I'd Like to Forget Today

Today has pretty much sucked. Well, I can't say the whole day has been bad, but the bad things from today have definitely outweighed the good.

Last night I dreamt I was raped twice by a male friend that I actually truly trust. We've been friends for 12 years, and he's married to one of my best friends. He's more of a big brother to me, and has never been anything but gracious to me. Why in the heck would I have this dream??? And why am I dreaming about being hurt as an adult by one of the few people in my life I really do trust? Nothing in this realm has happened to me since this body grew up, and the man in my dream has never been remotely inappropriate towards me. So why?????? And why does it have to be one of those dreams I can't shake no matter how hard I try? Randomly I briefly spoke to my friend (the wife of the man in my nightmare last night) on the phone tonight, and I felt so awkward. I felt ashamed and like I had something to hide or owed her an apology. grrr...

Then I found out this afternoon that my grandmother has cancer again and we know for sure it's in her liver. She has to have more tests to find out if it's anywhere else as well, but it doesn't look good. She's had cancer before and has said she won't do chemo again. So I wonder, did my grandmother basically just get her death sentence today? Obviously finding out she has cancer today, doesn't change how fast or slow the cancer has been growing, but it's been nice living in denial this past week, letting myself think she had gallbladder issues.

I hope I get tired soon. I just want today to be over. Maybe if I sleep well tonight, I can have a better perspective on things tomorrow. Right now it just feels like everything sucks.... even though I know this is not true.... this is still how I feel.

Blah.

a side note

I need to step away from the blog format of the past 4 days to throw in an extra entry b/c I'm not sure where else to talk about it. For those of you keeping up with the Eight Lies Most Trauma survivors believe, Lie #5 will be posted later this afternoon.


A classmate and aquaintance of mine (we're friends in class and on FB, but we don't hang out in real life) recently lost her husband in Afghanistan. I only found out about it this morning b/c it's summer, and I haven't really seen or talked to her all summer. I am heartbroken for her. She is a widow at the age of 25 with a 4 year older daughter, a 2 year old daughter, and a 2 month old daughter.

It can be easy at times to play the "army wife". I go to my FRG meetings and am polite and sociable. This morning I went on the Family Fun Run where families of my husband's batallion run 2 miles with their soldier. I'll meet a gazillion people I won't remember tonight at a Hail and Farewell..... Sometimes I can almost forget how in 6 months he'll be in mortal danger everyday again when he deploys.... how precious and fragile life is....

I'm sad that he leaves Sunday for a month for training, but I'm not worried about his safety. He's not leaving the States. I will miss him, but he'll come home. But there's nothing similar to the death of a soldier that you knew or watching someone grieve their husband for our freedom.

How can I ache so badly from a situation that I am so removed from? And the thought of something happening to my husband when he deploys again..... well, I can't even go there... I know it's good that I don't on a regular basis. Most soldiers come home safe and sound, but it is very very sobering to be reminded of all of the men and women (including my husband) whose job by nature asks them to risks their lives daily and that not all of them will come home.

Sorry to be riding the depressing train this morning, but this didn't seem like crisis enough to contact T and it's hard to talk to hubby b/c he just wants to tell me not to worry.

Somebody please tell me again why I let love convince me I was strong enough to be an Army wife????

more hurt than I realized

I got a phone call from a good friend the Thursday before my wedding weekend. She had made plans to travel a great distance to come to my wedding. That evening she called me from a hospital to tell me she wouldn't make it to the wedding. She'd been admitted to the hospital and would be there for a few days then transferred to a Psych hospital. I didn't ask any more details than that. I didn't want to know more details. I was already in my hotel room in the destination city where we got married knee deep in wrapping gifts and doing some last minute wedding prep.

This friend has lots of struggles, is in a bad situation, and has a similar past to me. As a result, psych hospital visits and s*ic*de attempts aren't all that uncommon. I truly hate it for her that she is in so much pain all of the time, and while my situation is different than hers, I do understand the feeling of thinking and believing you can't live one more minute.

When I hung up the phone with friend, I was briefly ticked off b/c my assumption is that this was another attempt. I say assumption b/c I haven't talked to her to ask her for sure. I quickly had to push those feelings down and get back to wedding stuff and made up my mind that I would not let her incident keep me from enjoying my wedding weekend.

