by Band Back Together | Aug 28, 2015 | Anxiety, Blended Families, Breakups, Depression, Divorce, Help With Relationships, Infidelity, Stress |
Well, it’s been a long while since I’ve revisited this, and rather a lot has happened…
When last we met, dear readers, your hero was making it work, and getting by. So much change …so much upheaval.
When I left off, I mentioned that I was married, but we need to go back to the beginning of that relationship, as the background is important. I hope you’ll all bear with me again; getting these stories out is much like excising vital organs for me. It’s a painful process, and I’m very protective of them, and by extension, of myself.
My divorce from the wife in the first story was final in 2006. Around that time, I became reacquainted with an old friend, Becca. We caught up over the course of a couple of days, and later had dinner. At the end of the evening, she kissed me. This was confusing, as she had always been fairly …”butch,” for lack of a better term. We had a conversation about it, and she told me that her sexuality was uncertain; she was still figuring it out.
We continued to see one another for a few months, and anytime things would become more intense, she’d slow it down. This was fine with me, as I was still pretty vulnerable from my marriage. We had a good time, and I always had a sort of unspoken understanding that we were going to end up together.
Things changed.
Eventually, it came to the point that she was just using me for “stuff,” and I distanced myself from her. All well and good, but it was still hurtful.
In 2007, I met a woman who changed everything. Long distance again. (Yes, I know.) She was intelligent and well-educated and fun. We would visit one another around every other weekend. Lots of activities, and the intimacy was there, too.
Then, she started shopping for a home in my hometown. It meant so much to me that she was willing to uproot herself so that I could be near my family. We found a wonderful fixer-upper for a good price, and started working toward buying it.
Those of you who have bought a home know that it is a very stressful process, and the stress took its toll on her immensely. She wasn’t the fun-loving Jen I had gotten to know, anymore. Still, I stuck it out, but eventually, I wanted the “old Jen” back badly enough that I told her to let the house go. She did, and I hoped for things to go back to normal.
Shortly after that, her father became seriously ill, and she was heavily stressed over that. Still no good old Jen. I was right beside her through his surgery and recovery, still hoping for a return of what we used to have.
She bought a house in her hometown, which stressed her out even more.
I proposed to her in 2009, and she said yes. Surprise, surprise, planning a wedding is very stressful as well. I was at wits end by this point, but I was committed to giving this relationship the best possible chance.
We married in 2010, and my daughter and I moved into the house she had bought. Stress. I was in a new city, in a job I hated, with no friends, and nobody to talk to but the woman who was increasingly frustrated with me. She had never lived with anyone before, and had all her ducks firmly in a row, and suddenly she had a husband and a stepchild, in her space, all the time.
We enrolled my daughter in the private school that Jen had gone to as a child. The people there were horrible and elitist, and my daughter acted out. The intimacy Jen and I had went away. First, Jen started sleeping on a mattress on the floor in the bedroom, because she said it was better for her back. Later, she started sleeping in the guest bedroom, because she couldn’t stand the sight of me. She worked nights, and I worked days, so we managed to barely see one another. I would come home from work and do my best to drink myself into a stupor, and she would constantly berate me about the things she needed help with.
I am not a smart man. If you want me to dust the dining room, just say, “medic77, dust the dining room for me,” and I will do it. If you want me to clean the guest bathroom, just say so, and it will be done. Jen, however, believed that I should be able to see what needed done and take the initiative. It wasn’t an easy concept for me, but I won’t make excuses.
She would catch me in the middle of a project she had given me, and ask me to, for instance, mow the lawn. Ten minutes later, once I had gotten to a stopping place in project one, I would go outside to find her mowing the lawn herself, and mad about it. It made me crazy. She was a therapist, so she KNEW it made me crazy. I turned into a “yeller.” I’m not proud, but we would have epic screaming matches while my daughter cowered in her bedroom and wished for it to be over. Jen threatened to have me committed.
In February of 2011, after living under the same roof for less than nine months, we separated, and I came back to Ohio. Jen later told me she was mad about that, too. She thought I should have gotten an apartment where she was. It just wasn’t possible. I didn’t have any savings, and I had only worked my current job or a few months. It just wasn’t possible.
Back in Ohio, I went back to work, and got a second job with state benefits, which eventually became my only job. Jen and I weren’t interested in communication at that point, so I was very low.
We went through cycles of talking and silence. I had friends, but Jen always suspected me of being in secret relationships with the female ones. It was just another lack of faith. A couple of years ago, after we had been separated almost longer then we were together, I met a girl at work, Lorrie, and we started a relationship. I was happy.
One night, Lorrie and I were laying in bed talking, and I heard a noise. Suddenly, Jen was standing in the bedroom. It was as bad as it sounds, but it could have been worse. At least we were clothed and only talking. Still, not long after that, our divorce moved forward and was final.
