For Me, Too.

"Do I wanna know? If this feeling flows both ways. Sad to see you go. Was sorta hoping that you'd stay. Baby we both know That the nights were mainly made For saying things that you can't say tomorrow day. Crawling back to you. Ever thought of calling when you've had a few? Cause I always do. Maybe I'm too busy being yours to fall for someone new. Now I've thought it through."

Arctic Monkeys


This last weekend, I had a couple really good days with Mr. M. At my weekly therapy session, I mentioned to my therapist that I had made up my mind to let him go, until those couple of good days... I also expressed the fear that this might be the "honeymoon" phase in the cycle of abuse directly following an incident (which we had about two weeks ago). She advised me to watch behavior and see if it cycles again.

Guess what? It did. That very night. Two hours on the phone- arguing, apologizing, begging, pleading for him to care about me and the affect that his behavior has on the children. Words lie, but actions don't. He yelled, he blamed, he patronized, he detached, he deflected, he put up his walls. After all that, all I got were empty commitments to try recovery again with no plan, no real conviction to stick it out through the hard parts. He got angry and defensive when I tried to ask what "better" looks like to him and how he's going to get there. I got worse than nothing. False hope.

It's time to let go.

Let go.

Let him go.



Somewhere in those two hours on the phone, I told him that someday he's finally going to do or say something that I can't get over. Someday, something in my heart is going to break irreparably and I won't be able to love him anymore. I have tried at this over and over because I deeply, passionately, unconditionally love him. When does the pain eclipse the ability to love and forgive?

I begged him to change while he still had a chance with our family. I have never begged for anything from anyone the way I beg him to change and come back. I feel like such a fool every time I do and he says my name in that way, like he's speaking to an unreasonable child. He has no respect for me. It's gone. Maybe he never really did respect me to begin with.

Let him go.

Maybe if I say it enough, I'll start to accept it. I'm certainly not there yet. I keep crawling back to him in my weak moments, like he's a drug I can't quit. I feel pathetic and stupid. I feel like if people know my situation, they would ask me why in the world I stay. I've actually had that reaction from people before. It's like they look at me, wondering why in the world I'm foolish enough to stay with a man who uses me the way Mr. M does.

Let go.

I guess I don't think I deserve any better. Sometimes, I feel like this marriage is my punishment for getting knocked up right out of high school. I deserve it. Even though I'm not the girl I used to be, some part of my heart still believes I am a bad, horrible, sinful, criminal person... And always will be.

But then I have to consciously shake myself and present the opposing evidence. My life has changed dramatically since Mr. M and I started dating. I abandoned my eating disorder to have healthy children. I keep myself far away from drugs, alcohol, and situations that would test my morals. I love and believe in God. He is the power that carried me through the loss of my son, and continues to guide me through my present situation. I work so hard in school, keeping the end in mind. I'm doing this for my babies and for me. So we can all have a better future. I am a good mother. I say it, then doubt, then say it again. Perfection is far out of my reach, but I am doing my very best. I love my children deeply and passionately. They are my world. I try desperately to see their needs, hear their desires, read what their faces tell me, and connect with their souls.

For their sakes...

For mine...

It's time to let go.

Final Thought

"Courage, dear heart."

C.S. Lewis

Mourning in Stages. Again.

"Lo, children are an heritage of the Lord."

Psalm 127:3

I miss my children like crazy today. I'm on campus, walking, studying, eating, All I want to do is get in my car and speed to their daycare to pick them up. I suppose this is what moms who have to work feel sometimes, too. My heart aches for my babies. I know being home with them all the time was challenging in a much different way, but being a full-time mom is all I've ever wanted.

Sometimes, I'm very angry with Mr. M for taking my dream from me. Today, I am just sad, just longing to be with my children. I know I am blessed to be able to get an education instead of working right now, but I miss them. So much it hurts. I have a good daycare provider, but she's not me. She's not their mother. They need me.

Today at their daycare, a mom was dropping off her six week old baby for first time, along with her two older children. Perhaps she was hiding how she felt, but it was surprising to me how stoic she seemed. Were I in her shoes, I would have been bawling. Perhaps that's what she knew she would have to do from the moment she knew she was pregnant. Maybe she has had months of preparation for this day. I certainly don't mean to judge this woman, who I'm sure is terribly missing her children today, after spending almost two months home with them.