In all honesty, I really didn't give it another thought until today. Today was friend's birthday. It brought back up all of the feelings that I didn't "endulge" in during wedding weekend, and I found myself not even wanting to wish her a happy birthday b/c that would mean contact with her. I do care about her, and I really do wish her a happy birthday so I sent her a message.

I guess I have more anger around this issue than I've wanted to admit. It hurts that she couldn't wait 3 days to attempt. I know that sounds so selfish and so harsh of me. I also know I'm basing things off of my own experiences and not hers. While that is probably not fair to her, it's where I am right now. We managed to stay alive for 5 months strictly because of sister's wedding a few years ago. I don't/didn't mean enough to her for her to wait 3 more days to end her life? And what if she had succeeded? How could I have enjoyed my wedding day with the knowledge that a good friend who was supposed to be there supporting me was now dead?

It really does piss me off! Right or wrong it does. I don't want to be understanding of her situation and say it's okay and I understand how awful things are. I want to be mad and selfish and ask her why she couldn't pull her shit together enough to make it through one freaking weekend?

Wow, my crazy train really is taking a trip around the world tonight. (Read previous post for explanation).

Reminders

Everyday I have some very close friends who struggle with suicidal ideations. I hate this struggle for the because I spent so many years there myself and even have reoccurences of those feelings occassionally these days. With people that struggle in these situations, I feel I stay well aware of how fragile life is and how I might lose one of them at any moment if they allow life to overcome them.... not that I would blame them. They're dealing with some rough stuff.... but I also truly believe God will sustain us if we trust him and don't life overwhelm us to the point of choosing to end our own.

However, I still am always taken aback by the sudden, unexpected deaths that weren't at one's own hand. In these moments I am reminded how fragile life is for everyone on this planet.... how easily someone we love may be called away from this earth or how fragile my life still is even though I am no longer my number one death threat.

I apologize that this post sounds so morbid. It's just what I've been reflecting on this evening. See, fiance and I had dinner at his commander's house tonight with a couple of other captains and their wives. We were all having a wonderful time. They are such nice people, and it's very nice for me to actually know some of the women whose husbands will be deploying with mine in Feb. As we were wrapping up dinner, fiance's commander got a phone call. The call was to tell him that his mother had just passed away. Obviously, this was the end of the dinner party. The 6 of us guests helped clear the table and tried to do as much as we could to make clean up easier on the family. I got the impression that the major's mother was not ill and the phone call of her death was a shock.

"You have made my days a mere handbreadth; the span of my years is as nothing before you. Each man's life is but a breath." Psalm 39:5


I need to remember that I do not know how many days I will be blessed to have those I love here with me or how many days God is going to bless me with on this planet. No day or moment should be taken for granted. Lord help me remember this when wedding stress or PMS or bad moods keep me from appreciating all of my blessings and keeping my focus on what is most important.

Memorial Service *TW* Talk of Suicide

I attended my first military memorial service today. At times, there was some discomfort for me in the formality of the event, but at the same time there was a sense of honor and respect being paid to the deceased because of the protocol being followed. Overall, I left very impressed with the way the memorial service was handled.

The reason for the service was another reason. The sergeant we were memorializing committed suicide last week. My fiance was deployed with him in Afghanistan until they came home in Dec. All I heard about this sergeant that may have played into his suicide were that he came home from deployment to his wife divorcing him and then the weekend before he passed away, his girlfriend broke up with him. These issues on top of reintegration from war, send a "well duh" thought through my head. However, it seems no one else saw it coming. He had future trips planned, he wasn't giving away everything he owned, etc.

Many of those (including my fiance) that I had the privilege to speak with are in total shock. I understand their shock. Even with friends that have committed suicide and I knew they were in a space they might do that, there is a shock that comes along with not being able to believe they actually followed through. At the same time, being someone who was suicidal for so many years and watching close friends of mine struggle with suicidality, I highly doubt there were no signs. The signs were just too subtle for the "normal" person to notice.

