unstable and intense interpersonal relationships characterized by alternating between extremes of idealization and devaluation.
- Identity disturbance: markedly and persistently unstable self-image or sense of self.
- Impulsivity in at least two areas that are potentially self-damaging (e.g., ....eating disorders.. )
- Recurrent suicidal behavior, gestures, threats or self-injuring behavior such as cutting, interfering with the healing of scars (excoriation) or picking at oneself.
- Affective instability due to a marked reactivity of mood (e.g., intense episodic dysphoria, irritability or anxiety usually lasting a few hours and only rarely more than a few days).
- Chronic feelings of emptiness, worthlessness.
- Inappropriate anger or difficulty controlling anger (e.g., frequent displays of temper, constant anger, recurrent physical fights).
- Transient, stress-related paranoid ideation, delusions or severe dissociative symptoms
Even now reading that list makes my breath catch in my chest. I am, for those of you who have ever met me in real life, a very large realist. I do not like labels and I do not, EVER want to be sick or be labeled as having ANYTHING. But this thing, I can't run from it.
Those numbers up there, those were me. Up until about two months ago every one of them fit me to a tee. In the reading I have been doing it seems to indicate that people can outgrow these things or learn to manage them. I think that's what Al-anon and this place have done for me. I don't feel empty any more. I don't feel worthless. Last night I climbed out onto my roof and cleaned out my own gutters. I am woman... hear me roar. :-)
But I do have to tell you that almost every day, I self talk. There are days that I barely make it and days that I do much better. I have HORRIBLE... HORRIBLE impulsivity. If I think of something I want or think I need I will just run out and get it or do it. That one I still battle, some days successfully, some days not.
I won't even touch on number 8 because it is a side of me that I loathe. I'm a horrible, horrible angry person. DH may have been the violent one but if he wouldn't have been bigger than me it would have been me. For a LONG time there was such a rage in me that after the Munchkin was born it scared me terribly. That is when I knew I had to get a handle on it. And that is when it changed. Now, he can scream and scream and act horribly in public and it hardly even phases me.
Abandonment is my other crutch. I have more pages to write and more stories to tell but you are going to understand here very shortly that a lot of the reason I stayed in the relationship I did was because it was better than being alone. Because the thought of being alone terrified me more than anything I can ever imagine.
Just recently I started dating again. We are taking things VERY slowly, especially since the divorce is not even final yet, but there are days that I step back and have to give myself a reality check. I NEVER, EVER want to be with someone again simply because I don't want to be alone. I think for me that's why it's so important that we don't see each other every day, or every other day. So that I know that I'm dating him because I like him and not just because I think I need him.
This post has been two weeks in the making. Two weeks worth of wondering if I am strong enough to admit that for awhile I was very ill. For a long while I was just as ill as DH and now, ever so slowly I'm coming out on the other side. I'm taking back my life and I guess for me, admitting that here is kind of freeing.
Hey world... I was crazy... but I'm getting better and if I can do it... ANYONE can do it.!!
The story of M
On the 18th of April I came home from a friends house late on Saturday night. Tax season was over, DH had moved out a month and a half earlier and been in jail for a month at this point having just been released a few days earlier.
I was bored and wide awake and decided to e-mail a friend of her husband's that she had told me about and also to join an Internet dating site. It was just for fun I told myself. Even though I was still in the process of the divorce I figured it would take awhile to meet anyone and as far as I was concerned I had technically been divorced for MUCH longer anyway. DH and I had never recovered from the incident on March 20, 2007 and I had basically been alone since then.
Every night that week I would come home from work and jump on-line to see if anyone had messaged me or to message "eye contacts" to people. On the 22nd, only 4 days after I had started looking I saw M's profile and sent him a note.
He sent me one back and we started sending messages through the site. However, D, my friend's friend, had also begun talking to me. I'm not so great with more than one guy at a time and since D was someone I knew in real life and M was just in the computer I sort of stopped messaging M. On the 25th, I know only 3 days later... what can I say... I have that affect on people..... he sent me a follow up asking if I wanted to keep chatting or not.