I am still with Lorrie, but our intimacy is gone. We haven’t had sex in months. She says she loves me, but she just isn’t interested in sex. I feel as though I did something to cause it. She doesn’t touch me. She doesn’t kiss me unless I initiate it. She SAYS that if I want sex, I should just say so and do it, but it doesn’t feel right to me. I feel like sex should be a union; a collaboration. Not just, “Hey, hold still a minute.”
I know I’ve got depression and anxiety, but I can’t help wondering just what it is that makes me so forgettable. Why I can’t seem to find anyone who just WANTS me.
So, yeah. I’m surviving, but just.
by Band Back Together | Aug 27, 2015 | Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Anxiety, Anxiety Disorders, Breakups, Coping With Anxiety Disorders, Coping With Depression, Depression, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Loss, Major Depressive Disorder, Murder, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Stress, Trauma, Violence |
A woman who has major depressive disorder decides to go back onto her medication:
This is her story:
Today, I decided to go back on anti-depressants. This is a battle I’ve waged for years; do I really need them, do they really help, are the side effects worth it, am I just a loser who can’t deal with life’s vagaries.
Last weekend I drafted a post that contained the line, I feel like a bucket brimming with tears, and the slightest, inevitable tremble of the earth makes them overflow. It’s an inelegant metaphor, but worse, it’s a pretty clear symptom that things are not going well. It’s partly a bad birthday, partly the break-up, partly some harsh health news. It’s mostly, if I’m honest, cyclical, recurrent, my noonday demon.
“Grief is depression in proportion to circumstance; depression is grief out of proportion to circumstance.”
— Andrew Solomon
This is a family tradition; at the cousins’ table at last weekend’s wedding, we raised a toast to Lexapro and discussed having a candy bowl of all our meds on the coffee table of the rental house we’ll share at the next wedding. It’s funny, but it isn’t. Undiagnosed and untreated depression, manifested as alcoholism and other self-destructive behavior, blackens the family history like soot after a fire. Not everyone, not all the time, but too many, too often.
For me, it begins with a lack of resilience. My normal ability to adapt diminishes and diminishes until I can’t remember that I ever had it. Then, despite the pride I take in being self-aware, I start to judge my good life unworthy and tell myself that my unhappiness, my deep profound malaise that rips the joy out of each moment and shows me only the glaring photo-negative of each happy event, is actually the only sane and measured response to a terrible world and my own failures to strive against the terribleness. That’s the most insidious part, for me; my beautiful brain turns against me, whispering that I am correct in my assessment of my own awfulness and that I deserve to feel bereft, that my sadness is borne from clearly seeing the world and my own bottom-rung place in it. That the life that stretches before me will always be this bleak and hopeless, and that it’s my fault, and that I’m forever lost.
I mostly retain enough self-awareness to know how first-world self-pitying this sounds to anyone but me, but knowing that doesn’t combat my secret belief that it’s true.
My first episode of depression hit me during my fourth year of college. I was living by myself, and working two jobs, and so sad and overwhelmed that I began skipping classes to sleep and sleep, until I got so far behind that I saw no option but to quit. The rueful backstory here is that my parents had already yanked me out of my beloved city and school once, for financial reasons, and I had fought bitterly to return to the life I thought was rightfully mine. And then I ruined it. No one, myself included, ever thought my actions might be aberrant because I was ill; I was just a failure who fucked it all up.
“…a part of depression is that it touches cognition. That you are having a breakdown does not mean that your life isn’t a mess. If there are issues you have successfully skirted or avoided for years, they come cropping back up and stare you full in the face, and one aspect of depression is a deep knowledge that the comforting doctors who assure you that your judgment is bad are wrong. You are in touch with the real terribleness of your life. You can accept rationally that later, after the medication sets in, you will be better able to deal with the terribleness, but you will not be free of it. When you are depressed, the past and future are absorbed entirely by the present moment, as in the world of a three-year-old. You cannot remember a time when you felt better, at least not clearly; and you certainly cannot imagine a future time when you will feel better.”
— Andrew Solomon (The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression)
I’ve tried and tried to write about the beginnings of this last trough, when my sister’s boyfriend was shot and nearly killed on our front porch in 2006. Well, I have succeeded in writing about it–the awful terror and despair of the days and weeks that surrounded the event, and my subsequent PTSD and years of broken sleep and terrible anger–but I’ve failed to write about it in a way that is useful. It’s simply too raw and ugly still, and there is no happy ending, only pain and permanent disability and broken hearts. The long-term effects led to my worst low ever, eventually, and to an appointment with a psychiatrist where I wept uncontrollably and confessed that I was afraid to leave my house and afraid to stay home alone and at the bitter end of my ability to conceal how bad things were. I was scared that I would die, that I was broken in a way that could never be put right.