I say "normal" b/c I believe those of us who have been suicidal at one point or another in our life or have people close to us who are gain a better understanding of what to look for and a gut feeling of when someone else might be struggling that much, even if they're hiding it from 95% of the people in their life. I believe it's also hard for a person who has never been suicidal to fathom situations or feelings that would push someone to that point. I bet you anything, those closest to him didn't realize the internal turmoil he'd probably been dealing with since returning home in Dec or even before. All it took was something big (or small) to be his breaking point.

Memorial services for someone who dies from suicide always feel so much sadder and more painful for me. When someone dies in battle, or in a car wreck, or in some way that is out of their control, for some reason it is easier to cope with. It's easier to think they've found peace with Jesus. NOTE: I do NOT believe suicide equates the inability for God's grace to cover you and grant you eternal life with him. I do find myself feeling more that the person's life was cut short though. What great things might they still have seen, done, or felt in the name of the Lord if they'd just stuck it out? Feelings are ever changing. I do know what it's like to be chronically depressed and suicidal for 5 straight years, so I know it's tiring, but I also know that the depression and impulses did wax and wane during that time, and it is possible to overcome.

I think part of the sickening thud that settles in my stomach when I hear of a suicide and especially if I attend the person's funeral or know the person personally is b/c I know how close I was in the Spring of 2008 of causing that pain on so many around me. In the moment, I couldn't see past what was directly in front of me, so I don't hold guilt per say. I was very sick. But I constantly praise God that he put me in a place where people could intervene and I could be given another chance and receive help from people who could help me.

At the memorial service today, I cried. I never met this sergeant. My fiance didn't know him all that well. Yet we were both greatly affected today by his death. For me, it's just another reminder that people I don't even know might be effected if I chose to end my life before God calls me home.

I am very much in prayer for the family and friends of this sergeant and of anyone who has lost a loved one to suicide. In addition, I am in deep prayer for those people I know and those I don't know who are having suicidal impulses. God always provides a way out, we just have to choose to pay attention to it and take it.

And praise God that he took care of me when I didn't want to pay attention or take advantage of my way out of my suicidal impulses and acted on them. If I had succeeded, I would not be getting married to the man of my dreams in less than 4 weeks, I wouldn't have been able to realize my dream to be a therapist - and a good one at that. And I for sure wouldn't have realized my desire to function well and happy on only 20mg of Prozac instead of 10 psychotropic meds at one time.

God is bigger than suicide. I wish I knew how to help people (including myself) remember this in moments of utter despair when all you can see, think, feel, act on is getting out of this world and ending this life as soon as possible!!!!

Familiar craziness

Well, last week's unfamiliar craziness settled into old familiar craziness after therapy today. On one hand, the way we're feeling now is familiar so there's more an idea of what to expect. On the other hand, I know the potential and places this crazy can take us.

A part that seems to constantly struggle more than her fair share who disoriented us so much last week and made us aware of some things in our internal world that we were unaware of talked again in therapy today.

Let me back up just a bit. I don't have the best internal communication with this part so when she wants to fly below the radar, it's very easy for her to do. Somehow over the past few months she'd managed to take all of her feelings and memories that she held and get them outside of her. For her, this was the most peace she's ever felt. She told therapist today that her body now feels hollow and that she doesn't feel anything. The only drawback to having everything out of her is that it had her completely cut off from the external world, thus the total disorientation.

During therapy today, the black hands (as she calls them) tried to pull her back in while she was forward like they did last session. Therapist worked hard to help keep this part forward. I guess it was working b/c the black hands decided to push all of her feelings and memories back up into her while she was forward since they weren't able to pull her down into it. It was the craziest thing to watch from the inside. It was like all of these pictures and feelings and words filled her hollow body up like a liquid going into a pitcher until she was completely full again.

The pain of having everything back had her wailing in therapy for a bit, then she seemed to very quicky resign to the idea that this is "her lot in life." She then started asking questions about the outside world that she's been missing out on. She was rather surprised to learn that the wedding that was forever away when she first found out is only 2 months away. She has agreed to talk to therapist about her fears and try to understand why marriage and having a man around all the time is a good idea, but I'll admit that I'm scared.

