Praying For Peace

There are no sorrows. The stranger dawns my phone. The face is familiar yet unknown. Anxiety drives my heartbeat. Home is uncomfortable. Medicine is my only relief.

You promised forever. You were kind and gentle. Now ridden with cold and stone. Tomorrow may show more or has potential to worsen. Why is this so hard?

I plan for a move. I save for my future that was once to be ours. I refuse to be together but riding solo.

You have this amazing way of turning it all on me. It’s a gift that strangles my sanity. It angers and saddens me.

The trust is gone. I am done sacrificing and taking blame. I am solely focused on what comes next. I pray for peace not reconciliation at this point. This is life with a narcissist who has mastered gaslighting.

I Love Dare… Me

So I made it thru day 1. My husband went to Pittsburgh and I didn’t get an official start on day 2. I did, however, continue with the no negativity. The day he was to return home I looked at my bank account that was completely drained until Thursdays paycheck. I was sad and angry. He took another month to not help me pay bills. I knew my niceness had worn off.

I was determined to confront the situation but had full intentions on continuing to keep my negative behavior out of it as much as possible. I let him know I was stressed and why to which he responded by telling me I had told him to move out and I had talked to another man. Guess that means you don’t have to pay bills. Even with that he’s broke. No money. Or so he claims. Which is fine I knew how he would respond.

Yesterday was his birthday. I returned the favor he did for my birthday and did and said nothing…. Actually, I let him live free for another month I figure that is a sufficient gift for a man of his caliber.

I sent him a message in the early A.M. to which I woke with the response I expected. Him claiming his innocence and being the victim. Poor boy. I feel so sorry for him his wife said she was getting a divorce to another man that she talked to after he chose to go to a woman’s house and lied for months. A woman that I have cried over for three years. It’s ok though…

I am strong and numb. Great mix for waking up to reality. In these moments I realize that I am worth more than this. That the person that I need to dare to love is myself. I need to expect and not settle for less than half as a bar to reach for anyone in my life. I’m worth so much more and yet I will take any crumb someone throws my way.

Today no fights no anger. I want to remain graceful and calm. I want to focus on the one person I have neglected for 23 years now. I want to begin to embrace her and love her the way she deserves to be loved. That means not making my feelings negotiable.

I no longer accept less than I want at my expense. I am willing to make tough choices and follow thru with them to enrich my life. I’m done with excuses and the fix it all for everyone else attitude. Today I choose me.

Love Dare: Day 1 don’t say anything negative

So early in the day this proved to be a little more difficult. However, this made me mindful on a constant basis of his feelings and how he might take things. This also made me very self aware of just how many negative things I say or think.

Honestly, although hard it made me feel better. I don’t actually think he even realized, however, he does appear to be a little more upbeat…

Now on to day 2… I must continue to not say anything negative and perform a random gesture of kindness. He’s leaving for Pittsburg tomorrow so this may have to go on hold. Which may not be a horrible thing since I probably need a heck of a lot more practice at the not saying anything negative. (please continue to pray for my strength and endurance)

I am absolutely committed to doing this with all my heart. My marriage is in pieces and this is my last effort to turn things around.

The Love Dare… 40 days…

My marriage quite frankly is not good. So much of me would rather walk away. I tell myself I would be better off. I feel used and exhausted. I feel like my feelings are discounted and my past is used against me.

This is my last effort to change myself for my marriage. Part of me doesn’t even know why I want to try after the last 4 years. The other part of me doesn’t want to let the man I somehow love walk away. I’m very torn.

Many years ago I was going thru my second divorce. I found the Love Dare and bought it with full intentions of using it. I did not. Today I was cleaning out my garage in a fit of anxiety as well as anger. I found myself in totes full of memories. In the process, I find my book. I quickly realized this was why God motivated me to clean and organize at least half of the garage.

I have made a pact with the big man in the sky to complete the Love Dare at all cost. It won’t be an easy challenge. I like to speak my mind and know I find faults in the tiniest of things. However, I am committed to changing myself. I want to be a better wife and a better person. I want the good Lord to guide me and work within me. I have faith that with HIS grace, mercy and strength I will get thru this challenge and we can save our marriage.