Thinking I needed to perhaps not put all my eggs in one basket I gave him my personal e-mail and we e-mailed back and forth for the next couple of days. On the 27th I sent him my last message and he just disappeared.
D was coming to visit me on the 30th so I figured just as well and never really followed up to see where he went. D came and visited me, we chatted one more time on the phone a few days later and then things sort of went South from there. I think the general gyst of it was that my past was a bit too much for him to handle. So on the 5th I sent him one last farewell e-mail.
And because I am a firm believer in fate, on the 6th I went to my personal e-mail and there was a message from M. He had apparently had a problem with his e-mail and was not able to access any messages for a week and a half. So... he didn't know that I hadn't tried to locate him, just that he hadn't been able to e-mail me back.
And the rest, shall we say is history. Shortly after that we exchanged phone numbers but have never once talked on the phone. We text. EVERY day. Never missed a day and never less than 5 - 6 times a day. There was one Saturday we started at 1:00 in the afternoon and I had to stop at 9:00 PM when my phone battery went dead.
We had our first date on May 20th and it lasted until 3:00 AM. It was amazing. I have seen him several times since then and I truly believe he has helped me to realize that I can have and definitely deserve better than what I was putting up with.
I struggle with him whether I'm going too quickly. I'm not divorced yet but at the same time don't feel like DH and I ever really recovered from his infidelity before he left for treatment. I guess for me it comes down to the fact that when I told him I was done I was just DONE. I had done all of my grieving before that point and at that point I was just done, moving on. So for me I feel like all of the time I needed to devote to getting over DH was done before he ever really left and now... now I'm just ready to be happy again.
So, who knows where M and I will go. I'm not in love with him but I could see myself getting there. He has not met the Munchkin and will not meet him until the divorce is final and until he decides that he wants to be in our lives for a lot longer than just awhile. Munchkin already has an absentee father figure. He does not need another one.
For now, I'm just enjoying being with someone who truly lets me be me. He knows everything that has happened and has never shied away from any of it. He treats me like a queen and I gotta tell you after 12 years of being treated like the servant girl it's pretty nice to be brought up out of the dungeon.
I was bored and wide awake and decided to e-mail a friend of her husband's that she had told me about and also to join an Internet dating site. It was just for fun I told myself. Even though I was still in the process of the divorce I figured it would take awhile to meet anyone and as far as I was concerned I had technically been divorced for MUCH longer anyway. DH and I had never recovered from the incident on March 20, 2007 and I had basically been alone since then.
Every night that week I would come home from work and jump on-line to see if anyone had messaged me or to message "eye contacts" to people. On the 22nd, only 4 days after I had started looking I saw M's profile and sent him a note.
He sent me one back and we started sending messages through the site. However, D, my friend's friend, had also begun talking to me. I'm not so great with more than one guy at a time and since D was someone I knew in real life and M was just in the computer I sort of stopped messaging M. On the 25th, I know only 3 days later... what can I say... I have that affect on people..... he sent me a follow up asking if I wanted to keep chatting or not.
Thinking I needed to perhaps not put all my eggs in one basket I gave him my personal e-mail and we e-mailed back and forth for the next couple of days. On the 27th I sent him my last message and he just disappeared.
D was coming to visit me on the 30th so I figured just as well and never really followed up to see where he went. D came and visited me, we chatted one more time on the phone a few days later and then things sort of went South from there. I think the general gyst of it was that my past was a bit too much for him to handle. So on the 5th I sent him one last farewell e-mail.
And because I am a firm believer in fate, on the 6th I went to my personal e-mail and there was a message from M. He had apparently had a problem with his e-mail and was not able to access any messages for a week and a half. So... he didn't know that I hadn't tried to locate him, just that he hadn't been able to e-mail me back.
And the rest, shall we say is history. Shortly after that we exchanged phone numbers but have never once talked on the phone. We text. EVERY day. Never missed a day and never less than 5 - 6 times a day. There was one Saturday we started at 1:00 in the afternoon and I had to stop at 9:00 PM when my phone battery went dead.