As a stay-at-home mom, I longed for freedom. As the equivalent of a working mom, all I want to do is be home. I loved and appreciated my children before, but now I understand what I had. Whatever happens in my future with marriage, either a repairing of my current relationship or a divorce and remarriage, I need staying home to be a priority.  Before the separation, the M Family was certainly not wealthy, but we were making it work.

A couple of golden moments...

Coming back from the bathroom to find that Charlie was feeding Noah dog food

What happens when we try to take a nice family picture.

Brother love

Final Thought

"Don't it always seem to go that we don't know what we got 'til it's gone. They paved Paradise and put up a parking lot."

Counting Crows

Spinning

"Sometimes you close your eyes and see the place that you used to live when you were young."

The Killers

I don't know what it is about living in the home I grew up in that takes me back so often to the very first time I was raped. Maybe it's the lack of control I feel or the constant presentation of the surroundings that I had hated so much as a teenager. I was able to stay in my beautiful condo for two months after Mr. M left me, but circumstances have found me living again with my parents and siblings.

I am a vastly different person than I was then. Losing my oldest son in his infancy changed me in ways that I think nothing else could. That pain was like a refining fire, burning away some of my most visible imperfections. Having more children and struggling daily with loving a husband who suffered greatly with addiction have also drastically changed me. The pain of the way he hurt me and used me sometimes felt just like flames eating at my heart. It occasionally still does.

Tonight, something took me back to when I was fourteen years old. Feelings of being controlled, mistrusted, and deemed incompetent took me right back to that time period. It triggered thoughts that were so prevalent then.

You are stupid.
You are dangerous.
You can't be trusted.
Your needs don't matter.
You don't have anything worthwhile to say.
Your interests and passions are a waste of time.
You are not worth anyone's praise or approval.
You are a criminal.
You are immoral.
You are a failure.

Writing those thoughts makes it glaringly obvious that, while I don't think them as often, I have internalized them in a way that provides instant recall when triggered by a situation. Triggered is a good word. Triggers are what sufferers of PTSD, like myself, constantly struggle to avoid or control. I'm really pretty bad at dealing with my triggers still. I feel like I barely even know which situations are problematic and why.

In a class a couple months ago, I was participating in a debate staged by the professor- himself versus the class. Each member of the class was only allotted one chance to speak. The class as a whole was doing poorly and I attempted over and over to say my part. The professor intentionally ignored me until he felt like he couldn't anymore. I presented an argument that I thought was rebuttal-proof. The professor, realizing this, cut me off and took the chance to insult me. I began having a panic attack and needed to leave class.

I felt like such an idiot. Was I staging the whole thing because I was throwing a fit about being ignored and insulted? Why did I need to be heard so badly? 

I remembered being shut in a bedroom repeatedly as a preteen and teenager with another person demanding things out of me and finally refusing to speak because my words, and by association my thoughts and feelings, were consistently wrong. Nothing I said mattered. It was never about understanding my behavior, but about forcing compliance.

I remembered having the same conversations over and over with boyfriends and even my husband about what I wanted and needed. How I needed the exchange of thoughts, ideas, and emotions in order to feel loved and worthwhile. I remembered not understanding why the addicts I always seemed to love couldn't connect with me like I needed.

I remembered when I first found out about Mr. M's addiction and was forbidden to tell anyone. I remembered telling people I was fine while my heart was screaming inside me that I wasn't. Charlie was an incredibly colicky infant at the time who would cry for hours. When I had tried everything I could think of to help him, sometimes I would just hold him and sob, too, because my dearest hopes for a happy family were destroyed.

I remembered reporting to the police that I had been raped only hours after the event and seeing the officer act bored and skeptical, finally making it perfectly clear that he thought I was a liar and successfully pressuring me into denying my testimony.

Thinking about the stupid classroom situation flooded my mind with countless situations that I was not allowed to speak or my opinion was under attack or treated as irrelevant. Repression and shame have been significant themes in my short life that have helped to set the stage for repeated verbal, emotional and even sexual attacks.

In my mind, the feelings that were invoked from the experience with my professor were the same as those I felt when the friends of my rapist repeatedly sexually harassed me about the abuse, and the way a mind affected with PTSD works is that it interprets those situations as the same. Like you're back in the original trauma.

I don't have anything else useful to say tonight. I need to be up in four hours and my thoughts are spinning dizzyingly. There is no clean resolution, no way to neatly tie up the loose ends. I continue to free fall.

Final Thought

"Don't pray for an easy life. Pray for the strength to endure a difficult one." 

Bruce Lee