The Wanker

Posted by Anonymous.

I need help here people, h-e-l-p.....

My Bestie has a new man after 10 years. She is deliriously happy. He is younger, good looking, devoted, besotted. He is in theatre. -Ish.

He is also a wanker. Bless him.
A lovable wanker but a wanker nonetheless.
My husband, in particular, thinks he is a wanker.

Recently he has become involved with a 'very good band'. They are doing a show together for an arts festival next year. We want to hire the band for the presentation evening of a national competition.

We stated quite clearly that we were paying for 6 band members, not 7. We do not want my Bestie's beloved in his clown outift doing juggling tricks in front of said (very good) band and associated interstate audience.

Recently she has noted that we are lucky because he will be an 'free added extra', to rev up the crowd.

OH MY GOD.

My husband has specifically stated that he does NOT want, nay he would be EMBARRASSED by said beloved boyfriend cavorting somewhat incongrously in front of 'very good ' band. What the **** am I going to do? Even if I risk upsetting my Bestie by telling her that we do not want her (very sensitive and insecure) beloved.....how does she tell HIM????? How can I put her in that position? How do I tell my husband that the embarrassing boyfriend will be giving us the benefit of his expertise FREELY!!!!!!??????? Whether we want him to or not? I have the sinking, breath excising feeling of being trapped, underwater, between two very, very sharp rocks.............

Redo

Posted by Anonymous.

I want to go back and start again. This isn't the life I wanted. Not what I hoped for. And, calculating for the average lifespan, it's already more than half over. I am 43.

From the outside looking in, I'm sure it appears to be a good life. I have a good job. I managed, by myself, to raise a fine and successful daughter. Now that she is on her own, I have no real responsibilities other than my pets and my work. It seems that I should be happy.

But I am, at my core, alone. A crushing, pervasive loneliness that has plagued me since childhood. A solitary child at heart, I was forced to spend much time with a succession of babysitters while my Mom worked a staggering schedule after my father left us when I was 2. There were precious few programs for working mothers to avail themselves of in the late 1960's and early 1970's, so I was often shuffled from sitter to sitter, from family member to family member after school, on vacations and during the summer. My mother simply did the very best she could. I compensated by living another life in my head. A life with a family who surrounded me. Protected me. In my imaginary life, I was not a lonely, only child. I had older brothers who protected me. A father who didn't walk away. A mother who was able to devote time and attention to me instead of collapsing from exhaustion at the end of an 18 hour day.

As I grew into a teenager and young adult, the life in my head became less like a reality and more like a dream. The dream of a husband and kids and a house and happiness. For as long as I can remember, I always wanted a lot of kids. The hope of that dream sustained me. Even when I was at my lowest, I could always call upon the promise of that life.

The life in my head was the life I wanted. It still is.

Instead, I have a life that I have managed, in all honesty, to completely screw up. Other than my mother and my daughter, I have no close relationships.

None.

I have not been in a relationship with a man for 20 years. Prior to that, I ruined every relationship I was in. I don't know how to change that. I don't know if I can. Maybe it's simply too late.

I just know that I don't want to spend the rest of my years lonely and alone. I want to lay next to someone again and whisper my deepest thoughts to them in the dark. I want to reach for someone's hand when I need strength and know that familiar touch will comfort me. I don't want to face the rest of my life by myself.

I still want that life in my head, but after all these years, maybe it's time to give up the dream.

Keep Your Friends Close - And Your Enemies Closer

Posted by Anonymous.

I first met Lorna when we were both in labour in the hospital. She had her daughter two hours before I had my son, and that really set the tone for our friendship.

Being friends with Lorna was like going back to high school and having the most popular, pretty girl suddenly decide she wants you as a friend. You can't really understand why, you're not part of the popular set, but you're too flattered to really think it through and wonder if being friends with her is a good idea.

As the years passed we would get together every now and then, but it's not something I really enjoyed - Lorna was always so perfect in every way, and she loved to let me know it. She could be alternately interesting and wonderful, then turn patronizing and mean. Slowly our friendship dwindled until we stopped seeing one another altogether.

