There are only so many things a person can take before they break. Sometimes, there’s only so much a person can take.
This is her story:
When our son was a baby and you went through that rehab program, they sat me down for Family Day and made me come up with an ultimatum to “help” you with your sobriety.
“If you go back to drinking and X happens, I’ll leave.”
I hated it. I didn’t want to say anything like that. I believed there was nothing you and I couldn’t get through together. We love each other very much, and I could never picture a scenario where I would need to leave you.
Since then, you’ve had several medical scares, three suicide attempts, and a second, more intense rehab. You had that spell last winter, where for three days you had no idea who or where you were. Then, after a year of sobriety, you went back to drinking again. I’ve been there for the hospitalizations, your treatments, the roller coaster of your mental illness, and the nightmares caused by the traumas of the things you have seen and done in your past.
I stood by you and loved you through all of it.
I can’t do it anymore.
It’s been a very long time since I’ve been able to really confide in you anything going on with me. You can’t handle it. I had a major emotional upheaval last summer and I can’t even tell you about it because you would never be able to deal with it. It’s still continuing, and it is gaining in intensity.
It’s causing me constant distress, and you have no idea. Because of that, I had a nervous breakdown last winter. I was even having panic attacks. I’m taking antidepressants and seeing a counselor every week to deal with what’s going on with me. You know about my counseling and medication, but you don’t know the real reason why I need them.
While I was still fragile from my nervous breakdown, another horrible incident happened. We were constantly being taken advantage of by your friend. At one point, I was sick with the flu, but you still couldn’t say no to his request. But due to your drinking and your mental illness, you were unable to deal with the responsibility you had taken on that night.
Still very sick, I had to go take care of it and I got stuck in a blizzard. Between my emotional stuff, the flu, all the constant worry about you, and the terror of the white-out blizzard, I had a mini-stroke the next day.
You couldn’t even handle calling for paramedics even though I was incapacitated.
What if it had been something worse? What if it had been a full-blown stroke, or a heart attack, and being able to know you have to call 911 for me could literally mean the difference between my life and my death? What would you do if I died? You can’t even take care of yourself, how are you going to take care of the kids and make sure the bills get paid?
You’ve admitted that you have no hope of being able to quit drinking. You’ve written off rehab, calling it a “temporary fix.” You won’t go to Alcoholics Anonymous meetings and you won’t take any steps to try to stop drinking on your own. Then there was that one night last spring when you were drunk and admitted to me that you still think about suicide all the time.
You promptly denied it once you were sober, but considering that you listed all the ways you had thought about doing it, I’m pretty sure your confession was the truth.
Without you finding a way to stop drinking, it’s only going to continue to get worse and worse. It’s to the point now where we live inside the story of Dr Jekyll and Mr Hyde because you’re a totally different person when you’ve been drinking all day on the weekends.
I know your brain is a scary mess. I know I couldn’t handle five minutes inside your head. You have been through things so horrible that I can’t even process them. It’s no wonder the worst horror movie doesn’t bother you – you’ve been through worse.
It feels like the Grim Reaper has been following you around as long as I’ve known you. On top of all your mental and medical issues, you’re so accident prone. I’ve lost track of all the times I felt like I was looking at the last months, weeks, or even hours of your life.
It has all led to me having to think about your death constantly. I’ve had to plan for the worst. If you were to die in your sleep tonight, I know exactly what to do. I know what to do in regards to your funeral and burial. I know where the kids and I will go to mourn, lick our wounds, and then regroup. I have a plan for what will happen once I get back on my feet. I have hope for a beautiful future.
That future no longer has you in it.
Our kids need at least one stable parent. If things keep going the way they are, I won’t be mentally or physically healthy enough to take care of them. I can’t keep worrying about you. I can’t keep taking care of you.
You and I both believe in an afterlife. I believe that once you have died, you will finally have the peace you’ve never had. I hate that I think about your death all the time. It makes me sick that I have to admit to myself that your death is what’s best for all of us – you, so you can have peace, me, so I can become healthy again, and the kids, so they don’t have to watch you destroy yourself.
I’m purging the house because I don’t want to move all that crap in the basement again. I’ve started a list of the things I will sell when you’re gone. I’ve made my arrangements for where the kids and I will go. I’ve looked into schools there for them. I’ve even figured out places I’m going to apply for jobs. And meanwhile, I pray that God will be merciful and let you die peacefully in your sleep.
Because I know there is only so much more I can take. If I have to break down and just leave, it will break your heart.
And that will definitely lead to you killing yourself.
The name is Kat, and I’m a 29 year old college graduate. I feel bad about being so “big” and still being bullied. I thought it was something that just happens to kids and teens, but thanks to The Band, I’ve felt a little more comfortable admitting that yeah, I’m 29 and I’m still being bullied.
My parents have always had problems. When I was smaller, they would get into huge, violent fights that would end up in them beating each other (mostly my dad towards my mother) and cussing at each other. My two younger sisters and I grew up in a very violent atmosphere but were always close.
