This video has been making the FB rounds - I first saw it posted by Kristle from Forget The Dog Not The Baby, and was so moved I could only CRY at first.
So, grab some tissues before you hit play!
Now, most of you know that I've been looking for a 'way out' lately.
Not suicide, but at least Divorce.
I am struggling SO MUCH with those feelings of "I just can't do this any more" and I want so badly to just go back in time, about a year and a half. Back to when life was about HOPE, anticipation/excitement over the baby on the way. Life was full of LIFE back then, you know? Back before 'whatever' happened to my husband overseas. Perhaps the NOT KNOWING what really happened to him or what's really wrong now is the most frustrating part for me....I don't know.
Anyway, I feel SO MUCH GUILT over wanting to leave him now. I mean, if he had come back missing a leg or an arm, would I give up and walk out on him? I certainly hope not! So I feel like his "issues" (as he calls this.....I call it mental illness, but whatever. Tomato, tomahto, right?) are something that deserves a little extra patience from me, and of course a little benefit of the doubt. I "SHOULD" wait faithfully for him no matter what, right? In sickness and in health..... So I suck it up, cry A LOT, and go into survival mode way more than I care to admit.
I've had a hard time even blogging about this, much less talking to anyone in person or on the phone, because of my GUILT over feeling things I think I shouldn't FEEL. But the one thing that struck me most when I watched this awesome video was that I HAVE to talk about this. About my situation, my feelings, all of it. If nothing else, I might be able to comfort another person going through the same difficulties. And maybe, just MAYBE, talking about it will help me deal with things better, too.
Some of what I go through is just beyond words (literally) so I can't talk about it, even with my counselor. Some of it will sound trivial to those who have not lived it, and some of it will sound like I am straight-up lying, it is that unbelievable. Like the time hubby got pissed off at me and literally abandoned me & the baby at costco with no money and no car. He eventually came back, of course, but that kind of crap is just NOT normal. (or is it?)
Either way, I am making a real attempt to speak up more about this craziness, and I hope others who are suffering will do the same.
Also, make sure you visit Kristle's post about this for a list of resources for those needing help. I wanted to duplicate it here but my blogging time is up for now.
And please PLEASE pass this video on to someone! Post it on your facebook, or e-mail it to someone who needs to know she's not alone. This really needs to be shared.
Showing posts with label tissue alert. Show all posts
Showing posts with label tissue alert. Show all posts
Thursday, August 18, 2011
Sunday, April 10, 2011
Her final goodbye???
Does anyone out there know Jessica from {mis}adventures of an army wife?
Her blog indicates that she committed suicide a couple days ago.
I don't know her in real life, but am so distraught over this.
I'm praying, as many other people are, that she scheduled that blog post and then didn't get a chance to take it down, but is still alive.
If anyone knows what's going on, please comment here or email me directly.
You can read her sad post HERE.
And, if you are reading this and it resonates with you because you have been contemplating suicide, PLEASE don't do it! You are never truly alone, even if the only 'friend' you can turn to is a virtual friend, here in blogland. Heck, if nothing else, email ME and we can talk.
And Jessica, if you are reading this and are still alive, please know that you ARE worth it....you do have a future, a life, friends, all of it. Just maybe not in the ways you thought you had before.
Her blog indicates that she committed suicide a couple days ago.
I don't know her in real life, but am so distraught over this.
I'm praying, as many other people are, that she scheduled that blog post and then didn't get a chance to take it down, but is still alive.
If anyone knows what's going on, please comment here or email me directly.
You can read her sad post HERE.
And, if you are reading this and it resonates with you because you have been contemplating suicide, PLEASE don't do it! You are never truly alone, even if the only 'friend' you can turn to is a virtual friend, here in blogland. Heck, if nothing else, email ME and we can talk.
And Jessica, if you are reading this and are still alive, please know that you ARE worth it....you do have a future, a life, friends, all of it. Just maybe not in the ways you thought you had before.
Saturday, March 26, 2011
nucking futs
WARNING: this is a really LONG post. If you don't want to read the details, the basic story is: I'm CRAZY, but I'm also NOT CRAZY.
I have been trying to get this story written out for, well, WEEKS at least. Maybe longer? I know I have alluded to feeling crazy in more than one recent post, but there is so much more to it than that.
