this is not what I ordered: check please!

Something occurred to me on Monday as I drove to work. It was a busy drive with people cutting off me and other drivers. The part that made me sad and convicted is that the majority of these drivers had church stickers on vanity plates with a spelling of gratefull or blessed. Mind you, I can be an aggressive driver myself, hence why I felt convicted. As a Christian, I am ashamed of the way my fellow faith members treat others. If Jesus wants us to go out into the world and proclaim him, how can we do so on Monday while being rude the other six days of the week? Do we think that’s acceptable? In my mind, no it shouldn’t be. If we don’t live hospitable Christian lives, how can we reach out to others and show the world that Christians are kind people. Next time I have a bit of road rage, I am going to stop and think how my actions make others feel. I will take a little time to pray for the other people also in the craziness of work hour traffic. I hope to be more cognizant of others. That is how we as Christians should live. It’s just my opinion but one I hope we all can follow. 

As 2017 is starting, I’m not making any New Years resolutions. Why? Because saying I am going to lose 50lbs or not drink Coke and eat chocolate are not realistic and might last one day, though I would love to lose 50lbs. I have decided this year to resolve to do things that we should all be doing every day. 

Love more, despite people having different opinions, belief systems, political views. It is a tenet of my own faith to come to people out of a place of love. To be able to care about someone despite disagreeing with them and not liking their behavior takes some maturity. It certainly doesn’t come easy and is something I have to work on every day. 

Be kind. I would consider myself a kind person, but I have room for improvement. Kindness is a must for me to do my job effectively and provide assistance to ill people. That level of kindness should extend to everyone.

Be patient. Patience towards others. Patience when driving is a big one for me. Patience waiting for God to reveal his plans for me and answer my prayers. I should hand my troubles to God, but my stubborness makes me want to take care of them myself, which usually ends in disaster. I would cause myself a lot less trouble if I can get my stubbornness under control and learn a little patience. 
I think, I hope these are resolutions that I can keep. Maybe I’ll get motivated o lose 50lbs. But I am absolutely not giving up chocolate! 

It’s Christmas. It’s been Christmas in every big box store on the planet since November 1st. Why is it necessary for retailers to throw the holidays in our faces for nearly two months? 

I’m one of many.people who gets depressed around the holidays, December through February to be exact. Hibernation would be great because I could crawl in a cave in October and not come out until March. It would save so much money in psychiatry and therapy bills and medication costs.

There are several reasons why this time of year is tough for me. I’ve basically hated this month and the next two since age 11. That is when we moved away from home for a year so my dad could finish his training as an oncologist. It’s not my dad’s fault at all, but it was an unhappy holiday for me, being miles away from home and friends.

I’ve also had some very traumatic experiences during this time of year. The toughest was the year my then-husband was diagnosed with leukemia. I was eight months pregnant. He nearly died. We could not afford Christmas that year. Baby #2 came in January, three weeks early. My psychiatrist says that I have PTSD from the experience. 

Now I am dealing with cancer again, this time with someone with whom I am very close. The cancer is expected to go into remission and has been responding well to chemotherapy, but cancer just sucks no matter what. 

The bright spot in the holidays is that it is the first that we will be spending with my wonderful husband and our blended family of four children. I married my best friend on October 22nd. We adore each other’s kids, too. He is incredibly supportive, going with me to psychiatry appointments as my bipolar disorder medications are adjusted. I am blessed. 

I was hoping that this was the year that I got through the holidays without a meltdown. No such luck. Maybe next year will be better. I’ll get back up and try this again..

This post is the story of a friend that lived in hell for years. She came out on the other side a better, happier version of herself, but she is still trying to erase the negative messages and hopeful that someone will come along who will love her and her children for they are. These are her words.

We were married on December 31, because I was, in his words, a tax deduction. He told me that I was wife #2 until we were married and then decided to let me know that I was actually wife #3.

I found out that I was pregnant the following October. I was very sick, with hyperemesis gravidarum. He mocked me when I was crying on the floor in the bathroom because I was vomiting every 30 minutes to one hour. I ended up hospitalized three times. One of those times, I had to drive myself home from the hospital. He did not stay with me at any point or time during this. At one point, he actually said he hoped I would lose the baby. He accused me of having an affair with his brother after our son was born because of someone’s offhanded remark about how much my son looked like his brother when he was born. Newborn babies look like newborn babies, period.

