My Sister

Posted by Anonymous.

The world as I know it ended on a cold December night in 2006. At 10:15 pm. my baby sister, who I had watched for over ten years fight the nightmare that is Leukemia, died. It was like my own death was taking place; I shut down, I became withdrawn, severely depressed and angry. It wasn't just her death that haunted me, it was the way she died, full of pain and anger, not wanting to accept her fate. It was the cruelest experience of my life.

I had spent the months leading up to her death in denial. In all the years that she had Leukemia, I never once thought that she would die. I always knew that she could die at any moment, but i never really believed that she would. I know it was naive of me to be so optimistic, but in those ten years that she battled with the cancer, I thought my sister to be invincible - countless surgeries and infected ports, serious life-threatening circumstances never stopped her from fighting. Even when an irresponsible doctor botched a surgery and left her fighting for her life in what would be months of recuperating, she never lost hope, but she never fully recuperated either. She died of complications due to that surgery and from the cancer.

She was my everything. I lived and breathed for her and for all of a sudden for my whole world to be torn apart was more than I could bear. For months after she died, I would wake up in the middle of the night and tell myself that she was still in the hospital waiting for me to go see her. When she came home to die after they told her she only had four months to live, if that, she was in hospice. They had a nurse that would come to the house to make sure she was comfortable and wasn't in pain, but it didn't matter that they gave her medicine - she died in pain, it was never painless.

When she came home from the hospital to die, she was angry to say the least. She would cry and scream, she didn't understand why she had to die, why at sixteen her time was up. She who had never had the chance to have a real life because of her illness, who hung out with my friends who loved her because the kids at school didn't want to be friends with the girl who had cancer. Even though she was two years younger than me, she always seemed older. Maybe it was the fact that she never got to have a normal childhood that made her seem wise beyond her years. She didn't have time to think of petty things that other kids at her age thought of, not when she was constantly trying to stay alive.

I took a leave of absence from work to be with her. I withdrew from all my classes at college. I tried to keep going because I knew she would be proud of me. She looked up to me so much, and the last thing I wanted to do was disappoint her, but I couldn't stand to be away from her even for short periods of time. I always felt that if I left her, that she would die, and I would never be able to say goodbye or forgive myself for not being there. I became an insomniac; I was too worried and scared to go to sleep, I never knew if I was seeing her for the last time. It was torture to see her die slowly everyday. I couldn't stand to see it, but, at the same time, I couldn't stand to look away. Time was so precious, every moment i spent with her was precious.

She started to get worse - her body started shutting down, her organs began to die, she could no longer sit up in bed by herself. My mother and I would help her to the restroom. Years of steroids for pain had left her first using a walker and later in a wheelchair. If she would have lived, she would have needed a hip and both knees replaced. Three days before she died, a priest came to read her her last rites. We had to hold her up so that he could bless her. She was deteriorating so fast, the day before she had stopped talking. The last thing she ever said was my name and till this day, I don't know what it was that she wanted to tell me.

I know that my sister loved me, and I loved her more than anything, but losing her is something I will never be ok with. I've spent the last 3 1/2 years being depressed and unable to let go of the one person who truly understood me and who I couldn't live without. After her death, I became in a way a zombie. I stopped going out, I didn't want to go back to school, I kept working hoping it would take my mind off the pain, but it never did. I went back to work a month after she died, but I wasn't ready to go back. Everyone I knew was just sorry for me, but I didn't care, I just wanted her back. I just couldn't live in a world where my little sister didn't exist.

The worst part was dreaming of her every night. It would always be the same dream: me hanging out with her doing regular stuff like shopping or watching tv etc., normal things. And, to me, it was like she never died becuz I believed her to be alive. To everyone else, she was dead, but not to me -- she was alive in my dreams and how I wished that my dreams were reality. It wasn't until years later that I had a dream of her telling me that she was sorry that she had died and that she was ok that I realized that I had stopped living. I had become so depressed that I didn't know how to be me anymore. It was this dream that made me realize that all this time that I had spent dreaming of her, I was, in a way, preventing her from letting go, and I knew that by her telling me those things in my dream that she would never be able to if I didn't let go. As much as it pained me to not think about her everyday and miss her, I told myself that it was the right thing to do. The last thing I wanted to do was hurt her in death, and I couldn't allow my depression to get in the way of her being happy and at rest.

It was complete torture those four months after the doctors told us she wouldn't be here for christmas, and they were right. She died five days before xmas. It was the worst day of my life. After ten years of fighting, you'd think she would have won. The hardest part of losing her was not knowing if she was ok, where she was, whether she was still in pain. As someone who has never been religious, albeit somewhat spiritual, it was very hard to believe that she was ok. How could she be ok if she was dead?? There had to be some sort of explanation!! Why was she taken from me when she who was always so devout in her faith yet had suffered beyond her wildest dreams, how is it that god had allowed this to happen????