Medicine was a revelation, a silver bullet that lifted me up and out in weeks. I’d gone so far as to get a prescription for anti-depressants before, but never taken them. Once I started, within six months I’d launched a new business, gotten a promotion, found a new place to live, and started dating again.
And then in January I quit. I felt good, I was falling in love, I was emphatically not a person who would be on meds for the rest of her life. I wanted to be the plucky heroine of my own story who’d had some lows and left them behind. I didn’t want my dates to see the pill bottles. I didn’t want to be damaged goods.
But I don’t want to be mired in black sadness and self-doubt any more either. I’ve met so many people lately who are doing amazing things with their lives, and I’ve lost so much time already. I write this to remind myself that I have more to offer the world than I’ve been able to give, that the drum of failure and hopelessness inside my head can change its beat. I get a flash every once in a while of what my life could mean, of what I could accomplish with the talents and abilities I have, and I need to hold on to those images and walk toward them. If I have to pause in my march each day to wash down some false pharmaceutical courage, it’s a small price to pay.
by Band Back Together | Aug 27, 2015 | Anxiety, Intimate Partner Rape, Stay At Home Parenting, Therapy, Trust, Violence |
A few nights ago, my husband forced me to have sex with him. I said no so many times, and told him I didn’t want to. He asked me if I wanted him to stop, and I said yes. He started to stop, but then he continued anyway.
He’s been pushy before, over the course of our marriage, but has never gone that far.
I am devastated. He is so apologetic, but still has tried to have sex with me again (consensual). He makes crude, sexual statements about me that make me so incredibly uncomfortable.
I’ve talked to rape crisis hotlines. They have advised me to leave, but aside from love and loyalty, I also have five children, three biological and two step-children with him. I’m a stay at home mom with no relevant work experience.
Even if I was prepared to throw our marriage away, I would have no resources. I’ve thought about it. He’s admitted that he wouldn’t blame me if I did leave, and even went so far as to say he knows he should be in jail.
I just don’t know what to do. I love my husband, but at the same time, I don’t. I can’t trust him, and now I can’t even kiss him because it’s just too much anxiety. So we don’t touch, and I can’t imagine being intimate again. I should see a counselor, but with no family or friends to watch my youngest two children, I can’t do it.
I keep wondering if since he wasn’t violent with me, and I didn’t struggle, maybe I’m overreacting. I guess I’m just writing this here to feel like I’ve said it out loud somewhere. Thanks for reading.
by Band Back Together | Aug 26, 2015 | Anxiety, Child Neglect, Fear, Help with Parenting, Parenting |
When I was a little boy, only around four or five years old, we lived near a river in Colorado. My brothers and sister would swim in the river, sometimes diving off the bridge that was near our home. In order to keep me away from the river, my mother told me that there were alligators living in the water. Okay ma, there are alligators in the river.
We would take my dad’s work clothing into town to the laundromat. Now, I remember this day very clearly. We pulled up in our old blue truck, my Orange Crush clutched in my little hands. The day was warm and clear. Next to our parking spot was another truck with a very old man in the driver’s seat. As he got out, I noticed that he was missing an arm. I think I asked my mom why the man’s arm was gone. She said, “Well, that’s what happens to people who go swimming in the river.” I was shocked by this.
A few days, perhaps weeks went by, and mom decided that we would go swimming with my brothers and sister. She’d got a float tube for me. I don’t really remember much about the lead up, but as they pushed me out into the river, I remember clearly that I was terrified. I screamed and yelled to be taken back to shore. I remember that they were laughing as they took me back to the bank of the river.
I love the water, but to this day, if I’m in a river or lake, I can only swim for so long before feelings of panic begin to build up.
My mother, to this day, is terrified of strangers. I remember the first trip I went on with my parents to a big city. I was just ten or so. I was excited and curious, peering about at all the people, buildings and busy streets. As we pulled up to an intersection, the car next to us had some Hispanic people inside. My mother noticed that I was looking at them. She said, in all seriousness, “Don’t make eye contact with them! They will shoot us if you do!” This theme is recurrent in my childhood. Strangers are bad. Period.
Years ago, I asked my mom why she told me that story about the alligators. I explained that I couldn’t swim for more than ten or fifteen minutes at a time without anxiety. She laughed, saying that she was just keeping her little boy safe. I really didn’t know what to say about that. I never really asked any more questions about it.
I have been deconstructing my upbringing, trying to find the ‘roots,’ as it were, to my problems. When describing my childhood to people, I would say that my parents left me to my own devices for the most part, making it sound as if I was afforded some kind of special privilege. Shedding the light of my current knowledge onto the events of my childhood, I was rather shocked to find that I was being neglected. I never really thought about it in quite that way, but it was quite the shock when I realized that.