We had our first date on May 20th and it lasted until 3:00 AM. It was amazing. I have seen him several times since then and I truly believe he has helped me to realize that I can have and definitely deserve better than what I was putting up with.
I struggle with him whether I'm going too quickly. I'm not divorced yet but at the same time don't feel like DH and I ever really recovered from his infidelity before he left for treatment. I guess for me it comes down to the fact that when I told him I was done I was just DONE. I had done all of my grieving before that point and at that point I was just done, moving on. So for me I feel like all of the time I needed to devote to getting over DH was done before he ever really left and now... now I'm just ready to be happy again.
So, who knows where M and I will go. I'm not in love with him but I could see myself getting there. He has not met the Munchkin and will not meet him until the divorce is final and until he decides that he wants to be in our lives for a lot longer than just awhile. Munchkin already has an absentee father figure. He does not need another one.
For now, I'm just enjoying being with someone who truly lets me be me. He knows everything that has happened and has never shied away from any of it. He treats me like a queen and I gotta tell you after 12 years of being treated like the servant girl it's pretty nice to be brought up out of the dungeon.
Sunday, June 7, 2009
Meeting DH
I'm linking to a series of posts I wrote about this a few months ago. At the time I posted them back in 1996 so I'll link to them here so I don't have to write them all out again.
Could it be?
First Impression
First "Date"
09/08/96
Bonfire
Homecoming
Going Out
09/17/96
Could it be?
First Impression
First "Date"
09/08/96
Bonfire
Homecoming
Going Out
09/17/96
My Story (Pt. 2)
After school started in the fall of 1996 I met the boy who would become my husband and also the alcoholic that brought me to Al-anon. (Yet not for 11 more years) Of course with in a month and a half I was madly in love with him so when I found out that he had been lying to me, using drugs and drinking, I was already so stuck in the things can be changed pattern that I just fell right into trying to help him. I was the 4.0 student who had never been in trouble and he became my “project” although if you would have asked me at the time I would have told you that I stayed with him because I loved him and we were going to make it work. (Coincidentally that is the same answer that I would continue to give for the next 12 1/2 years)
In December he was sent to his first treatment facility and this was the first time in our relationship that I started focusing on sobriety days. My alcoholic was not working a program at the time so I was trying to work one for him. After a couple of months, I realized that his sobriety wasn't really sobriety and our relationship started falling apart. He would do something and I would swear this was the last chance. Next time I would leave. And then the next thing would happen and I would stay. Making some excuse, some reason I couldn't leave.
I even gave up the one thing I had been holding onto all this time just to try to keep him with me but it didn't work. We fought, we broke up, we got back together again, we fought some more, rinse and repeat.
By, my senior year it was time to pick a college. I had always wanted to be a lawyer and had every intention of going to law school but the colleges that I was looking at for my undergrad seemed so far away. I began making choices that would keep me closer to home so that I could hold onto my relationship instead of the choices that were necessarily best for my future.
It was also during my senior year that I started trying to “buy” his love. For some reason I thought if the gift was bigger and better he would love me more. I continued this trend throughout all of our dating years and even into our marriage. Almost nothing was out of reach and the gifts just kept getting more and more expensive and we kept getting more and more into debt.
Meanwhile, through all of this, my diary is filled with thoughts of I can't loose him. I have to do this so he doesn't leave, I need to focus on that. All the while, writing on the next page I can't do this any more. I want to leave but I can't, when is enough enough, etc.
My trying to control him started that first year of our relationship. By some time in college I remember that my controlling went horribly wrong. He moved into an apartment with me and a friend of mine and I was trying to keep him from going out with friends. We got into an argument, I tried to take his keys and it got physical. No punches were thrown but there was plenty of pushing and the police were called. It was a this point that he was charged with his first domestic and he moved out.
Eventually, through some lying on my part, the charges were dropped and within a couple of months we were back together again however we continued to argue and fight and things continued to be somewhat physical. I was willing to let a man do just about anything to me as long as he didn't leave me.
