by Band Back Together | Oct 2, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Faith, Fear, Guilt, Hope, Loneliness, Love, Marriage and Partnership, Military Deployment And Family, Romantic Relationships, Stress |
Today is Day 1.
The first day of this deployment. Familiar in a sort of comforting way, but also strange and surreal.
You see, this deployment is my husband’s choice. It is a civilian deployment for his everyday job- an electrical engineer at a company that makes military radios. He is installing them in vehicles in Afghanistan. He didn’t have to go.
He chose to go so that we have a chance to get ahead financially. A choice that he felt he couldn’t say no to. I feel awful that soldiers who are putting their lives in more danger are making so much less money. It just doesn’t seem right. My husband says, “hey I served, I don’t feel bad that I am taking this opportunity.” But still somehow it bothers me.
He is not responsible for the lives of 100 people this time, only his own. Later in the day I realized that I feel like this is cheating. Last time I felt guilty that he spent most of his time on base and rarely had to go outside the line. When meeting other wives, whose husbands were in further outposts and doing more dangerous jobs, I never told them how lucky I felt that most of the time, I was pretty sure my husband was sitting at a desk, a desk in Afghanistan, but still a desk and not kicking down doors or looking for IED’s.
If I felt guilty last time when he was serving as a soldier, its no wonder I feel so strongly like we are cheating now. I will be surprised if I don’t get into some sort of fight with my mother-in-law this year. She loves to get on her podium and proclaim to the world how hard she has it because her son is gone. Sorry, not my style. even more so this time. She was just posting some crap on Facebook (a picture of my kid wearing an Army hat) and commenting that my husband was leaving Sunday; to remember the sacrifices soldiers make.
Sorry lady (and I use that term loosely), I don’t even know where to start. I’m not usually a freak about letting people know he is out of town, but I haven’t put it all over Facebook yet. Its really my business to share that my husband is leaving for a year. Thanks for putting that out there. If they are our friends/family that matter, they already know. After reading that, I sent her a brochure about Operational Security (OPSEC) and the things that are appropriate to post online. I think she was pissed, but I don’t care.
And that reminder about the sacrifices that soldiers make?
Again, he is not going as a soldier.
I feel it is disrespectful to those service members over there to put them in the same sentence.
Last time I had ways to show I was proud of him – blue star flag, wearing his unit pin, etc. this time I feel as if I have none of that. Luckily, I have my battle buddies, the wives who banded together with me the last time when our husbands were all deployed. But still, it’s weird because people realize that he must be getting paid a lot. It makes me feel greedy and ungrateful for all that we do have. It makes me feel guilty that I am excited we will be able to pay off the house.
I have been trying to hold it together for a few months now. When I do this, I give the impression to people that I am a cold-hearted bitch. Because I usually am very practical and pragmatic about deployments. What good does crying all the time do? Do they just expect me to fall apart because he is leaving or gone?
The first time, I said to myself and them “Someone has to go. When some guys have to go 3-4 times, who am I to think my husband deserves not to go at all?” and we were both okay with that deployment.
We were tired of waiting for the Army to pick a time to send him. And at least he was going with his own unit. This time, we are both okay with the sacrifice because we are hoping to pay off the house. Both times, it feels like people didn’t understand how we could be okay with this. Sure, we will miss each other, sure it will be hard. (I think it is hardest on the kids) but I am proud to be an independent wife and I want to teach my girls self reliance too. We never have been the type of couple that has to go everywhere together.
Since the Army has been a part of our relationship since I met him, we are pretty used to the short-term separations. Cell phones and email has made it easier. When I first met him, he didn’t have a cell phone and had to wait in line to use a pay phone. So I got pretty used to not hearing from him. Also, as an only child, sometimes I relish my time that I get to myself. My new job is great for that as it allows me to help other military families, yet get some alone time in the car traveling.
i don’t usually get upset about deployment in public, and I don’t usually get upset about it at home, because you see, with two kids, two dogs and a house to take care of, I have more things to do than wallow in self pity. So usually the magnitude of it all doesn’t really hit me until the night before he leaves.