So instead of journaling in the book I will be posting my endeavors here. Wish me luck and say some prayers for me.

The Struggle in My Mind

Yesterday night was a nightmare. I have had so many days of the pain. Tonight I looked in the mirror with red swollen eyes and I felt nothing inside. I told myself the truth… I will never receive the love I want because I don’t deserve it. I told myself I’m getting everything I do deserve.

I came downstairs lifeless. Numb. I haven’t self harmed in a year or so until tonight. To feel something… anything. It felt good to feel the pain I so much deserve.

I stop and tell myself I don’t. I feel otherwise and I wish for peace in my mind. I don’t deserve any happiness and my kids don’t deserve a shitty mom. My husband doesn’t deserve a shitty wife and my family doesn’t deserve a shitty me.

I am only a nurse and I feel like a failure there too. I am nothing. I deserve nothing and my only hope is death.

Today I struggle in my mind. PTSD hit me hard. I never thought last nights events would ever happen. However, they did. Now I am gone. That quickly. If anything happens I hope they know despite being a piece of shit I did love them all.

Medicated Amnesia

I don’t have the words to explain what severe anxiety and PTSD feel like. It may feel different for others but it’s like my whole inner body is just going to rip thru my skin. My heart races and chest pain ensues. The thoughts just race thru your head almost a million at a time. Some memories of the past which turn into other memories of the past linking them to the current situation that leads to absolute fear of the future.

I used to think I was crazy when something would trigger my PTSD. My real horror was when I no longer needed a trigger. Out of nowhere it happened. I could be celebrating a holiday or on a picnic and as quickly as lightning strikes there it is to ruin my happy moment. It almost feels like it’s on purpose. As if I don’t deserve those wonderful moments like others do.

I forget to take my medication frequently until the days of anxiety attacks and PTSD hit me so hard and then it hits… Great just great I have messed up my medicine again. One may ask how that happens. Sometimes it’s my hectic life as a mother, or as a nurse, or a wife, ballmom, student, housekeeper, billpayer, grocery shopper, or other times it’s that I am so exhausted doing and being all those other things that I don’t want to move.

I wish I could medicate myself into selective amnesia. There are times I think I would accept complete amnesia but I could never imagine losing the memories with my children. I just medicate to the point that my anxiety and PTSD don’t affect my body much. Nothing bad just Wellbutrin and Klonopin at times when it’s out of control. I’m thankful I haven’t turned back to drinking and never turned to illegal drugs to numb me. I would rather live with the memories and lose who I am.

In all reality I am a good human and I deserve good things to happen to me. I lose myself in the PTSD so hard I forget that. I push away everything that means anything as a means of protection. If I push them away I can not be hurt. I submerge myself into school and work to hide from my feelings. My pain is nonexistent when I’m busy.

How do I win? The doctors don’t want to give me anymore medication thanks to those who use drugs illegally. I don’t want to be a zombie I just want to not feel like this. It’s an internal torture that makes you doubt yourself. It creates panic and fear. I just need those parts to stop.

My Birthday Girl Destroyed

Her father acts as if she is his property. Yes she’s not legally an adult yet and ai truly believe that she should have rules. However, all the rules in the world is not going to provide a better outcome. He’s upset, angry, bitter, hurt, and ready to revolt.

She doesn’t speak up for herself much. She won’t tell him how she truly feels. I don’t want to play games as I did before.

They told me one thing then told him and the judge another. I have came to terms with the outcome after all these years. That doesn’t mean he gets to control them. I am not a bad mother and he can’t keep them from me. I am going to have to go back to court to fight yet another battle just to make my children’s lives livable.

Part of me is salty. I have said to them numerous times this was what you wanted. (Not the best mother moment I am aware.) Part of me is crushed. Seeing my babies wanting so much more.

But today is a special day. Today is her birthday. I have done everything I could to make her entire weekend as special as possible. She wanted to stay the night and she got cussed at and grounded for yet another week.

Today was a milestone of going for her learners. (Looks like we are gonna have to retry that milestone next week) Her heart rate is back up and had to have blood work. Her father I suppose is jealous and doesn’t want me involved in her healthcare which he has no legal grounds to do. Her disease could kill her he calls her fat and lazy. Graves’ disease is not something to joke about or talk horrible things to people due to the side effects.