Then she phoned me out of the blue - she was interviewing for my old job and wanted the real scoop on my boss. I told her to steer clear and she did. A couple years later I was looking for a job close to home, so I phoned her and asked whether her place was hiring. She informed me that it wasn't at that time, and that I would not be paid well with my experience anyway. Then a few months later she called me and said there was an opening, and I should drop off my resume. I did so and was hired very quickly.

It was strange working with Lorna - again, she alternated between being my best buddy and trying to embarass me. I made more money than her because I had post-secondary education, which she did not. She let me know on more than one occassion that this urked her, even though she could easily have chosen to attain her designation as well. I remember failing an exam once and her asking me if I was ashamed. This was the type of person she was. She also had her little group of people she liked and if you didn't belong to this group, beware. She had a charm that made everyone want to be her friend, but there was a price to pay. She once told me "keep your friends close and your enemies closer".

She worked very closely with one of the bosses - it became very apparent after a while that they were having an affair (they were both married). Finally, they decided to leave the company and open their own place. After a few months they asked me to join them - I was wary but thought it could be a good move for me career wise. So I made the move. On my first day there I knew I was doomed - the boss (her now boyfriend) told me that he was not "kicking Lorna out of her office" (apparently there was only one office - I had no idea he would need to ask her to vacate it, this was just the terms of our agreement) nor did he have any work for me (yet this was the day we both agreed I would start). I was very upset and he could see it, so he quickly found some work and asked Lorna to move.

At one point on my first day I asked Lorna if there was a spare calendar I could have - she abruptly told me she was not my secretary and that I would have to find one myself but that the firm would not pay for it.

I struggled along for 5 months telling myself it would get better, and then my father-in-law had a heart attack. He was dying and I needed to be at the hospital. I phoned my boss and he was completely supportive and told me to take the next week off. I also had an exam to write which I had been studying months for - my husband urged me to write the exam even with all the upset that was going on. They day of the exam (3 days after my father-in-law passed away), Lorna phones me at home to ask why I wasn't at work and that piles of work were building up and that the boss was not happy about it. I immediately told Lorna I wanted to talk to the boss, and she said he was out of the office and would call me back. He called back 2 hours later and said that he completely supported that Lorna called me and what she said. I was speechless! When I asked him about the fact he and I agreed that it would be ok for me to be off for a while to help with the funeral arrangements and write the exam, he just kept repeating that he supported Lorna.

I knew my time was done there, and I came into the office and told him so. I finished there a week later and the boss at my old firm, which is upstairs in the same building, immediately offered me my old job back. I took it - that was 4 years ago and I couldn't be happier that I did. But here's the problem - whenever I see Lorna on the street, she pretends I don't exist. She came upstairs to our firm to drop off a piece of mail and I said hello and she gave me the most evil look. Later I received an email from her stating that "she knew who I really was and to not pretend otherwise".

Keep in mind I left there four years ago. The anger and bitterness that pours off this woman is unbelievable. I know she must be desperately unhappy to act this way. Recently I was crossing the street with my business partner and she was coming towards us - she looked up and said "hello Pat" to him and didn't acknowledge me at all.

This makes it quite uncomfortable every time I see her, which is often because we work in the same building. There is no way I want to be friends with her, but to just live in harmony would be welcome. Should I continue to say hello when I see her (which is what I have been doing, in spite of the fact she completely ignores me). I have no intention of talking to her about this, it just wouldn't work. She dislikes me to my very core because I chose to leave. I guess I'm the exception to her "keep your enemies closer" rule....it's a weird experience as an adult having someone act this way towards you.

Thrift

Posted by Anonymous. (Ed. note: submitted in December. Sincere apologies for delay in posting!)

Dear Husband,

I hate talking to you about money. The situation we are in is not my fault. I am thrifty and I don't go out an blow a whole lot of money on just any old thing. We have struggled our whole marriage with money issues. You always have to have the latest and greatest new techno gadget. Do you ever think of putting something I want before you getting a new phone? No. Which I know means that you will have that new phone you want and I will get nothing once again.