We also lived with our grandparents in the same house, and they would defend us a lot from my parents’ rage. My dad was an alcoholic and cheated on my mother. She would take it out on my sisters and me, mostly on me, since I was the one that always talked back to her, protecting my sisters.
Thanks to the constant abuses, I grew up insecure about myself. I was actually pretty creative, but also very violent. The slightest insult towards me, and I would attack other kids. Whenever my mom and I fought, I would feel the need to eat, so I was a little chubby. That got me bullied even more.
Back home, my mom used to beat my sisters and me with a wooden flat stick, saying that the Bible told her to “correct” her children like that. Aside from that, she would slap, choke, and punch me in the face, in many of our confrontations.
As a teen, I had a lot of trouble with authority and got into many fights with kids, claiming they only wanted to hurt me. My first boyfriend went to jail, and I changed universities a lot.
At 23, I had enough, and left the house. I got a great paying job and moved into an apartment, away from my mother. Once out, I got thin, got a new wonderful boyfriend and had a “perfect” life. But I still wanted to finish my career, which meant I had to quit my job, go back home, find another job that allowed me to study, and get into college once again.
Back home, I got chubby again. My mother constantly fights with me and tells me she doesn’t want me in her house. She values the pet more than me since she tells me that if her pet is sleeping on my bed, I’m not allowed to push her off. Sometimes I can’t sleep because of it. Her new husband shouts at me and loves getting me in trouble with her. I had to fight and struggle through college because of the stress at home.
I graduated three months ago, and I’m desperately looking for a job, so I can get out of this hell. My mom and I fight at least four times a week, and she always tells me to get the fuck out of her house. I have nowhere to go. I don’t want to involve my friends in this, and my father has another family. I’m desperate, I feel lonely, I lost my boyfriend, and she and her husband are constantly bullying me.
It may sound horrible and harsh, but its the truth. It took me 29 years to figure out why I eat compulsively. Just now, we had another fight. As soon as it ended, I raided the fridge, even though I wasn’t hungry at all. It’s not about filling “the void,” its about the desperation and anxiety I feel that make me want to eat like crazy.
However, I still remain strong. I wish for you gentle people who read my story to stay strong. I may be a little depressive, but I’m not suicidal. I love life and I want to move on. I know there are many amazing things waiting for me, and I just have to go ahead and do them.
I have a wonderful life. Great husband, great family, and I love my job…it’s not perfect, but it’s good.
Except…
For flippin’ migraines.
Growing up I got one in a blue moon and really, they were bad, but I wasn’t stressed out about them.
I’d just get one and think, “Oh, this sucks. I have a migraine.” And I’d take some medicine, drink some really strong instant tea and it would go away. Later, I’d get them and take a cocktail of Benadryl and ibuprofen to go to sleep and it wouldn’t be a big deal.
Five years ago, I woke up one morning, laid in bed for a little bit with my husband, got up and started to get ready to leave town for my grandmother’s funeral. I bent over to pick something up off the floor, stood up and next thing I know I hear my husband yelling “Jennifer! Jennifer! Open your eyes and look at me! Jennifer!” What the heck? Why? Then I realize I’m in a really weird position.
One doesn’t normally find herself sitting in her laundry basket.
Then I realize I’m still naked. Then I realize I need to throw up. Then I realize the only other time I’ve seen my husband so scared was when I passed out from a fever a couple years before. And can I say that since my step-son’s best friend at the time was one of the EMTs working, I’m really happy my husband didn’t call 911 so he could find me naked in my laundry basket? What does it say about me that I’m more worried about that than the fact that I was unconscious and naked in my laundry basket?
So that set off a round of doctors, emergency rooms, MRIs, CT scans, and heart monitors. And daily migraines. Yep, I said daily migraines. My husband’s thought is that I hit my head against the wall when I passed out, and maybe it knocked something haywire even though my head didn’t hurt and no damage has been found. The best news out of all of this is that I actually have a brain. I have pictures. It’s there. Contrary to some people’s belief I do have more than just empty space between my ears.
So I went 6 months having daily migraines. I was taking a cocktail of medications to manage the pain, because these are not normally the type that are aided by Imitrex or things like that. I had to take an anti-inflammatory, a pain medication, muscle relaxer, and my dear old friend Benadryl to get rid of the pain. And I needed to sleep. I was working in a place that had a lot of chemicals, so after 6 months of working half days we decided that it was best if I found a new job. So I did. And my migraines have dialed down to a couple a week.
I have two kinds of migraines, which is part of my problem.
I have the classic which is where you get the aura and have squiggly lines in your vision and it feels like someone is jabbing an icepick in your brain. Those are rare for me. Then I have my normal ones where it feels like the angel of migraines came with his boxing gloves to punch me in the left eye. It’s always the left side. And either I wake up with it or suddenly I realize, “Oh, hey, I have a migraine”. There’s no warning like the others. And with my normal ones there are three levels of pain. “Oh, hey, my head hurts. Ok.” is the mildest. Then there are the ones like today, “Crap my head hurts, but I can function so here I am, but leave me alone”. And then the worst are the “Oh freakin’ hell, somebody kill me now!”