Yesterday, I had to drive him to the airport in the late afternoon and it was my day that I allowed myself to be sad. I let the girls have cookies for dinner, eat in the living room and watch a movie while I laid in bed and watched my own TV shows.
This morning I had to move past that and get my daughter on the bus. Somehow I was reminded of the song “This Too Shall Pass” by Ok Go. I couldn’t stop listening to it today.
Somehow it made things better.
by Band Back Together | Oct 1, 2010 | Addiction, Adult Survivors of Childhood Sexual Abuse, Alcohol Addiction, Anger, Blended Families, Child Abuse, Child Grooming, Child Sexual Abuse, Childhood Fears, Fear, Incest, Rape/Sexual Assault, Shame, Therapy |
I was the first girl in my family. Six older brothers, one younger sister from my mother’s second marriage.
The man who became my stepfather was an alcoholic. He was abusive. He would beat everyone except my sister. After all “she was his” but we weren’t angry about her being spared. We were thankful. She was safe.
He would think of ways to inflict more pain during our beatings. He would gloat about his “latest idea”. He was so excited when he created a board for our beatings that had circles and lightning bolts cut out of it. Thrilled when he saw that his plan worked. The cut-outs left circular and lightning bolt blisters on us where he had hit us with it. Our butts, our legs, our back. Wherever his newest invention connected with our flesh.
We couldn’t control our stepfather. We couldn’t control his drinking. We couldn’t control his beatings. And by God, you had better cry when he beat you. One of my brothers tried to control the only thing he could. He decided not to give him the satisfaction of seeing the pain he was causing. When he didn’t cry, he was beaten harder. Then harder still. Then harder, until the rest of us were screaming that he was going to kill my brother. He finally gave up in disgust and went to the bar. My brother was home from school for a long time after that beating.
There were days that he felt “fatherly.” He would take me, at three or four years old, to the bar with him to show off his “little girl.” There I would sit, hours on end, surrounded all the other drunks who weren’t home with their families. Even at that age, I knew this wasn’t the right place for me. I didn’t like the way the men looked at me. Asked me to sit on their laps.
I was scared.
When I was seven, my stepfather upped the ante and found a way to scar my soul. He began sexually abusing me. He didn’t start out with other things to gain my trust, or tell me how special I was, or try to make me believe this was because he loved me, like so many other abusers do. No, he did what he wanted with no preamble. He took what he wanted violently. HE was angry with ME afterward. HE was disgusted by ME afterward. He had found a much more efficient way to destroy me than a beating.
This abuse went on for years. I started walking to a little country church every Sunday. It began as a way to get out of the house. It became my only source of hope.
He tortured my brothers and I. He waved guns in his drunken stupors. He humiliated us by bursting into our grade school classrooms drunk and demanding we leave with him. (This was in the 70′s. The school let him take us when he could barely stand. I would hope that wouldn’t happen to children these days.) He would be gone for days or weeks at a time. We would learn not to relax when he was gone, as soon as we did he would return. It was as if he knew we were suddenly feeling safer in our home and he couldn’t have that.
When I was in sixth grade, my mother divorced him. I felt guilty for the internal relief I had over him leaving our lives. After all, the Bible says to honor your mother and father. I struggled with that for such a long time. Now I know that I couldn’t be expected to honoring a man who was so unhonorable. No loving God would ever expect that.
I haven’t seen him in the 30 something years since the divorce. Thank God I haven’t seen him again.
I followed the Family Rules for a very long time. I didn’t tell anyone outside the family. I took on the shame. I took the responsibility. I took the burden. I took the pain.