I know she will work hard, but I've been so excited that my wedding is getting close. I feel ready to be married and wish the wedding was next weekend (except for the fact that everything's not done yet). With this part always being the most against an intimate relationship with another human being, especially a male now able to and interested in paying attention to the outside world again, 2 months does NOT feel like enough time. Therapist says she believes this part does not have the energy or is oriented enough to the present yet to sabotage my relationship with fiancee or do something to call the wedding off, but I'm not as convinced. This part is the one who managed to tie our bed sheet in a knot to the bed and the other end into a noose around our neck and try to strangle us while having a flashback in an inpatient hospital. There is the potential she could have succeeded had staff not intervened.

I'm not expecting this part to act on anything anytime soon and hopefully not at all. Still, I hated the familiar thoughts and feelings that were going through my head as I drove home today. At one point, we drove past a truck on the interstate who had a casket company logo on the side. The thought that went through my head.... "I want to be in a casket. I want to stop breathing and rest forever." No part of me planned to do anything to act on those thoughts, but I guess I just got used to not having thoughts like that automatically flow through my head.

For now, I guess we're just going to consider this a work in progress and stay hopeful. :-P

Part II

In case I'm posting these entries too close together, the first part of this entry is entitled: Clear as Mud.

Assuming default mode passes in time, we've got to come up with a way to handle the current situation. A couple of ideas come to mind, but I don't know if they're good ones or not. Obviously, therapist and I will continue to work on things in therapy and she can talk with parts who have fears, concerns, memories, etc.

The other options I have so far:
1. Keep boundaries the way they are, inform fiancee of my fears, and pray harder than I ever have that God will take care of all of our needs so that sex is not the issue I see it being right now by the time our wedding actually rolls around.

2. Talk to fiance about the possibility of relaxing our physical boundaries a bit so that we can continue to slowly adjust to being more physical with him over a longer period of time.

While I truly believe my God is great enough to allow the first to happen, both of these feel manipulative towards fiancee on my end. Either I think he's not totally going to "get it" until after he says, I do. Or I'm asking him to potentially adjust his moral standards for my benefit.

And again I default back to how this whole situation would just be easier if I wasn't alive. Fiance could find a girl who can love him with all of her, who won't always having her past come up and bite hard during times that are supposed to be the happiest, who won't always feel so needy and insecure whether she tells you about it or not.

I know for so many years I walked around this and even more turmoil on me and held down a job and/or school, frienships, etc, but right now, for the life of me, I have no idea how. Things are shut down here tomorrow because of snow, and I am so thrilled that I don't have to go anywhere or be anything b/c honestly, I don't feel I could fake it right now.

Clear as Mud

Yep. That's about how clear everthing feels in my head right now. Before I proceed, I should probably preface this entry with

*TW S*xual Content* - please read at a time when you feel you are in a safe place.
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Despite my intial reasons for creating this blog to be an online journal to discuss my healing and issues around the childhood abuse we suffered, I very rarely speak on anything specfically related to this content. In all honesty, I believe it's more of an attempt to spare myself than anyone else. I only started this blog a year ago. It's been almost 2 years that I've been in a pretty good place. I think days that remind me of the dark spaces I've been in lead me to not want to blog and to distract and to forget as soon as possible. I like my new "healthy" happy life not overrun by utter despair, pain and desperation.

Unfortunately/fortunately (depending on how you look at it) we've entered into a space, a set of therapeutic work that needs to be done, that is going to make it impossible to try and stay in my nice little bubble. Vacation is over. It's time to put the gloves back on and enter the ring again. Ugh.

I know I mention fiancee a lot in my blogs, but typically it's about how something he said or did affected me emotionally. He is involved in my current issue, but more indirectly as this has nothing to do with anything he's done right or wrong or even anything he's completely aware of at the moment.

Our wedding is in 3 months and 29 days! I am so excited! Final details for invitations are coming together, bridesmaids dresses and tuxes have been ordered, wedding bands picked out, etc. I am so excited to be marrying fiancee!!! I/we are not excited about the wedding night. We never have been, but we've been working hard on our own and talking through some things in therapy. I thought we were making great progress (and I think maybe we were) until some progress we made this weekend sent my mind spinning. We contained everything until therapy today, but then when it was a safe place to talk about anything and everything with someone who has never judged us, it felt as if all hell broke lose in my head.