We make more money right now than we ever have in our married life. I know that we just moved into our apartment and are still getting back on our feet from you losing your job in Aug. So I know better than you give me credit for where we stand. However it is not my fault when you spend money, even if it is for something that we need like cat food, that you don't put it into the checkbook. I don't spend money without letting you know what I have spent. I know it sucks that this month my job has cut my hours. But it does not seem to get through your head that I was never guaranteed 40 hrs a week. I work for a temp agency. When business demands are down, I have to take a cut in hours. This job, even with less hours is still better than me working in retail, which is where all of my work experience is. So I am grateful that I was given a chance at working an office job. I am grateful to have a job that pays well more than the minimum wage.

So I will take back the stuff that I bought today for the kids to make Christmas presents for the family. Because I hate to hear you speak to me in that tone of voice that you have. Though you would say you don't have a harsh tone of voice, you never speak to me or the kids in a manner that you think is wrong. The minute I even get the slightest bit frustrated with one of the kids you make me feel like scum of the earth for being that way. So I will take back the stuff. I already have one thing for you for Christmas. I can't take it back because I didn't buy it. So you will still get a gift under the tree(well if we had a tree but we don't since that got left behind when you packed our stuff).(That is a whole other post). But another Christmas will go by and I know that there will be nothing under the tree for me from you or from the kids because if you think we don't have any money you can't come up with something creative, you just don't so anything.

I do hope that when your parents visit that they do give us some money. But even if they do I am still taking the stuff back.

-A very sad and frustrated wife

I Loved You

Posted by Anonymous.

I loved you.

I admit it now easily, casually, as if this fact should surprise no one. But it surprised me. Was I the only one who didn't know? When my mother, friends and co-workers prodded me and tried to understand what was going on between us, I denied then that I loved you. "He's amazing, but we're just friends" I said. Then to prove that things were platonic between us, I would date. Not much and not seriously but enough to keep the questions at bay. And yet, I was destroyed when you moved away. In the months leading up to your departure I had come to a point where I'd finally given up on the pretense of seeing other people. We weren't with each other, but we certainly weren't with anyone else either. How could I be with someone else when I was always with you? It was confusing and addictive. You were, after all, my best friend.

Then you left. You moved on easily it seemed, without much of a backward glance. Every now and then you would check back to see if the wounds were still fresh, if my heart was still breaking. They were. It was. We didn't talk for months. I was incapable of hearing your voice without feeling a knot in the back of my throat. The tears always came and so I avoided your calls and your emails until I could respond as a friend, as a person who wasn't bent over in grief.

It has been almost two years and we're finally back to being friends, calling on the holidays and periodically checking in on each other's lives. You're happy and finally, I am too. That doesn't mean that I don't miss you, or us. I miss holding you hand on the car ride home. I miss cuddling. I miss relying on you, knowing that I could find your shoulder if I needed to cry. I miss weekend trips to forget the week behind us. I miss silence that was comfortable. I miss the dinners we cooked, the parties we hosted. I miss swearing like a sailor and then in the next breath talking about our issues with the church and with God. I miss being loved by you. I am more than a little terrified that I will never find that kind of love again. For weeks and months the smallest things reminders of you would trigger a blast of tears. I spent months not wanting to move from the couch.

You know so little of this. I didn't tell you then because I was furious with you for leaving. I won't tell you now because the past is too far gone.

Part of moving on, was moving away from the place where all those memories lived. So I packed everything and drove until we were a continent apart. It has been fantastic and challenging and exhausting. On T.V. and in the movies, New York is a city defined by both its grit and its glamor. What no one tells you is that if you're not careful you will lose yourself among the masses. You have to fight to make New York your own, to meet people that are interested in you as a person and not as a means to climb the corporate ladder, to connect at a level beyond some superficial ability to woo one's way into a nightclub. I am happy here, satisfied with where I've landed and the person I've become in the process but still, my world was still brighter and better with you in it. Had you ever bothered to ask, I would have chosen you. I would have chosen us. Finally, you should know that when you call on Christmas, I will smile into the phone and we will tell each other stories from the last few months reveling in the fact that another year has crept by. I will love every minute of our conversation. Still, a small part of me will ache as I hang up the phone. This my dear, dear friend, is just not how I thought things would end for us.