Recently, I’ve been introduced to a new circle of hell – the DOUBLE migraine. Really?
Because the others weren’t bad enough? This is where I get one aura, my head starts to hurt really bad, then after that aura goes away I get another one about 20 minutes later. Seriously!
The pain from that is excruciating and double.
Along with my own personal pain and agony that goes along with these migraines, I have to deal with other people. Most of my migraines are like today. I look fine. I’m at work. I’m functioning. I’m typing a flippin’ blog for crying out loud. If you’re paying attention, I look like I’m a little off. But to the casual observer I look fine. Something may come up and I’ll say “Oh, I’ve got a migraine.”
But when they’re bad enough I need to call in to work, load up on drugs and sleep all day, I get “but you could work the other day”. Yeah, out of sheer force of will and there was too much I had to do. And then there’s my husband. He’s the only person on the planet I wish would get just one migraine. Just one. I don’t get them just to ruin his plans. I don’t get them because I just want to miss a day of work. I don’t get them to get out of cleaning. There are the granddaughters. God bless them. I hate it the most for them. There are times it is impossible for us to be in the same house when I have a migraine. And unfortunately, they’ve learned to ask “Do you have a headache?” when they come over and something seems off. They still need to be able to be little girls, so I try to tell whoever is responsible for them that they don’t have to be quiet and if they want to come give me a hug it is really okay. But most of all, it’s the people that want to offer me solutions. Like I haven’t tried everything already. And 5 1/2 years later, I have a pretty good idea what causes them, but you just can’t avoid the weather. Although, I kinda like my husband’s ex-mother-in-law’s idea…medicinal marijuana. I really hate being perceived as a whiny-a$$ baby who complains all the time, so I don’t share with many people.
So there’s my migraine rant. I hate them and they hate me. I hate that it inconveniences others.
We spent the weekend away in Seattle, our first real weekend away from Kellen. Although we missed him, it didn’t hurt to have a weekend away from the constant demanding needs of another human. The first night we were out to a nice dinner on the water, and another family came in with a whiny toddler, and I wanted to tell them that I had a No-toddler-within-50-feet-of-earshot rule while on vacation, but that didn’t seem fair! We have certainly caused our share of raucous at restaurants.
Our trip was mostly for my check-up with the Lyme doctor, and we decided to add on a couple days away. This was the view from our hotel room:
We watched cruise ships load and unload passengers as though it were a 24 hour cattle call. We made a mental note that if we ever went on a cruise, we’d arrive late and make sure we could afford to be a VIP.
On Friday, I had a PICC line put in. It’s a more permanent IV line that allows me to give myself daily meds that will hopefully penetrate the blood-brain barrier and kick these spirochetes to the ground. After I had it put in, I told Dan we needed to name it. When Dad was sick with cancer and we were being given a five year life expectancy (it’s been nine years thanks to a great clinical trial), we named his IV stand Freddie. Whenever it was time to walk around 4-south, one hand on the pole, the other closing his hospital gown, it gave us a momentary laugh to call for Freddie, the IV stand. I guess it personalizes medicine a little and makes it less scary or… medical.
Dan decided that we should name it Venus, the intravenous PICC line.
you have threatened to kill me and it seems every time we talk you spew out nothing but lies.
I failed you. As the person who brought you into this world, it was my convoluted job to make you appropriate for society.
If you had been an only child, would it have been different? If you had been an only child, would I have given you more leeway so I did not sacrifice your siblings humiliation, safety and discontent?
We moved for you. It was the area, the neighborhood, the school, the doctors. I did everything and gave all in hope that the problem wasn’t really you.
Doctors, therapists, counselors, hospitals; things a mother should never have to say about her child, I said.
In the end, I failed you.
For many years, I was a mighty warrior set out to ensure your health and happiness, but you broke my spirit and I gave up. I want so badly to let you in, but the price is so high and I am emotionally bankrupt.
You deserved a stronger mother, one who could stay in the fight, one who could be more understanding, one who could battle for more than 19 years. I am so sorry you ended up with me, who tried to make you fit in a cookie-cutter mold. I still have no clue what kind of mom could have helped you.
It wasn’t me.
I battled uphill to mend my broken life while trying to protect yours. The spiraling, all-consuming, soul-sucking, constantly being kicked and punched, that was all beyond me.
I’m sorry I am so broken and weak that I can’t afford to be hurt again. Everyone in your world has disconnected over the years in the simple and often subconscious act of self-preservation. But in everyone’s life, there should be at least one constant, one person you know will always be there. You don’t even have that.
I hurt you.
I insulted you.
I embarrassed you.
I punished you.
I hospitalized you.
I let you down.
I lied to you.
I threatened you.
I had you arrested.
I closed my door to you.
I laughed at you.
I walked away….
I didn’t ever deserve you, and you certainly didn’t deserve me.