I guess to tell this story properly, I have to go back about 11 years. Knucklehead's birth was fantastic - I mean, for childbirth. He was my third baby, so I pretty much knew what to expect: weeks of very convincing 'false labor' followed by a fast ACTUAL labor and super-fast delivery. What I did not expect was the deep feeling of sadness that settled on me by the time the baby was about a month old.
I would cry for no reason, and was so embarrassed about this that I would hide it - I cried in the shower, cried in the car by myself, cried in the laundry room, the closet, etc. This was when I perfected the 'silent cry' so I could even cry in bed next to Jarhead, without interrupting his sleep. I figured I had a textbook case of the baby blues, which meant it should resolve itself in a matter of weeks.
It didn't.
By the time I finally sought professional help, I had been living in this inexplicable DESPAIR for nearly three months. Knucklehead was about four months old, and though I loved him deeply, I found it hard to find ANY reason to 'go on'. I had begun fantasizing about ways to die - popping pills seemed the easiest, but I didn't want my kids to find my body. Yes, I thought it through THAT much. I figured I could drive off a cliff and everyone would think it was an accident, but the thought of leaving my children motherless kept me from going any farther than just IMAGINING being dead. Airhead was ten, and Bonehead just five years old.
My psychiatrist told me that I was NOT, in fact, crazy, but was suffering from
POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION. I had kind of suspected this already, but was relieved to be officially diagnosed with something - especially something TREATABLE. I was still breastfeeding Knucklehead, and since I wanted to continue to nurse him for as long as possible, my medication choices were limited. Luckily we found one right away that worked well for me, and when combined with weekly therapy sessions it stopped the suicidal ideations.
After about six months of medication and therapy, I felt better, and stopped treatment. About six months later, I began to feel extremely depressed again. By this time we had moved to a new city, so I put off getting help for awhile. I finally made myself find a new doctor and get back on meds when the depression became so severe that it limited my functioning. There is no 'magic pill' but the drugs I took helped me get a handle on my life again. Since then, I have gone back on meds three other times, for at least 5 or 6 months each time. I have officially been diagnosed with CLINICAL DEPRESSION, and threw in some Generalized Anxiety Disorder a few years ago, too. Throughout all of it I had severe insomnia, but only took sleep medication in 2008/2009. I do love me some Ambien!
So, when Jarhead and I decided to try to get pregnant in late 2009, I had been off of my anti-depressants for almost a year already, and had not suffered a panic attack in almost two years. I only had to stop taking my birth control and my sleeping pills, and was fine.
Beyond fine - our first attempt at getting pregnant was a success.
The same week we got pregnant, we also got orders for deployment. This meant my hubby had to miss half of the pregnancy, as well as the delivery - which I think would make MOST women at least a little depressed. This is known as 'situational depression'...and for the most part, I think I handled it well. If you've followed this blog from the beginning, you probably noticed the bouts of mild depression during and shortly after the pregnancy.
Jarhead came home when Bobblehead was three months old, and I was THRILLED to have him home. At first. I noticed right away that something wasn't right, that we just weren't connecting. I felt isolated, hurt, angry, and really ripped off - after all, I had waited SO LONG for our family to be whole again, and then got this ridiculous sham of a relationship out of it???? WTF??? It's like the kid in the old sitcom/movie/book who saves his money to send away for some awesome 'real' boat/plane/car/whatever, and waits for it, checking the mail every day, until finally it arrives and its made of corrugated cardboard. Disappointment.
With all of that in mind, the minor depression I felt back in December was again 'situational'. Totally rational, normal depression. No suicidal thoughts, and no endless crying 'for no reason'. Nothing to make me think PPD, or even to make me think I needed meds again.
By mid-January I felt like I was losing my mind. Bobblehead turned four months old, we had him baptised as planned, and life seemed to be going on all around me - without me really participating other than to meet everyone's basic needs. I was Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons. I was just going through the motions. Except I really was FEELING things; feeling too much, feeling overwhelmed by everything.
I went back to work in January too, so I chalked some of the crazy feelings up to the stress from that. Also around that time, I began to finally admit that there was more wrong with my hubby than just the typical detachment that comes with deployment/redeployment.
I knew there was something wrong with him (probably PTSD) and I knew there was something wrong with me - but it felt nothing like the PPD (Post Partum Depression) that I experienced a decade ago. I wasn't SAD. I wasn't suicidal. I wasn't crying all-the-time. I was just going freaking OUT OF MY MIND.