I found out in December 2006, that he was having an emotional affair with one of his  classmates. It was actually getting physical, too, though he says they never did more than kiss each other. It is still an affair in most people’s eyes. I’m not entirely sure it was only emotional.

Our son was born in the summer of 2007 after an exhausting and harrowing delivery in which he had the umbilical cord wrapped around his neck. I got to hold him so long as anyone else was present, but his father would take him from me as soon as we were alone. When I nearly passed out during this hospital stay from acute blood loss, my husband became angry because I woke him up.

I developed severe postpartum depression and anxiety disorder because he forced me to go back to work three weeks after I delivered the baby because he was full-time in college and refused to get a job. He also wouldn’t let me be treated for postpartum depression, so I had to sneak to appointments with a psychiatrist who specialized in postpartum mood disorders. I also had to sneak out to see a therapist. He also forced me to travel halfway across the US to get his son for a summer visit during this time, knowing that he wouldn’t be home much and I was in a mentally fragile state. It  certainly didn’t help that he forced himself on me again and again while I was in a state of healing from an incision called an episiotomy which my doctor had to do to get our son out quickly because his heart rate was dropping and the cord was around his neck. I still remember the pain and the tears this many years later

The verbal and emotional abuse continued through our marriage. He thrived on his ego-stroking job. He was stronger than me at that time. By the time I was pregnant with our second son, he was shoving me around regularly, usually against walls where he would get in my face and curse at me. I was ready to leave at 7 months pregnant with my 2 year old son. Then my husband got sick and I felt that I had to help him. It was like I would go to Hell if I didn’t. If I had only realized I was already in Hell and it was about to get worse.

I had our second son unplanned and three weeks early. I required a cesarean section, as he was in a transverse breech position. My husband had just gotten out of the hospital the week before, but rather than stay home, came to the birth. He never once touched the baby. The day I came home from the hospital, I remember clearly that he was sitting in the recliner. I walked in holding our newborn son with our toddler trailing after me, and he, knowing that I could not lift anything heavier than my baby, gave me an evil look and ordered me to help him out of the chair. His family was there and helped him, but it was another instance of how little I was regarded by him.

For further care, my husband was sent to a hospital in another state not long after our second son was born. Thus began my internal tug of war between working all week at home while caring for four children (two mine, two not) and traveling on weekends to play caregiver. I was unable to bond like I wanted with my baby, as he and my toddler ended up being cared for by their grandparents during this time.

My husband could not physically harm me, but the emotional and mental abuse escalated during this time. I could never be good enough, never do enough. Some things he said were so hurtful, I’ve blocked them from my memory and only remembered that horrible things were said. Conveniently during this time, he complained of memory lapses and that he didn’t remember what he said to me. He continued to use this excuse for every time he yelled at me from then until I decided to end our marriage.

He came home 8 months later and the emotional abuse continued, along with the crazy idea in his head that he was deathly ill with all manner of things (if only). He worked for a short time, then left his job and stayed at home, though he did not take up the duties of a stay at home parent.

In 2012, I ended up being emergently hospitalized with a completely obstructive kidney stone and massive infection. I had been assigned to a hospital room for hours before he would even take me to the hospital because he had errands to run first. He stayed at the hospital long enough for me to go into the OR, then he left. According to the nurses, he said he had to go home and take care of our kids. Meanwhile, my mother was at her home taking care of our kids. I ended up having two surgeries a month apart and was on antibiotics for two months.

Later in 2012, I got pneumonia. He refused to take me to the hospital, even with a 103.0 fever. He wanted to call an ambulance instead, not out of concern for me, but because he didn’t want to be bothered with me. I made two trips to the ER because I was unable to keep the antibiotics down. He showed up on my second visit to insist that the ER doctor put in a PICC line and send me home with IV antibiotics so he could take care of me at home. My pneumonia was in two lobes, so I should have been admitted to the hospital. He did not take care of me. I administered my own antibiotic and he still made me take the kids to school and do all the work around the house.

He continued to stay home, while I worked. I have no problem at all with stay at home parents, but he did nothing for our children or to assist me. Our children went to daycare, even though he was home all the time. He did not help me with household chores. My day consisted of dropping kids at school, working a full time job, picking up kids from daycare, making dinner, doing homework with kids, cleaning house, and falling in bed somewhere around midnight, while he was up fueling his addiction to porn and online games, spending upwards of $100 per day.