He is not the worst dad he does love his kids. He doesn’t know how to do anything except control them and talk to them like dirt. So What do I do? Do I go to court? Do I lay back and let the cards fall where they may? I am in desperate need of advice.

Today I watched my birthday girl get destroyed by her father. I’m a wreck. I can’t save her so easily anymore. Yet I can do more than I am.

I don’t need anyone to make my life better…. I need someone who’s not going to make it worse!

We all look to having a soulmate who will forever bring days of sunshine and love. That person sitting there holding your hand looking at you with undying love and passion every day (or close to it) of your life. The person who does those little things to let you know they thought of you. Heartfelt gifts that let know they dug see and truly know you.

I have been married for 4 years… I do not have this. However, I have a man that believes if he does his and his sons laundry and throws it back into a basket and their dishes into the dishwasher then I should know how much he loves me.

For Mother’s Day this year he ran 3 miles up the road to pick up the Walmart order I paid for. That and his clothes and dishes. When I was asked repeatedly what was wrong I finally said it was mother’s day and I made breakfast and dinner for everyone. To which he replied how he had done those things for me today.

I accepted the fact that I was again not enough to do anything for and just went on about my evening and scrubbed down the kitchen and did the dishes, pots and pans.

When I finished and went back to the couch to retire for the evening he started in on me again. He hashed up all the things he had previously said then followed it up with the smack down of how he “could not wait to sweep me off my feet if I could just show I’m more into this relationship”. Wtfreak??!?? I married him I have stayed in this relationship and paid for the majority of all the costs incurred, watched him talk to another woman over the period of 3 years, trade a vehicle I paid the majority of for him a midlife crisis car, and never get anything romantic or personal from him.

It upsets me so much. I question my sanity or desperation at this point. So to that I say I don’t need someone to make my life better I can do that on my own if I want. What I do need is someone that doesn’t make it worse.

I am by no means a saint. I am also by no means the worst. I blow up I get over it. I look forward as much as possible. How in the hell do you look past another woman? But I have. Yes, I am a fool. I just want a Disney movie that will never happen.

I’m fine. I see a glimmer of light in the pool of reality. It’s tough to eat reality. I just refuse to quit even in the darkest. I have laid here depressed and anxiety ridden. I will not let this overtake me. I’m fine… it’s fine… everything is fine.

The lesson is I love myself. Never accept less than you deserve. Stop taking shit and own that shit.

I Am Not a Ninja

Methodically in my head ninjas are amazing. They are covered for no one to reveal their identity. They hide in the dark and they are so incredibly fast that no one can hardly prove their existence.

Ninjas are warriors who in one swoop save the world in that moment….. I am not a ninja. Well there was that one time I managed to get into my child’s room reach under their pillow and snatched a tooth and left a few dollars (lol). Otherwise I’m more like an untrained elephant in life struggling to not trample everything that exists around me.

If it’s not self destructing I will manage to find a way to destroy it with ease and grace even. My past follows every move I make, everything I see and hear. I trust nothing after it has deceived me once.

If it weren’t for my kids I would be lost. I would not exist. I know my purpose and know what I have to accomplish to succeed. There isn’t a man in this world that can stop me no matter the sticks and stones they cast.

It is exhausting more times than not. I am a mother but… I am not a ninja.

My last day… My future is endless!

I ended my RN program today…. My last assignment is complete. 18 months of hell that I thought would never end as I counted down every day and week. I swung at every curveball thrown at me and I hit a home run! Not even sure how it happened. Only 1 B the entire time. Surgery, sepsis, dealing with child sex predators the FBI, US Marshall’s and State Police.

My husband still is the same guy; loving and supportive and the one person who beats me down for taking school so seriously. Most every day laser focus with upset and anger in the background. I had to make it to the last day so that my future could be endless.

The anxiety hasn’t let up. The PTSD is worse than it has been in a long time. Everything is a trigger. I still look at myself in the mirror and wonder who or what I am looking at. I even got a new therapist on my birthday. That was a blast telling her what a hot mess disaster I am. It’s the only way though.

How do I keep myself grounded? How do I find joy and happiness again?