But eventually I grew up. I married. I told my husband some of what happened after we had been married a little over a year. I regret that, I should have told him sooner. But I couldn’t. I wasn’t ready. Thankfully, he is a wonderful, gentle soul and understood why I didn’t tell him sooner. And he didn’t run from my pain. He didn’t run from my past. He didn’t see me as the damaged goods. He was supportive. He was awesome. We have been married 30 years now.
We had children. A boy and a girl. As my daughter grew, the childhood I tried to forget started pushing itself forward in my mind. First a whisper, then a speaking voice, and eventually screaming YOU CANNOT IGNORE ME! I was a mess. So emotional, so raw, so frightened to face it – to speak the truth.
Eventually, I had to seek counseling. I could not get through a day without the memories forcing themselves front and center, in my dreams at night, in my day with flashbacks. Horrible, painful, frightening memories.
I was blessed. I found a wonderful counselor on my first try. She guided me. She gave me a place to speak. She encouraged me when I felt overwhelmed (most of the first year). She HEARD me. She didn’t judge me. She showed me that the shame and disgust didn’t belong to me. They belonged to HIM. It took a while for me to believe her. That pain, shame and disgust had been mine for so long.
Eventually, the shame and pain was transformed into anger. No, that isn’t quite right…it turned into ANGER! Anger that frightened me with it’s intensity. But finally I was feeling the anger at what he had done to the little girl I once was. Once I found the anger it was a very good thing that I didn’t run into him (he lives in another state). I would have ripped his manhood from his body and shoved it down the throat that used to tell me it was my fault.
I went to therapy for a year and a half. I won’t sugar coat it, it was a very tough year and a half. There was a lot of hard emotional work to be done. But oh, what a gift that therapy was for me.
I KNOW it wasn’t my fault. I KNOW I didn’t deserve what he did. I KNOW it wasn’t the clothes I wore, the way I acted, the choices I made. It was HIM. He is a sick perverted person.
Therapy made me a stronger person. My hard work transformed a victim into a survivor. It helped me become a better mother, a better wife, a better human being. It helped my soul to be set free from my past.
My younger sister? The one that was “really his”? The one he spared the abuse? She grew up to feel horribly guilty for what her birth father did to us. (We are all still thankful she didn’t suffer along with us.) She couldn’t escape the pain of her guilt. She began abusing drugs as a teen. She is forty three now. She has spent the last 27 years in a deep pit of drugs and alcohol trying to escape the past. She lost custody of her son when he was five, due to her addictions. My husband and I adopted him. We couldn’t stand to let him go to strangers and lose everyone he had ever known. We couldn’t stand to lose him in our lives either. We continue to help him battle the demons his past have created. Spared her? I don’t think so.
I am no longer angry. Don’t misunderstand me, I don’t want to ever be anywhere near my stepfather. But I don’t want to harm him anymore either. Growth. Now, if I think of him, I feel pity for the twisted, dark, hurtful person he is. But I don’t feel sorry for him either. He made his choices. If what he did haunts him when he least expects it, that is his consequence. Somewhere deep inside of him he knows what he did, who he is.
I don’t want to give him one more minute of my life. A minute I spend hating him, is one more minute he owns. He took enough. He took too much. He can’t have any more.
by Band Back Together | Sep 24, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Compassion, Coping With Cancer, Family, Fear, Feelings, Forgiveness, Guilt, Hope, Love, Stress, Trauma |
The first night after my breast cancer chemo treatment was awful. Nugget sobbed hysterically in my arms, giving way to heavy sighs between her defeated attempts for true comfort until she finally fell asleep. I cried, and cried, and cried. Between the tears i apologized over and over to my sweet baby girl for being sick.
Last night was thankfully less painful. She fell asleep with my mother and only had to be quietly lulled back down once. Thank god for small miracles.