I was ignored in my own home. Yet, even though I was being ignored, I was expected to keep to my wifely duties and be at his beck and call. He even used verses from the Bible to justify his treatment of me. There were at least two times that he forced himself on me, which is rape in my book, I was just married to my rapist. Everytime I protested, he threatened to take the children. If only I had realized then that he would never take the children because it required too much work to care for young kids.

I finally had enough when he got in my face again about sex and I told him no. He grabbed me by the arms, called me an ungrateful whore and a bitch in front of the children, and locked himself in the bathroom. He shoved me around several times between that incident and when he actually left the house for good.

Two years later, I can say my children and I are getting to a good place. Everyone is in therapy. My kids still have a hard time transitioning between the routine and order in our home and the chaos in his.

A few things I have learned on this part of my journey: I was married to someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and possible sociopathic tendencies. Because of this, true co-parenting is not possible because he attempts to create chaos wherever he goes. I try anyway for the sake of my kids and their need not to be in the middle of this battle that their dad and stepmother are waging against me. The most important things I have taken away from this experience is that I am good enough, no matter what the negative messages in my head tell me. I can take care of myself and my children. I am a loving and capable mother. I am worth loving and I have friends and family who do love me.

I hope by telling my story, I can help someone else in a similar situation. I hope I can give that person the courage to leave their personal hell. I hope others can see that they are not alone. Too many people are living like I did and desperately need to get out. Breaking free was the best decision I ever made for myself and my children. I will never go back to living in hell again.

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

I’ve been doing some soul searching lately. I realize that I am having trouble moving forward in my life. I’m caught up in past emotions and heartache. I’ve noticed that I still talk negatively about my ex-husband, way too often and to way too many people. I don’t really know why I still bring up the long, torturous story. I doubt anyone else, including me, wants to hear it anymore. I’ve moved past relationships prior to that one and I really need to let this one go, minus the co-parenting and his crazy new wife. Lol. 

I don’t think I will be able to enjoy another relationship unless I let this one go. I’ve already let a potential one slip through my fingers because of fear and just got out of another because I like my independence too much. So how does one let the hatred and hurt feelings go?

I’m not sure of the answer to that question. If anyone has any ideas, feel free to tell me. I’ve done a lot of work on me in the past few years. I’ve learned new things about who I am as a person. And I’ve lost 50lbs! I have spent a lot of time helping my children adjust that maybe I haven’t adjusted myself?

Don’t get me wrong. In no way do I want to go through that sham of a marriage again. But there is a deep hatred there that started long before the marriage ended. I try to be as civil as possible, since for good or bad, he is the father of the two greatest blessings in my life. 

I feel like God has someone else out there for me. I don’t know who, where, or how to find him, but I would hope that God would bring me someone great, not perfect, but fun. Someone who enjoys life. I just don’t think that can happen unless I let these old hurts go and the past go. I have to let the hatred go. I don’t have to like my children’s father. That would be expecting a miracle, but he is my children’s father, so like it or not, he will be there. Hating him is not doing me any good. My hating him doesn’t hurt him in any way, only me. 

So I pray this prayer tonight. Lord, please help me let go of the hate and negativity which has taken up residence in my heart. It doesn’t deserve a place there. It needs to go to make room for my future. Please help me. I have to let go. 

There are many things that are hard about being an adult. One of the hardest is seeing parents ill. I saw this first hand this week. My dad is sick and in the hospital. It hurts to see the man who you still think of as being young in a hospital bed. He looks so fragile lying there. I know lots of people say this about their dads, but my dad is really the best dad ever.

My dad is a retired pediatric oncologist and relates to children in a way I have never seen other doctors. He worked a lot when we were growing up, but made as much time as possible for us kids. When we were young, he used to hold us upside down and let us walk on the ceiling. It was great fun for everyone but Mom, who wasn’t thrilled to have tiny footprints on her ceiling. This same man hung many a swing in the trees in our backyard. He played with us at the beach and taught us about hermit crabs and horseshoe crabs. He pulled out sand spurs and stitched up hurt chins and heads.

I have so many fun memories of my dad. Like the time we had a tornado warning. Mom was at work and Daddy discovered we had no batteries for the flashlights. So we piled into the station wagon and headed to Bi-Lo. We bought a cake, ice cream, and cookies. I think we forgot batteries. To this day, we laugh about “tornado supplies”. Then there was the time that Daddy, my sister Julie, and I wanted to make a red velvet cake. We tried to follow the directions. It ended up being pink and not quite as much like velvet. Daddy crowned it our pink felt cake because it had the texture of felt more than velvet.