Let me back up just a bit. I don't judge other couples' physical decisions in their relationships. I think each couple needs to make that decision for themselves. However, based upon the way I was raised and fiancee and mine's spiritual beliefs, he and I have decided to wait until we're married to have sex. In fact, most would be surprised to find out how strict our physical boundaries are. This has been fantastic for me in our dating relationship b/c fiancee has never done anything to physically trigger me or any other part. We feel safe with him and feel respected when it comes to our body. In less than 4 months, technically, all boundaries are gone. Now, fiancee will respect whatever I need and am comfortable with, but at the same time, the poor guy will have waited 2 years to have sex with me. What kind of a wedding night will it be if I say "No thanks, can we just make out instead?" or if we follow through and then I end up in a flashback or overcome by guilt and shame afterwards - not b/c of anything to do with him but because it reminds me of all of those times as a child when..... well, I'm sure you can fill in the blank.

So, this weekend I tried a few, um exercises with the goal of hoping to make some things we're fearing less scary. The good news is that things went better than expected. That's also the bad news. You'd think by now that things that seem to solidify the abuse would make me feel better in the sense that I know I'm not making any of it up, but it doesn't. All of these old painful memories resurfaced instead and I find myself mourning so many things I thought I'd mourned all over again. In addition, it felt wrong that I didn't mind some things. My mind knows that sex and sexual acts are supposed to be pleasurable things, but I still feel such guilt when I enjoy something.

Some of this, I believe, is due to a 10 year old part who found pleasure in certain acts when the body was a child and carries an immense amount of guilt over this. As much as she's trying, she still can't quite comprehend why those same feelings can mean good things now. She knows what happened to us was bad so she thinks having positive feelings about them was bad. To her, it makes no sense that having those feelings in the present can be good. She and therapist talked for a long time tonight. I think some seeds were planted but right now I'm feeling more confused than ever.

Right now this feels like a lose/lose situation. Either when we have sex with fiance we do okay and even potentially enjoy it (if not the first time, at some point) which will lead to immense guilt and shame - none of which will be his fault; or we will freak out, not have sex, and poor fiancee will have to help us pick up the pieces from whatever memory or flashback came up.

Therapist says we're on a tough road but we can do this and there is a way to have sexual pleasure without feeling extreme guilt and/or to not freak out when husband will go to our "no zones" (those places off limits, at least until the wedding night). Because she says it, I believe her. However, right now I feel trapped. I don't feel there's a good way out of this situation and I'm frustrated b/c we've entered into default mode. Default mode is where we start thinking how if we were just dead then this whole issue would go away from everyone. To clarify.. These are NOT the same as our suicidal thoughts. Default mode just means we go into thinking how we and everyone else in our lives would be better off if we were just dead. It feels like we're on the verge of pulling fiancee down into this spiral with us and I want so bad to spare him. I can't imagine living without him though. Haven't we made enough people hurt with us in this process? I feel like we've tried to warn him, but he just doesn't see, and one day soon, he's going to get knocked upside the head with the reality of how screwed up everything in my head still is no matter how many days or months in a row I may appear "normal".

This is getting long and I need to take a break. Part II will follow.

Holiday Highlights

I feel so much has happened in the last few days, and I'm too tired to blog about it all. I've decided to hit the highlights tonight and come back and blog in more detail later the things I decide I want/need to.

• Friend that was in the ICU came through surgery well and will hopefully discharge tomorrow. Still going to be on oxygen for awhile and has a long road, but he's slowly improving.
• All of my dad's family was in town for Thanksgiving, and it was awesome!! We rarely all get together anymore, and it was so much fun, not to mention all of the good food!!!!
• My wedding dress came in this week, so my mom, sister, and female cousins came with me to my first fitting on Friday. It should have been an exciting event.
• Wedding dress looked nothing like it was supposed to. The coloring was wrong and it was 2 sizes too big. Plus, there was a big black spot on the train that the store owner swears she didn't do. I was crushed! I hated the dress, but we've already paid for 1/2 of it, and it's non-returnable according to the manufacturer, so now I have to fight it out with the store owner.
• Mom knew how upset I was about the dress despite me trying to hide it, so she got me up early Saturday morning and we went wedding dress shopping again. I fell in LOVE with a dress at the store we went to on Saturday and my amazing mother bought that dress for me. So for the time being, I have 2 wedding dresses. The new dress was made for me though. I love it and am no longer distraught but am excited to walk down the aisle in a few months knowing I will look like a princess.
• Saturday night got a phone call from the Army. Fiancee will be home on Friday (my birthday) very early in the morning!!!!!!!!!!!
• Tonight at church, a good friend of mine told me a friend of her's committed suicide yesterday (I didn't know the girl). Losing 2 friends, a professor, and an uncle to suicide in the last 5 years, I know the pain she's feeling right now.... and that thought pattern of.... if I'd only known, maybe I could have done something....