As for me, I felt pretty nauseated yesterday and today, and the meds to combat that make me tired. Today, I really started to feel exhausted. We went out for some quick errands this morning, but I’ve since spent the remainder of the day in bed.
by Band Back Together | Sep 14, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Breast Cancer, Cancer and Neoplasia, Caregiver, Coping With Cancer, Family, Fear, Feelings, Guilt, Stress, Trauma |
I’m not even sure to where to start. Remember that fever? It finally went away. Then it came back. A second set of bloodwork later, the doctor still thinks it’s viral. I get a chest x-ray to rule out pneumonia. Next is a CT scan, then a biopsy. The biopsy has to be done under general anesthesia by a mediastinoscopy, and a bronchoscopy is thrown in for good measure. Now they think I have Hodgkins.
I know that there are readers who will get this so much more than others that have already heard it from me. My biggest fear? What if I have to have chemo and stop nursing my daughter? It’s going to break her little heart (and mine) if she looks up at me, her mama, with her pleading, beautiful blue eyes and signs for her nursies and i have to say no.
I can’t say any more than that right now. I just can’t. This fear is crippling me and the tears won’t stop.
by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2010 | Anger, Anxiety, Child Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Faith, Family, Fear, Grief, Guilt, Help For Grief And Grieving, Hope, How To Cope With Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Loss, Marriage and Partnership, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder, Romantic Relationships, Shame, Stress, Trauma |
As women, we have to learn to listen to our gut. {Even when it’s telling us something we don’t want to hear.} And in March 2010 my gut was telling me one thing – loud & clear – “You must turn this ship around or it’s going to sink!”
I know, right? Clearly, something I didn’t want to hear.
You see, my son was nearly killed in an accident in July 2009 and eight months later, the bones were healing, but I was still broken. And, something had to give. I was bending and bowing under the heavy load I was carrying & I had to make a choice. The first choice that would turn my life, this ship, around was telling my husband the truth. I had to tell him of the awful thoughts that would fill my soul and haunt my nights.
I had to tell the man I love how often I had pictured him dead or dying, with our beautiful, innocent, children at his side. I had to tell him of the times I lied and told him I was sleeping downstairs, when really? I was sitting in one of the kids rooms crying. Picturing them dead. There is no marriage course that prepares you for that conversation. No book that tells you what to say when you’re wife is losing her mind.
I am blessed. And he reinforced what my heart knew and my mind couldn’t comprehend when he hugged me and held me and told me that I needed to call a doctor. {I knew in my gut that this was what I needed, but it was nice to hear him say it.}
You see, I was dying a slow death at the hand of post traumatic stress disorder. At the time I didn’t know what it was, but I knew that anxiety and fear were ruling my life. I was not living with intent.
Post Traumatic Stress had taken over & changed the woman I had once loved. It had stolen my husband’s wife & my children’s mother. I am a firm believer that life shouldn’t be the same after trauma, I expect that. I accept that. But, I also knew that I was not living and I didn’t want to settle for anything less. When you believe in your heart that one of your children is dying, is going to die, may die…there are no books or blogs or words or friendships that are inspiring enough to settle your soul.
And, even after I tucked my boy away in a bed, EIGHT long months later…safely upstairs, without a wheelchair, after a long day of school and baseball practice, I couldn’t shake my spirit of those haunting thoughts. Those reoccurring nightmares, I had when I was awake.
Nighttime would creep up on me like a thief and steal any sanity I had managed to build up in my reserves for the day. It was always worse at night.
The blackness would slip under the door frame and suddenly I would grow weak under the urge to hold my children tightly and scream into the thick air. The thoughts that filled my head were not that of a “sane” woman. I no longer recognized the woman that replaced me when night fell. The fear of losing my loved ones began to grow…and grow…and grow…
I didn’t tell the therapist everything right away. But after a week of visits, I let it all go. I told him that I pictured my baby dying of SIDS every time I closed my eyes. I would sit in her room in the dark on the floor and use my phone to light up her face so I could watch her breathe. I would rock in her room through the night and cry. And torture myself with the thought of finding her lifeless in the morning. A thought that wouldn’t let me close my eyes.