I don't think I'll ever understand why she had to die. There's no reason or explanation that's ever going to be good enough. I've come to terms with it in my own way. I'm glad that for 16 years I lived and got to be in the presence of an angel, and, even though she is gone, she will always be with me. I deal with my depression every single day, but I am no longer crippled by it. I take it for what it is, and I no longer feel like a zombie. For the first time in a long time, I feel like me again and that's something I will continue to work on everyday. I've been back to school for a year now. I'm going to be a nurse someday so that I can help all those children who suffer like my sister did.

To lose someone you love, whether a sister/mother/father/brother... is extremely hard, but I found that letting go is harder to do, and until recently, I never felt strong enough to really talk about her without breaking down. Hopefully this will inspire if not help others to do the same with their loved ones. It sounds very cliche, but life goes on whether you want it to or not, and what better way to honor the person that you've lost than by allowing yourself to move on as well.

I love you my vito.

Disappearing

Posted by Anonymous.

Sometimes I feel like if I don’t write, my head will explode. I don’t even have any privacy for that anymore. He checks my phone, my internet history, everything is suspect the moment I want a little privacy. I don’t have a blog either. No place to put all the words in my head, so they just circle the drain, maddeningly slowly, until they are gone.

The feelings that inspired them just pile up. They never go anywhere even when the words are no longer there.

I am so sad lately. Angry too. But the anger is at myself. I’m 39 years old. I should have known better than to find myself here, again. Why did I ever marry a man who doesn’t like me? Only a few months ago, in fact. And now I can see, he doesn’t like anything about me, nothing I do is good enough….certainly he certainly isn’t in love with me…. I have come to realize I simply can’t please him. He is never happy and always looking for something to criticize. No effort I ever make is good enough.

I myself, I have come to realize, am not good enough for this man. I can’t remember the last time he really smiled at me or made eye contact that wasn’t an angry glare. We never make love, seldom even “have sex” and when we do, it’s fast and rough and there’s no joy in it….I miss that loving touch and the beauty of that so much I can taste tears in my throat just thinking about it. No one but my kids ever touches me
anymore, no one really ever smiles at me. No one ever talks to me in a kind and concerned voice, to the point I teared up hearing a compassionate and caring tone from my doctor last week.

I feel so stupid. I knew this was what I was getting into…I knew I wasn’t going to be cherished, treasured, respected, prioritized, adored. I suspected he was using me and marrying me as a means to an end in his custody battleway to get more time with his kids. He didn’t propose, he just told me the kids were “ready” for us to get married. I feel so stupid and so, so ashamed. I can’t even pretend to be surprised, I knew all of it. He never urged me to do anything for myself, even buy a nice
dress for the wedding instead of the cheapest one. My dress was $13… his suit was $500….did I mention I paid for it all, and put the last of my savings on a downpayment for his new truck, while I drive a real clunker? There was , and has been, no mention of a honeymoon, nothing. Not even a wedding night somewhere special. Didn’t I think I deserved more?

All we have done since then is fight. He is sure there is, or has been, another man. Every day he turns something into “proof” of that and accuses me of all manner of nastiness. If I defend myself, he self-righteously claims that’s “proof” too. I want to take a lie detector test but he refuses to participate because his ego can’t handle the idea anyone would find out the lengths I’d have to go to get him to believe me. Also because (I secretly think) once I passed it, he wouldn’t be able to stay mad at me, and he enjoys that too. Because if I am tripping all over myself
defending his accusations against wrong numbers and texts to girlfriends and why I was 5 minutes late, he still has the upper hand, and I am not an equal.

We are in counseling. Already. We had homework, about my feelings. They are still sitting on my dresser three weeks later. He won’t ask to see it or talk about it. It will sit there until I get so embarrassed and hurt that I pretend it’s lost just so I don’t have to deal with it anymore.

The Dr. is running tests in a few weeks to see if I have something seriously wrong….maybe cancer even. It’s not likely, but even so. I just wanted him to hold me. To act upset that something might take me from him. To seem concerned in any
way. Instead he just told me I was probably in menopause and nitpicked me for not staying at the office and having the tests run right then., with my mother there (oh hell no.) There was no kiss, no stroking me, no kindness, no concern. I fell asleep
and dreamed he got upset and said he couldn’t stand the idea of anything happening to me. But it didn’t happen. , really. It won’t. Yesterday he got up and stormed out because I didn’t say “bless you” when he sneezed. But I guess I don’t deserve
his concern and comfort when I’m really scared.