Crazy

Posted by Anonymous.

Am I crazy? I think I just might be. My mother was, so it would stand to reason that the Nutso might jump from her branch to mine in the ol’ family tree. (She wasn’t like, dangerous crazy. Not really. I mean, she might have been, given a weapon at the right time, but since that never happened, she was generally not physically harmful. Emotionally, however, is a different story… And that wasn’t intentional. She didn’t mean to be the way she was…)

I’ve wondered for years – since I was old enough to observe that other moms weren’t like mine, and that I wasn’t like other daughters -- if maybe, just maybe, I’m cracking up. Maybe my attic has a few leaks, if you know what I’m saying. The idea scares the ever living shit out of me, the thought of being out of control in the same ways that I witnessed for so many years, the very possibility of harboring that kind of beast inside my brain… Why, it’s enough to make me want to scratch my own face off.

You see, my mom was different. Very large Catholic family. Very, very religious. She thought she heard God’s voice as a child, and she may have. Having never heard it myself, I wouldn’t recognize it and have no reason to brush off her claims. (She was a lot of things, but never a liar.) She was her father’s favorite. They weren’t poor, but were rubbing elbows with it. She married a rich boy straight out of high school, he joined the military, they moved overseas to a small island. He became wildly abusive, attempting to kill her every chance he got. She had my oldest sister in a hospital in Germany, alone, when she was 20 years old. They all moved back to the states, and eventually back to the place my mother was born and her family still lived. Her father was diagnosed with cancer and died. Her husband mocked her pain, and in her rage she found the strength to leave him, although she was no longer… whole. The years of terror and pain and torture had left her already-fragile mind fractured. She was still beautiful, brilliant, vibrant and so brave, but there was something foreign in her mind after that, something that warped her view of herself, the world around her and the people in it... She met my ‘father,’ married him, had my other sister. I believe she then had an affair with a man she never identified to me let alone admitted to being with, and then I was born.

She loved us so much. More than I can even fathom. We were her entire world, my sisters and I, or at least everything in it that was good. That love didn’t keep her whole, though. In fact, it frequently acted as a bludgeon she used to break our hearts and her own. She had two major psychotic breaks that I know of, because I was there for them. I grew up idolizing her, and living in terror that I would become like her. She was everything to me- my fear, my love, my hate, my protector and the person I longed to escape. As I got older, she became one of my best friends, the person I loved more than life. She died three years ago. Cancer. Was diagnosed in January, died in June of the same year… It literally tore her apart. One of her obituaries said “died peacefully after a long battle with cancer.” What a fucking load of shit. It was a horrific, swift massacre. Nothing peaceful or long about that “battle.”

Oh! When she died? I was pregnant. My boyfriend of seven years and I were expecting a baby. A little girl. I was the exact same age my mother had been when she had my oldest sister. Did I mention that we were high school sweethearts, and that he joined the military? Or that he was stationed on an island overseas? And wouldn’t you know, he had this really odd habit of getting violent when I made him angry, which happened a lot. (His hurts were small potatoes next to the torture my mom lived with, but he was gearing up for the big stuff with shocking speed and enthusiasm. However, I’m sure we can all see the parallels between her life and mine.) Yeah… So, she died about 4 and a half months into my pregnancy. I turned to my boyfriend for comfort, he shoved me, I fell and went into early labor. Miscarried a few days later. That was three weeks before my 21^st birthday. Four months later, I left him. (I know. Really long time, huh? Well, I probably AM crazy. So duh.)

Then I got together with a guy that was my best friend. He was happy, spiritual, beautiful. He was everything I’d ever wanted. He was more than I ever thought I’d get, given the fact that my stepfather and my mother’s psychosis pounded “you’re shit” into my brain for many, many years. Three years later, he wasn’t even a shadow of the man I’d met and I called our relationship off because I got tired of killing him. We ended up being really terrible for each other… I made him sad, and he made me angry. We both struggle with clinical depression, so… bad combination. I loved him so much, I never thought we’d be apart. Leaving him was the most terrible choice I’ve ever had to make.