He always came up with crazy ways to wrap gifts for Mom. One year, we packed a ring box in the middle of a huge box and filled it with newspaper. Mom kept pulling newspaper out of the box. She almost missed the ring box. The best was for their 25th wedding anniversary. Daddy kept telling her that it was the aluminum anniversary. He actually bought her a new wedding set, which we put in a cheap aluminum pot with a silver bow on top. Her smile faded when Daddy handed her the pot, but she was pleasantly surprised to find a ring box inside the pot. She actually kept the pot!

Life was so much fun growing up. I remember the year he decided that Mom was no longer allowed to pick out Christmas trees, because she always chose the Charlie Brown one. Then there was the time he decided to cut a white pine from our yard to use as our tree. It got heavier and heavier as he was dragging it into the house. Turns out, out dog Beau was handing on to the end with his teeth and was getting dragged along behind the tree. He harassed our Corgi D.C. with a white ceramic dog someone gave him in the 70s. Always making us laugh.

He is an even better grandad. My kids think he hung the moon. We had a bat get in our house a few years ago, so he came over, found it, and got it out of the house. It unfortunately met its demise as a result of his bat capturing skills. Eli now calls him The Supreme Bat Killer of the Universe. He and Eli love to look at the solar system and moons on the computer. He and Caleb love to watch car races and Barrett-Jackson auctions on TV.

That is how I prefer to see my dad, as the fun dad, the best dad in the world. The fragile looking man in the hospital bed is not how I want to think of my dad because to me, he hung the moon.

 

 

 

My little blond haired boy is nine years old today. He’s not so little anymore. He’s kind, thoughtful, sensitive, and loving. He’s also stubborn, bossy, and oh so talkative. I’ve heard many a detailed Hemingway-esque account of every second of every dream he had the night before, usually while I am trying to sleep in. He is now debating over whether his favorite color really is blue or if he’s decided red is better. He is a rabid Clemson Tigers football fan and was despondent that they lost the National Championship. He says he’s going to Clemson someday, but he doesn’t know why or exactly what for.

This kid I gave birth to is so smart. He wants to be an astronomer, astronaut, and work for Nintendo to create more Mario games. He still doesn’t believe me when I tell him that I played Super Mario Bros at his age.

This child was my gift for my 33rd birthday. Having birthdays two days apart is great, except when I am at the pharmacy picking up meds for both of us and I give 6/10/07 as my birthday. What? I look like a little boy, right?

When he turned seven, he asked me how old I was going to be. I told him fourty years old. He said “Wow Mom, fourty is A LOT older than seven!” The fact that he’s still here after that statement speaks to the love I have for this kid. He has now made it a habit to tell me that I am young.

I’ve heard it said that little boys really love their moms. He sure does. I get hugs and I love yous all the time, except in public, of course. He always compliments me on my hairstyle and how pretty he thinks I am. He even helped me pick an outfit for work last week.

As I look at him sleeping right now, I see a tiny glimpse of that little baby I gave birth to, the one who turned into a rambunctious toddler and preschooler and is a daredevil extraordinaire. I’m not sure we were going to make it through the twos and threes, nor did I think he would ever learn to potty train! I also see the little boy who took kindergarten by storm, had a crush on his first grade teacher, and has adored his second and third grade teachers. I see a child who is a people pleaser and loves to help. I see a boy whose mission in life is to protect his little brother and make his mommy be proud. I also see a child who is an expert at Minecraft and playing his Wii U and is well on his way towards being a Lego master builder.

This child is a blessing and God blessed me by making me his mommy. I love you Eli, my favorite nine year old boy.

I am thinking about taking a Facebook sabbatical. It seems as though people are getting bent out of shape for insanely minute reasons. It became crystal clear to me tonight just how ridiculous people have become. I was attacked personally for making a joke about Donald Trump’s hair. WTH?!? I don’t think the woman who attacked me is one of his relatives or a personal friend of his. She then went on to call me a Bernie Sanders-loving nazi-feminist or something like that. That’s quite a leap from making fun of a man’s truly terrible hairdo. In actuality, I don’t like any of the Presidential candidates and have no clue which is the lesser of evils. The only nazi attitude I have is towards bad grammar.

Now I am not saying that it is okay to make fun of everyone. But it seems to me as though priorities are screwed up when people cannot laugh anymore. Everyone is so easily offended these days. No one can speak their mind anymore.