It was only by a series of coincidences that I ended up at a special presentation for Doulas and Midwives about PPD. Of course I am neither a Doula nor a Midwife, but like I said, a series of coincidences got me there. I now believe that I was MEANT to be there, because the therapist who presented her personal story gave me so much insight into PPD! The one thing she told us was that, in her experience, PPD felt like "having a nervous breakdown". I had actually said those exact words the day before, describing to my sister how completely INSANE I felt. I didn't feel that deep sadness that I had come to associate with PPD, so I didn't think to ask for help with this new brand of crazy - nor did I think that help would be so freaking SIMPLE!
After that presentation, I went back on a low dose of my anti-depressant, which made a huge difference, and I started weekly therapy sessions. Now, after only three sessions, I already feel SO MUCH like my old self! I still don't recognize my husband as the man he used to be - and still hope he will get some help and work through whatever issues are keeping him locked away so deep inside of himself. I still don't see 'US' when I look at us. I don't feel like we even ARE an 'us'....and honestly have to face the possibility that we might never be US again.
But I am determined to find a way to be ME again, regardless of what our future as a couple holds. I owe it to my children, my husband, and most of all to MYSELF to get well.
Healing will not be as easy as I am making this sound, but taking the first difficult steps of admitting there's a problem, and identifying the problem, has given me hope.
I can do this. I WILL do this.
I have been trying to get this story written out for, well, WEEKS at least. Maybe longer? I know I have alluded to feeling crazy in more than one recent post, but there is so much more to it than that.
I guess to tell this story properly, I have to go back about 11 years. Knucklehead's birth was fantastic - I mean, for childbirth. He was my third baby, so I pretty much knew what to expect: weeks of very convincing 'false labor' followed by a fast ACTUAL labor and super-fast delivery. What I did not expect was the deep feeling of sadness that settled on me by the time the baby was about a month old.
I would cry for no reason, and was so embarrassed about this that I would hide it - I cried in the shower, cried in the car by myself, cried in the laundry room, the closet, etc. This was when I perfected the 'silent cry' so I could even cry in bed next to Jarhead, without interrupting his sleep. I figured I had a textbook case of the baby blues, which meant it should resolve itself in a matter of weeks.
It didn't.
By the time I finally sought professional help, I had been living in this inexplicable DESPAIR for nearly three months. Knucklehead was about four months old, and though I loved him deeply, I found it hard to find ANY reason to 'go on'. I had begun fantasizing about ways to die - popping pills seemed the easiest, but I didn't want my kids to find my body. Yes, I thought it through THAT much. I figured I could drive off a cliff and everyone would think it was an accident, but the thought of leaving my children motherless kept me from going any farther than just IMAGINING being dead. Airhead was ten, and Bonehead just five years old.
My psychiatrist told me that I was NOT, in fact, crazy, but was suffering from
POST-PARTUM DEPRESSION. I had kind of suspected this already, but was relieved to be officially diagnosed with something - especially something TREATABLE. I was still breastfeeding Knucklehead, and since I wanted to continue to nurse him for as long as possible, my medication choices were limited. Luckily we found one right away that worked well for me, and when combined with weekly therapy sessions it stopped the suicidal ideations.
After about six months of medication and therapy, I felt better, and stopped treatment. About six months later, I began to feel extremely depressed again. By this time we had moved to a new city, so I put off getting help for awhile. I finally made myself find a new doctor and get back on meds when the depression became so severe that it limited my functioning. There is no 'magic pill' but the drugs I took helped me get a handle on my life again. Since then, I have gone back on meds three other times, for at least 5 or 6 months each time. I have officially been diagnosed with CLINICAL DEPRESSION, and threw in some Generalized Anxiety Disorder a few years ago, too. Throughout all of it I had severe insomnia, but only took sleep medication in 2008/2009. I do love me some Ambien!
So, when Jarhead and I decided to try to get pregnant in late 2009, I had been off of my anti-depressants for almost a year already, and had not suffered a panic attack in almost two years. I only had to stop taking my birth control and my sleeping pills, and was fine.
Beyond fine - our first attempt at getting pregnant was a success.