The blanket the boy brought home from the hospital would trigger phantom day-dreams that would leave me shuttering. I could hear him screaming in the night, in pain, even after the pain was gone. I would lay awake at night and watch my husbands’ chest rise and fall with each breath. I would picture how badly my heart would/will hurt when he dies, I would think of losing my parents…losing my aunts. Death consumed my thoughts.
I couldn’t drive in my car without sobbing uncontrollably. Every slammed brake or rushed traffic light would leave me in a puddle of doubt and fear. I was convinced someone was going to hit me, hit us, kill my family…
And, I knew this wasn’t right.
There were times when my mind would convince my heart that I was better off dead, rather than face the sadness the future holds. I would pray to please let me die before my children, my husband…and at times, I would even think “before my parents.” I would remember the agonizing pain of the unknown – as my son was air-cared to the local Children’s Hospital – and I would pray that the demon of memory be taken away from me.
But, as I told my therapist of my thoughts & fears…as I spoke of the anxiety that chased me in the night…the fear seemed to find a place where it could lay dormant. And I was fine with that. For now.
It’s been just over one year since the accident. And I still know that the dormant monster is waiting. Lurking…
And, there are times when I have talk myself off the ledge. Times when I feel the anxiety creeping back in. I accept the fact that life will never be the same. I accept the fact that it’s not suppose to. And, I know that with that change comes baggage, that at times will be too much to carry. But I also know I can face this demon head on, with the help of my family & friends…and even my blogging community.
I am working hard to turn this ship around. To make up for the ground that has been lost. To find my way back to the shore of safety and maybe, just maybe, even learn how to live on the sandy, white beaches of satisfaction.
Someday.
by Band Back Together | Sep 6, 2010 | Anxiety, Baby Loss, Child Loss, Coping With Baby Loss, Coping With Losing A Child, Fear, Grief, Help For Grief And Grieving, Jealousy, Loneliness, Loss |
I’m turning into a hermit. Not in the traditional sense, exactly. I leave my house almost every day. But I hate leaving. When I leave, I can’t wait to get back. I can’t wait to put on the same clothes I’ve worn for twelve weeks, even though they stink and have stains on them. I long to lay on my couch and stare blankly at the TV.
I’m not finding comfort in anything anymore. Flipping around on the internet, my surefire way to escape, now makes me tired. I have thousands of unopened emails, dozens of unread text messages. I want to look at them but I just don’t have the stamina.
The only things I seem to have energy for? Envy and crying.
When I was on bed rest with Madeline, the only time I was allowed to leave my house was to go to the doctor. I remember sitting in my OB’s office, seeing happy pregnant ladies with their growing bellies, and being overcome with jealousy. Or when Maddie was in the NICU, I would constantly see happy parents going home with their new babies, and my body would become hot with anger.
This is so much worse.
Everything sets me off now. Seeing a child walking down the street with a parent, or a man buying diapers, or a plastic toy in the grass turns me into an ugly, hateful shell of my former self. I say that I wouldn’t wish this on anyone, but that’s not entirely true. If it meant I could have my little girl back? If a magical genie said, “OK, pick another family and they’ll lose their child instead,” there isn’t a single person in the world that would be safe. Even the people I know.
I felt guilty about this at first, but I realized that everyone who knows me or reads this would feel the same way. And everyone who knows me or reads this has already had a similar thought. “Man, that sucks, but better them than us.” Who WOULDN’T think that way? I know that, before Maddie passed, when I heard about a family that lost a child I would be so relieved it wasn’t MY baby that was gone. It wasn’t MY family whose worst nightmare came true.
So I’m slowly becoming a hermit, because I’m afraid soon I won’t be able to keep it in. So that the next person that says something well-intentioned won’t get me screaming in their face. So that the next person who rightfully complains online about their cranky child won’t get an expletive-filled email or comment. So that the innocent man buying diapers won’t have to see me glaring at him with my swollen blood-shot eyes.
Am I protecting others, or myself? I don’t really know.
