Saturday, September 15, 2012

Timeline: Part Five

November 3, 2011
I wrote an entry called "How About Now?"

I knew when I wrote this entry it was important. After nearly 20 years of my husband telling me, "This is who I am. I am never going to change. If you don't like it, you can leave", I finally, finally got it. It wasn't that I hadn't heard it a thousand times, I certainly had. It's just that I never thought he meant it. I never really believed it. I always thought he would change. That I was going to fix him. It was right about this time that I realized something very, very important. Something life changing. I was never going to fix my husband. He doesn't want to be fixed. He doesn't want to change, and he's been trying to tell me that for nearly two decades. This is as good as it's going to get.

This all came about after the second of the two counseling sessions we attended together. I've since told my husband at least a dozen times, that this session was a game changer for me. That's when everything changed. It was truly one of the most important events in my life. It would change my outlook on my marriage, and my relationship with my husband from that day on.

After this revelation, I began to focus on myself. My self image was shot. Kate told me my thinking was distorted. She had me write out a dozen or so "Affirmation Cards". On these index cards I would write thoughts about myself that were most likely distorted. On the back, I would think things through, and write a more "rational" thought. It took me about 2 minutes to write out the cards. I still remember many of them. "I am fat", " I am not good at being married", "I am old", "Any man would pick a younger, thinner woman over me","I am not lovable". And I truly believed every single one of these things. I believed them so much, that I was completely unable to write anything at all on the backs of the cards. I tried for an hour. I couldn't dispute even one of these things with a "rational" thought.

This is a very important place in the timeline. Probably THE most important place. I was broken. I was defeated. I accepted the fact that I could not win over alcohol. I had beaten myself down to a bloody pulp. I was wearing frumpy clothes and shoes, that fit the part of a middle aged soccer mom who was so exhausted, so tired from trying, that she accepted her fate and surrendered. I think I even embraced it. Maybe if I feel like I don't deserve things, I won't long for them so badly. Maybe if I accept that I am old, fat, and unlovable, I will not feel alone or neglected. I will not miss having someone go places with me. If I don't feel I deserve to be touched, I won't long to be touched.

This was a sad, sad time for me.

Monday, September 3, 2012

Timeline: Part Four

March 27, 2011
I wrote an entry called "New Beginnings"

This entry was about Kitty moving to South Florida. I wrote that as I sat at the red light, driving my kids to school, I saw the two semi tractor trailers turn the corner, headed to her house, to move her a thousand miles away from me.

I can't stress this enough; this was one of the lowest, darkest periods of my life. Depression had a grip on me and would not let go. While I was still functional; still working, still caring for my kids, still going on with day to day life, I cried alot. I slept alot. I didn't want to do anything except come straight home from work and curl up on the couch. I felt sad almost all the time.

My husband had told me he was no longer interested in having a relationship with anyone. That he was incapable of it. How could he give to anyone, when he couldn't even take care of himself? He told me I deserved better and I should divorce him. Later he would tell me he didn't know why he said that; he didn't mean it. All this did was send me on an out of control roller coaster ride. Throughout it all, we were doing less and less together. We were drifting further and further apart. One night I felt so out of control, and cried so hard, that my husband didn't know what to do with me. I kept telling him, "I'm just so unhappy! I'm so tired of being sad and unhappy!!" For the life of me, I could not understand why he didn't feel the exact same way, but he didn't. He was so very confused, and he truly didn't get any of it. He took all the weapons from our house and hid them from me, because he feared I was a danger to myself.

It was about this time that I had my yearly appointment with my gynecologist. Everything was fine at first. She asked how I was doing, and I smiled and said "I'm fine." She was going through my chart and said "I see you've gained quite a bit of weight since last year. Is something going on?" That's when I burst in to sudden and uncontrollable sobbing. I started talking about my mother, about my sadness, about my anxiety. I couldn't pull myself together. I had a meltdown right there in her office. My doctor came to give me a consoling hug. Then she asked if I would consider seeing a psychiatrist. I said yes. This would become a huge, huge step for me. I had hit bottom. I didn't feel I could get much lower, so what did I have to lose?