The same week we got pregnant, we also got orders for deployment. This meant my hubby had to miss half of the pregnancy, as well as the delivery - which I think would make MOST women at least a little depressed. This is known as 'situational depression'...and for the most part, I think I handled it well. If you've followed this blog from the beginning, you probably noticed the bouts of mild depression during and shortly after the pregnancy.
Jarhead came home when Bobblehead was three months old, and I was THRILLED to have him home. At first. I noticed right away that something wasn't right, that we just weren't connecting. I felt isolated, hurt, angry, and really ripped off - after all, I had waited SO LONG for our family to be whole again, and then got this ridiculous sham of a relationship out of it???? WTF??? It's like the kid in the old sitcom/movie/book who saves his money to send away for some awesome 'real' boat/plane/car/whatever, and waits for it, checking the mail every day, until finally it arrives and its made of corrugated cardboard. Disappointment.
With all of that in mind, the minor depression I felt back in December was again 'situational'. Totally rational, normal depression. No suicidal thoughts, and no endless crying 'for no reason'. Nothing to make me think PPD, or even to make me think I needed meds again.
By mid-January I felt like I was losing my mind. Bobblehead turned four months old, we had him baptised as planned, and life seemed to be going on all around me - without me really participating other than to meet everyone's basic needs. I was Rosie the Robot from The Jetsons. I was just going through the motions. Except I really was FEELING things; feeling too much, feeling overwhelmed by everything.
I went back to work in January too, so I chalked some of the crazy feelings up to the stress from that. Also around that time, I began to finally admit that there was more wrong with my hubby than just the typical detachment that comes with deployment/redeployment.
I knew there was something wrong with him (probably PTSD) and I knew there was something wrong with me - but it felt nothing like the PPD (Post Partum Depression) that I experienced a decade ago. I wasn't SAD. I wasn't suicidal. I wasn't crying all-the-time. I was just going freaking OUT OF MY MIND.
It was only by a series of coincidences that I ended up at a special presentation for Doulas and Midwives about PPD. Of course I am neither a Doula nor a Midwife, but like I said, a series of coincidences got me there. I now believe that I was MEANT to be there, because the therapist who presented her personal story gave me so much insight into PPD! The one thing she told us was that, in her experience, PPD felt like "having a nervous breakdown". I had actually said those exact words the day before, describing to my sister how completely INSANE I felt. I didn't feel that deep sadness that I had come to associate with PPD, so I didn't think to ask for help with this new brand of crazy - nor did I think that help would be so freaking SIMPLE!
After that presentation, I went back on a low dose of my anti-depressant, which made a huge difference, and I started weekly therapy sessions. Now, after only three sessions, I already feel SO MUCH like my old self! I still don't recognize my husband as the man he used to be - and still hope he will get some help and work through whatever issues are keeping him locked away so deep inside of himself. I still don't see 'US' when I look at us. I don't feel like we even ARE an 'us'....and honestly have to face the possibility that we might never be US again.
But I am determined to find a way to be ME again, regardless of what our future as a couple holds. I owe it to my children, my husband, and most of all to MYSELF to get well.
Healing will not be as easy as I am making this sound, but taking the first difficult steps of admitting there's a problem, and identifying the problem, has given me hope.
I can do this. I WILL do this.
Wednesday, March 24, 2010
On My Watch Tonight
I tried to link the youtube video for this song but it doesn't want to work in blogspot (?)
Definitely worth watching, try following this URL:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h5QTHoQMugI
This song is by Mike Corrado, a Marine who served in Fallujah during the same time my hubby was there the first time. The song itself brings a tear to my eye, but the pictures (provided by II MEF) really drive it home.
For me, literally.
Hubby is in the slideshow TWICE, both times right when the chorus says "I'll keep you safe".
Here are the lyrics:
I come from an island in the Carolina sand
Where I was broke down and built up and reborn a fighting man
And my blood runs red, white and blue
I'll brave the cold, the rain, the pain and the bullets...
So you don't have to.
But don't worry about me, I'll be alright
Just care for your children, and sleep tight
And I'll keep you safe, on my watch tonight
It's a long, long way from that island
And a long way from home
With the thought of you standing behind me,
I could never be alone
And there's a promise I need you to make
While I'm gone, you take care of the love and I'll deal with the hate.
And don't worry bout me, I'll be alright
Just care for your children, and sleep tight.
And I'll keep you safe, on my watch tonight.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