This is not a post about my former wedding anniversary. Nope, this is a post about the first anniversary of my divorce being final. February 2nd, 2015 is the day I closed that chapter and started another one. Funny thing is, I am just now realizing it. I guess divorce anniversaries are odd. Maybe I’m just enjoying life more now so I forgot to notice.

So much has changed, mostly good things. I could name them all, but then I would be repeating my last five posts or so. I will spare everyone a rehashing of the story.

Now that I am 41 and will be 42 in June, I’ve decided to get rid of as much negativity in my life as possible. Part of that process was letting go of being an admin of a group I had belonged to for several years. I felt like a school marm most days in a group of 8000+, many of whom acted like a room full of 3rd graders. It’s funny how letting go of something so simple can make such a difference. I feel free now. Not that I don’t still belong to Facebook groups, but I am now unburdened by them.

Another step in removing negativity was letting go of my former job and diving headfirst into a new position in a new department. I was at my former job for 4 years, so I made quite a number of friends along the way whom I miss. The job itself, however, was impossible. Now I am actually having fun at work! Who would’ve thought that was possible?

There is one area that I am still working on. I am trying to forgive my ex-spouse. That has proven extraordinarily difficult and downright impossible. Not so much for the emotional roller coaster I was on, but for my kids. I feel for them. They don’t think they have a real dad. It’s sad to me that my eight year old keeps asking me when I am getting him a new dad, a real dad. How do I answer that question?

I am dipping my toe in the dating pool, I guess. For me, it’s a foreign concept and downright frightening. After being married to someone with Narcissistic Personality Disorder and whom I consider borderline sociopathic, how does one trust herself to choose wisely and not hurriedly jump into another doomed relationship. I wonder if other ex-spouses of people not unlike my ex-husband feel the same way. Scared to put myself out there for fear of getting hurt. Not trusting myself to make wise decisions. How does one who has been traumatized open themselves up for possible further trauma? That is a question for which I do not have an answer. All I can do is pray for God to lead me in the right direction, wherever that may be.

My baby boy, my last child, turned six years old yesterday. My oh my how time flies. Just a couple of weeks ago, I noticed that there was no trace of baby left. He is all boy. That revelation brought a proud tear to my eye. He has been through some obstacles in his six years of life, but has the most joyous outlook on life. His smile and laughter are infectious. It is truly amazing how much he has grown in six years.

Caleb has always done things his way and in his time. He was my c-section baby because he changed his mind on being born after my water broke and changed positions. When he was born, he cried once and didn’t cry again. The neonatologists were brought in to examine him, but could find nothing wrong. I guess he just had nothing left to cry about.

He wasn’t a very fussy baby, which I thought at the time was a blessing. Then he didn’t hit his growth milestones. He wasn’t crawling by nine months, did not transition to solid food, and could sit for short periods of time if he extended his legs out. I couldn’t remember how old his brother was when he hit his milestones, so I tried not to worry about it and thought that Caleb would catch up. At his one year well-check, his pediatrician was concerned about his delays, so she referred us to the Babynet program and a pediatric neurologist. He was placed on the waiting list to see a developmental pediatrician.

He immediately started receiving early intervention therapy, physical therapy, occupational therapy, and speech therapy. He did well with PT and was discharged at 18 months, as he could walk and run by that point. The speech and OT continued.

He finally saw the developmental pediatrician just after his 2nd birthday. He had a battery of tests before we got the diagnosis, autism. I already knew that he had it, but was devastated nonetheless. Then I set about trying to make sure he had everything he needed to succeed. Mama Bear was born.

He started school at age three and it has been a journey. I am still in Mama Bear mode and I imagine I always will be. Fighting to ensure your child gets the best education and best care is a constant battle.

Now he is six. He is in K5 and loves it. He has friends. He loves everyone indiscriminately. He has broken every stereotype of autism. He is kind, empathetic, smiles all the time, and is such a silly boy. He still does things his way, in his time. He is joyous and a delight to everyone who comes in contact with him. He still does things his way and in his own time. I have come to accept this as just his stubbornness to be himself.

I have no doubt that this kid will go places. I think he can do anything he wants to do in life. He is obsessed with vehicles, so maybe he will design cars when he grows up, which would make his Grandaddy especially happy. Who knows? The sky is the limit for my little peanut. This mommy will be there every step of the way to watch my little ball of fire and energy grow up. I love him more than can be put into words.