Not that I blame them too much. They did what we all do – the best we know how. Apparently, the best my mother knew was to saddle her children with neuroses. The litany of fright that my mother used as a catechism to ward off harm, simply made it extraordinarily difficult for me to make any friends. After all, making eye contact could be deadly.
I make a conscious effort to not instill irrational fears into my children. Caution and skepticism about strangers, yes. Strangers as a likely source of murder, no. Caution and respect for water, yes. The lurking places of alligators …well, not where I live.
People, please don’t make your kids scared of life. The things that kids get from the adults in their lives, stick with them, right or wrong. We are omnipotent and omniscient to them. Guide them with wisdom, not fear!
by Band Back Together | Aug 21, 2015 | Abuse, Anger, Anxiety, Depression, Fear, Feelings, Infidelity, Narcissistic Personality Disorder, Parenting, Psychological Manipulation |
As a you child I was very sensitive and very petite. My family saw that as a weakness and did what ever they could to put me down and make me feel bad about myself. Until a week ago, I always thought the biggest bully was my sister. She would physically and mentally abuse me. She had to control me in every way she could.
So in order to protect myself from this type of abuse, I grew up to only want one thing …to never feel anything ever again. I wanted to be able to turn my emotions on and off. I became very heartless, unloving, less sensitive, and kept to myself. I never shared my feelings, and I eventually despised the word “feelings.” It made me want to gag. I did achieve this goal. I trained myself so well to never feel anything at all. But I became depressed and had anxiety that increasingly got worse. My dad sent me to a therapist, blaming my mom and sister for the cause of all this.
After a year and a half of therapy, I finally realized my dad was the problem the entire time. It was in therapy where I first discovered gaslighting, and when I finally realized he did that to me, I was very upset. Then I was told he had the traits of a narcissist. As I read about that, I became enraged. I couldn’t believe my own father would do this to me for his own personal benefit. He let me believe for so long that there was something wrong with me.
My friends always loved my dad and mom and wanted them to be their parents. My dad was a different person around friends and my moms side of the family. During my parents divorce, my dad manipulated everyone into thinking my mom was to blame for the divorce, when my dad was the one cheating. He had us all fooled for a personal, manipulative game.
My friends always wondered why I acted so different around adults compared to how I was with my friends. I just acted like it was a good girl act, but even I didn’t know why I ever did it until now. I never knew how much my dad controlled me with his narcissistic ways. And I just makes me so angry that I want to punch a hole through the wall.
My dad always says that he loves me more than I’ll ever know, and I broke his heart every time I tried to stay with my mom. It’s all a mind game with him, and it just blows my mind. It makes my even more angry that I never had a normal childhood because of him. I had to grow up too fast and be more mature than anyone I knew. He controlled my personality, and therefore, I could never be my true self. Even now, knowing all this, I am still too afraid to confront him. I’m too afraid to never see him again for what he might do.
by Band Back Together | Aug 15, 2015 | Anger, Anxiety, Family, Fear, Feelings, Loneliness, Prenatal (Antenatal) Depression, Sadness, Stress |
Maybe it’s not common, maybe it’s commonly forgotten, maybe I’ll feel too ashamed to even post this, but pregnancy isn’t what I expected.
Now don’t get me wrong, I KNEW what to expect, the nausea and fatigue, the moodiness and what not, but I wasn’t prepared.
I wasn’t prepared to shy away from my friends and family, to want nothing but my bed and books. I guess I’m still kinda me, but I am a me I haven’t been for a long time, a me I thought I grew out of. It’s not that I’m not happy, because I couldn’t feel more love for this child or for my husband that I do now, it’s just that I am also sad. I am tired and sick and rather than get better as I get closer to my second trimester it’s gotten worse.
Am I going to be like my mom? 40 weeks of throwing up just because the wind blew in my face? Dear God, I hope not.
The worst part is that I can’t see the end of this. I’m not miserable mentally, but physically I am and it’s draining the reserves I have in my brain to separate my logic and my emotions.
Part of it is that I am, frankly, a little tired of worrying about everyone’s opinions, preparing myself for arguments before they have the chance to arise. It’s to the point I don’t even want to talk to anyone about babies, birth, shots, slings, ANYTHING.
Unfortunately, I care what people think, and caring what they think but knowing that I am going to do what I think is best in the end, causes me to take things personally and feel a lot of unnecessary anger. Anger makes me tired.
It’ll pass and in a few weeks I’ll be laughing at this post, calling myself dramatic and eating 14 cinnamon rolls because that’s my new favorite pastime. At least, I fucking hope so.
Until then, this is me being honest, and begging you not to say “I told you so.”