Here it is the next day and all we have done is fight some more. He made a nice dinner and gave me a card, and now he’s insisting I haven’t “tried”. I have tried so hard and nothing’s ever been enough. I am tired of failing with every effort. I “try”
every day. It’s all I think about- how NOT to make him mad. I just want to hear something nice. Something kind and loving. Instead I hear how disrespectful and callous I am for being 5 minutes “late” home from the store or I get ridiculed at a
family gathering for how I am so stupid for flushing a tampon.

I used to be pretty, and smart and a good mom. I had nice things, I drove a nice car and wore pretty clothes. My house was clean. My kids got good grades. I used to have friends and people had nice things to say about me. I liked myself. I believed in myself and I had dreams. I wish sometimes I hadn’t. Maybe if I had never had that I wouldn’t have such a hard time with this, being no one.

Every day is a struggle, nothing I do is ever good enough to matter. I work harder than I ever have, and its not enough to make anyone happy. I am invisible and unappreciated. I literally cannot remember the last time I felt whole. I think
about ending my life all the time, I don’t see any way that this will get better. I can hardly bear the idea of another 20 years of days like these- working and working and working with no one to hold me or love me or appreciate me. No one to ever smile
at me or laugh with me; no one to ever tell me I am special or smart or worthwhile. Just an endless stream of accusations and criticism and cold rejection….right now the only thing that keeps me here is a promise I made my grandfather- and
the thought of someone telling my baby girl that I left her on purpose. So I just go through the motions and I wait and see. I can’t put my kids through another divorce. No one wants to hear that you are in ANOTHER bad marriage. My family knows something’s wrong but they cant handle it and so they are turning a blind eye. I can’t leave. But I don’t know what happens to me if I stay. I am disappearing a little bit every day. At least sometimes in my dreams, he still loves me and I
am still good enough.

I'm Blowing It

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm blowing it. My life. I'm blowing my life. At least that is how I feel today. I should be happy, I'm 28 and just bought my first house. I did it by myself. My boyfriend didn't help a bit, even though he makes double the money I do. That is the problem, my boyfriend is a nice guy and a good provider. The issue is he only provides for what he deems important. I, on the other hand, work hard, at a job that I greatly dislike most of the time, to provide for everything else.

I was raised with a slower pace of doing things. To me nothing has be to perfect right now, just so long as I am happy with what I have. I grew up with far less than I have now, but I think I was happier then. I've never cared about the newest this or that, or the most expensive. It's always was been about being comfortable in my life. Well, I'm not comfortable anymore. I am exhausted. He is exhausting. When I get home from a long day of work, he wants me to unpack or clean up or hang things. I want to lay down. When I tell him that I am exhausted he mocks me or makes a half joking comment that I am lazy. From there I tend to shut down. It's not fair. I work very hard, I deserve to be happy. I'm blowing it. I should be enjoying my freedom, not dreading going home to my new house because someone is going to nag me to death.

I know this is a very childish thing to complain about, I get it. There are many people in the world with much bigger problems. l am just exhausted and drained and tired of being tired. I want my chance to live happily ever after. I don't think I will get it.

How Did I Get Here?

Posted by Anonymous.

Growing up, success came fairly easily. Mostly 'A' report cards, co-Captain of the Pom Squad, Scholarship to college. Even college continued mostly along that line -- even the bumps in the road could be overcome with a little extra work.

Ever since then it's been downhill. First job after college I left after 2 years because I bombed. The next jobs were ok, so I thought things were getting back on track. Got married, had a child. Started on anti-anxiety meds for stress. Started to get more depressed and anxious. It started to effect my job. Marriage hit a major rough patch. Upped the meds. More struggles at work. Baby number 2 arrived and my depression ballooned into a hideous monster. Started therapy and what became the long process of more and more medication. That was 6 years ago. My job is in trouble, my marriage is in trouble, and my life is a mess.

My dad was a high functioning alcoholic. My mom is the classic "enabler" - sweeping everything under the rug. I'm the classic "Adult Child of an Alcoholic," constantly "people pleasing." I almost wish I were an alcoholic because then I would have a problem that can be solved --You can stop drinking (or taking drugs, or stealing). It's within your control --at least to a point.
With depression like this, there is no control. One minute things are going along Ok --then for the next 10 days you have no energy, stare into space and have no concentration.

I used to have a phenomenal memory. I could keep all sorts of appointments and scheduling in my head. Now I can barely remember things long enough to write them down. I have a pile of "reminders" to go through --many of which have passed the deadline by the time I get to them.

I used to be happy and bouncy. I used to have tons of self confidence. I feel like a shell of what I was.

People say, just focus on being happy. Just focus on getting things done. They don't realize I can't focus -- my brain is set on a loop of negative feedback.

So, how did I get here? How did I go from over-achieving to "holding onto my job by my fingertips?" And is there any way back up out of this pit?