All of this on top of the crazy week with co-worker has left me exhausted and emotionally drained. I really do not enjoy going from high to low to high to low, etc.. with my emotions. Seems I learned some emotion regulation skills along the way, but they're not really working in my current setting. It's amazing how much even positive stuff can drain you.

This upcoming week there's likely to be confrontation at work with co-worker (thankfully it's my last week at work til after Christmas) and fiancee coming home on Friday is going to be completely awesome and incredibly emotionally exhausting at the same time. I have been so blessed in so many ways over the past week despite some of the rough spots. My current stressors are "normal people" stressors, so that helps me not beat myself up over them for possibly overreacting, but it does make me want a day or two break from life so I can recouperate.

Life is crazy!!!! I think Phil Collins sums up my life best right now with a line from one of his songs - " I love this awful, beautiful life!"

Prayers for a friend

My best friend from childhood's husband (who is only 34ish) is in the ICU right now on a ventillator. He had to be taken by ambulance last night. He's been struggling with some major health issues over the past year and they only seem to be getting worse. He's such a fighter, but I believe he's starting to give up. He can't give up yet! My best friend still needs him. They have two kids, 5 and 4. He has an upcoming surgery in Dec. to get a diaphragmatic pacemaker that has the potential to fix the majority of his symptoms/problems.

His family is asking for a miracle, which makes me think things are even more bleak than I realize. I can't get over to the city he's in until this evening, so for now praying is my only tool. But why do I say it like that? Prayer is my strongest tool. God has more power than any of the doctors working on him.

Those of you that believe in the power of prayer, please pray too. It's not his time to go. He is still very much needed on this planet!!

Deployment sucks!

So, I don't know how many of you watch the news or keep up with what's going on in Afghanistan, but for those of you that do, my fiance was one of the soldiers fighting in that deadly battle in Northern Afghanistan this weekend. Praise God he is safe, but they lost one of their own this weekend. First one of their guys lost in the 10 months they've been deployed. They are very blessed to have all stayed so far, but it just brings this war so much closer to home for me. Only 2 months left in his deployment. I've done really well so far, but maybe because things are getting worse over there and because the end is in sight, my fears for fiance's safety are growing.

I'm so afraid he's not going to come home to me. This isn't an unrealistic fear, but I do believe it is an unlikely fear. I really just want him home RIGHT NOW!!!! I don't want to wait 2 more months. But I need to stay strong and I need to be upbeat and positive when talking to him. I feel keeping his morale up is the best way I can support him right now. But it's getting hard, and I'm tired of being strong.

Why can't this stupid war just be over? Don't get me wrong. I am SO PROUD of fiance and everything he is doing and what he is fighting for, but I'm tired. I just want him home and I just want things to be normal, and I HATE already talking about plans for his next deployment!

Irony at its best

So, I got to work today after the long weekend to find out from the counselor I share an office with that his 31 year old son died over the weekend. Apparently he's had a lot of drug and alcohol issues for years. He recently just got out of a 3 month inpatient program. Cause of death hasn't been released, but it looks like a drug overdose of sorts. Co-worker was at work today because there's nothing he can do right now, and he said it's better than sitting at home. His son lived in another town but will be buried here on Saturday, so co-worker said he might as well be here and be distracted. It's so heartbreaking!

What kills me more than anything is that co-worker is a licensed drug and alcohol addictions counselor and has been in practice for over 25 years. Talk about ironic. To lose your own child to the thing you've spent your life fighting, helping those struggling to overcome, and educating others about seems so cruel.

God never said life would make sense, but I can only imagine the pain co-worker is feeling knowing he was never able to help his own flesh and blood. It's definitely not co-worker's fault that his son overdosed, but it is still extremely sad to think that he has helped so many others but was unable to help his own son.

I'm not even going to try to understand this one.