And They Lived Happily Ever After

"We, the First Presidency and the Council of the Twelve Apostles of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, solemnly proclaim that marriage between a man and a woman is ordained of God and that the family is central to the Creator's plan for the eternal destiny of His children." (The Family; A Proclaimation to the World)



You know when you are little how you dream of your wedding day? The dress, the flowers, the bridesmaids and you plan and refine and everything is perfect? Then you play dress-up and house and again everything is perfect? Too bad all that playing and practicing doesn't carry over into reality.



You see, for me marriage and family life has been nothing short of hell on earth. Without going into details, he is a bully, an addictive personality and a wounded soul not willing to look at himself and change. The sad part? I no longer care. I used to care. I used to want to help, to try, to do whatever it took to make things work, or better, or whatever. Now? I just don't care. And that makes me really sad because I really am a kind, caring, loving person.



Now, I don't want to lay all blame at his feet because in response to his faults, all of mine are magnified, and they are not pretty. The worst part of all of this is that it is the children that suffer the most. I want them to experience a loving, safe family life where home is a refuge, a safe haven, a place to get away from the stresses of earth life.



I divorced him once. But after being apart for about a year, he made some promises and looked like he had made changes and I was suckered back into his web of lies and deceptions and re-married him. It was mere weeks before I realized that nothing had changed. My mom told me that she realized that I must have still had some feelings of love for him when I married him again.



About 5 months after the wedding, he had an aneurysm. I rearranged my life- work, school, children- to take care of him. I spent 4 months and all of our savings nursing him back to health. And I realized that I just did not care anymore. I no longer cared if he was in pain, or hungry, or hot, or cold or tired or....... I just did not care. Everyone told me that by taking care of him that way my love for him would only grow and be stronger. But it did not. All it did was drain our finances, grow our debt and make me realize how much I did not care.



So why am I telling you all this? Because I really do still believe in happily ever after. The other day I had the bishop give me a blessing. I was having some health concerns and just needed some help coping with that. That was all I asked for, a healing blessing for a specific concern that I was having. However, during the blessing, the bishop blessed me with some other things that I had been concerned with- one of which regarded this situation. Without going into the details, because they are special and sacred to me, I know that everything will work out ok. Actually more than ok. In fact, I am going to get to live happily ever after after all. I don't know all the details and timelines and all of that. What I do know, though is this: Heavenly Father loves me and wants me to be happy. He knows how unhappy I am. And scared. And tired. And He cares. And it will be ok.

I wrote this post and could not figure out why on earth I would put this out there for any and all to see. So I saved it in the draft section and decided that when I figured it out, I would post it. I have decided that the reason I wrote it was not to get any pity or "I feel sorry for you" comments, because I don't want them. But I have decided that the reason I wrote it is so that I can now do a series of posting on things I have learned in the last 20+ years. Things I would not know otherwise but things I need to know in order to do what I need to do here on earth. Things need to help others navigate life. I also want to write some on relationship abuse- verbal, mental, emotional, physical. These are also things I did not know and now have an intimate knowledge of. Moreso than any text book could help me understand. And this knowledge has serve me well in my chosen profession of helping others. Girls always say to me, "How did you know I was feeling _________?" Because I know. So, here we go. Some of these posts will be easy and clinical, some will be hard for me to write and some hard to read, but I am feeling that they need to be.

Life with depression

Today starts a series of posts on depression, anxiety, panic attacks and the like.

The alarm clock goes off, waking you from the sleep that took you most of the night to find. You rub your eyes and try to stretch, but stretching just makes you aware of how tired you really are. You rub your eyes again trying to clear the sleep induced fog from them. Maybe a shower will help.

After your shower, you rub your eyes again. Must be the steam from the water. Maybe breakfast will wake you up. You stand in front of the cupboard looking for something to eat. You don't want to eat, but you have to, your stomache is protesting being empty. You have a bowl of oatmeal, you hate oatmeal. You used to like food, didn't you?

Teeth are brushed and makeup on, you didn't have to think about them, they are automatic movements like breathing or you might never do them. They really take a lot of energy. You are so tired and just want to go back to bed, but life is calling. Go away and leave me alone, I just want to rest, you have to tell that voice to leave, you have life. Clothes. Pick jeans, any shirt will go with jeans and one more decsion that you don't have to make.

You wipe at your eyes again. Why does everything still look like a sleep induced fog?

Gotta go to work. Paste on the fake smile, the life is good mask. The, I am so blessed to be alive lie. Step into the big plastic bubble that you walk through life in. And wipe your eyes again.

Kids, work, questions, reports, filing, driving, bills, phone calls, e-mails to answer, I just want to go to bed, I am so tired.

Oh, the floor needs mopped- again. You are too tired to lift the mop, you'll get it tomorrow.

Is it time for bed yet? Rub your eyes.

Finally, everyone is in bed and the hotspots of the home are out, you can go to bed. You lie there, exhausted, but sleep is playing hide and seek again and you just cannot find him. Why won't he ever play a quiet, laying in the bed dreaming game?

The alarm clock goes off, waking you from the sleep that took you most of the night to find...