A year or so later we were still together but no longer living together when when I found out I had gotten an STD from him. We broke up again but we never really severed ties. I still spoke to him on the phone once a week and we even tried to rectify our relationship a couple of times. It didn't work and we ended up broken up for the longest stretch in our relationship, about four or five months. During that time, I tried to date other people but inevitably ended up still talking about my alcoholic. Since I was still “in love” with him, sometime in March of the following year we got back together.
At the time I thought he was using but I didn't have anything to prove it so I decided that if I couldn't prove it he must be straight. Instead of trusting my gut instinct I stuffed it down and tried to justify what was in front of me. Until, of course, justification was no longer possible.
I was working as an intern when I got a call from his Grandma. She was very distraught as she told me he had been arrested the previous night. The arrest was a big one and we were pretty convinced that he might have to serve some jail time, especially when there was one more arrest over the summer. Finally, towards the fall it seemed like things started moving in a positive direction. He started working steadily and we decided after I graduated we would move in together. My theory on this was that it was his home life that was making him act the way he was. If I moved in with him then he would be with me and we would be happy and then he would want to stay home instead of going out all the time.
In December he was sent to his first treatment facility and this was the first time in our relationship that I started focusing on sobriety days. My alcoholic was not working a program at the time so I was trying to work one for him. After a couple of months, I realized that his sobriety wasn't really sobriety and our relationship started falling apart. He would do something and I would swear this was the last chance. Next time I would leave. And then the next thing would happen and I would stay. Making some excuse, some reason I couldn't leave.
I even gave up the one thing I had been holding onto all this time just to try to keep him with me but it didn't work. We fought, we broke up, we got back together again, we fought some more, rinse and repeat.
By, my senior year it was time to pick a college. I had always wanted to be a lawyer and had every intention of going to law school but the colleges that I was looking at for my undergrad seemed so far away. I began making choices that would keep me closer to home so that I could hold onto my relationship instead of the choices that were necessarily best for my future.
It was also during my senior year that I started trying to “buy” his love. For some reason I thought if the gift was bigger and better he would love me more. I continued this trend throughout all of our dating years and even into our marriage. Almost nothing was out of reach and the gifts just kept getting more and more expensive and we kept getting more and more into debt.
Meanwhile, through all of this, my diary is filled with thoughts of I can't loose him. I have to do this so he doesn't leave, I need to focus on that. All the while, writing on the next page I can't do this any more. I want to leave but I can't, when is enough enough, etc.
My trying to control him started that first year of our relationship. By some time in college I remember that my controlling went horribly wrong. He moved into an apartment with me and a friend of mine and I was trying to keep him from going out with friends. We got into an argument, I tried to take his keys and it got physical. No punches were thrown but there was plenty of pushing and the police were called. It was a this point that he was charged with his first domestic and he moved out.
Eventually, through some lying on my part, the charges were dropped and within a couple of months we were back together again however we continued to argue and fight and things continued to be somewhat physical. I was willing to let a man do just about anything to me as long as he didn't leave me.
A year or so later we were still together but no longer living together when when I found out I had gotten an STD from him. We broke up again but we never really severed ties. I still spoke to him on the phone once a week and we even tried to rectify our relationship a couple of times. It didn't work and we ended up broken up for the longest stretch in our relationship, about four or five months. During that time, I tried to date other people but inevitably ended up still talking about my alcoholic. Since I was still “in love” with him, sometime in March of the following year we got back together.
At the time I thought he was using but I didn't have anything to prove it so I decided that if I couldn't prove it he must be straight. Instead of trusting my gut instinct I stuffed it down and tried to justify what was in front of me. Until, of course, justification was no longer possible.
I was working as an intern when I got a call from his Grandma. She was very distraught as she told me he had been arrested the previous night. The arrest was a big one and we were pretty convinced that he might have to serve some jail time, especially when there was one more arrest over the summer. Finally, towards the fall it seemed like things started moving in a positive direction. He started working steadily and we decided after I graduated we would move in together. My theory on this was that it was his home life that was making him act the way he was. If I moved in with him then he would be with me and we would be happy and then he would want to stay home instead of going out all the time.
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