Now, there’s this great guy. A guy that’s so peaceful, so mellow, so supportive. I have no idea how to be with him. I’m so far out of my depth that I can’t even see the shore, even though he’s right there with me, encouraging me to swim. You can do this, you can be this, it’s okay, I’m right here. After being on an emotional roller-coaster for nearly 25 years, I don’t know how to stand still. I don’t know how to be sane, or even how to fake it. I know he makes me wildly happy, and that he cares for me and understands my issues as much as he can, and is so loving. I know he quiets the static in my brain and eases the terrible grief in my soul. Yet… every day I find something to dissect, something to pick apart and sharpen and stab myself in the heart with. Something that tells me I’m not good enough, I’m fucking it all up, I’m ruining everything and the sky is about to fall in.

I can’t get out of my own head, I can’t stop the shockwaves that keep pounding me down into the terrible, dark hole I know is waiting just beneath this delicate net he’s woven for me, allowed me to weave for myself. It’s the hole my mother dug, the one she was trapped in for most of her life, the one she pushed me toward and shoved me away from. I see it there and know it like the back of the hands I inherited from her- every detail is etched into my mind. I’ve had a quarter of a century to stare at that hole, to slip into it and claw my way back out. I can’t stop staring at it now, from the corner of my eye, even as I try so hard to focus on this happiness in front of me, this reality that could so easily be mine if I could just fix what’s wrong in my head and heart and quiet the voices that scream out so much terror from the bottom of that pit.

I know that the next time I fall, when the net finally gives, that I’ll never get back out of that terrible darkness again.

I am so scared. I don’t want to be this way.

Friendship, Squashed?

Posted by Anonymous.

Friendship with a cousin just bounced right into the street and got squashed by a car.

How great is it to reconnect with people from long ago? Since moving back to home, I've had a lot of this going on. It's amazing how ten years away lets you change and you even find friendships where you didn't expect them.

But sometimes you put in the effort to reconnect, and after a while it's becoming quite evident that while you're all having a good time, you're the one putting in the effort? Months go by and you're still the one initiating the exact phrase, "Hey, I want to get together and see you." You see them be active with others, yet never a word to you.

I've had a few of these in my life. One told me she couldn't be around me because I was getting married and she was getting divorced, it hurt her too much. One of them told me my expectations were too high (she missed 2 playdates and didn't return any calls for over a week). Returning phone calls was too much for me to expect. Another told me it was my responsibility.

I'm familiar with the sign to give up. I know when to cool it. I mourn it. I dream about it. I dream about "high expectations" girl. I also know that sometimes they bounce back and in one instance, stronger than ever.

In fact, recently I got a message on my Voice Mail from one of these old friends, "why don't you come over?" I called back and left a message, "sounds great!" (thinking: It's Bouncin' Back!) And the response back is, "Oh sorry, someone just called and we'll be going with them now."

I know I'm weird... but am I rank? I know I'm more cynical now, but I thought that made me funnier. I've got cute kids you might like. I finally decided if it looks like you're being blown off and it smells like you're being blown off, chances are, you're being blown off. I finally realized that she just doesn't like me... and usually I'd just get over it, but I it's not just any friend... it's family. Yep... a cousin who I grew up with like a sister. She's told me it's my responsibility and goes out of her way to make dates with friends on facebook, but not with me and we even had a talk about how we re-establish things and she has done NOTHING... except the story above about inviting me and then dis-inviting me.

Thanks for the vent.. I was about to post this on mine and a friend advised against it.

Comments welcome!

The Secret

Posted by Anonymous.

He was 18. She was 12. My husband, who could never even hear the kids in the night when they were throwing up, heard the sound of our daughter's doorknob turning. Normally, this would not be cause to get up in the middle of the night but something prompted him. He opened our daughter's bedroom door and there was my 18 year old stepson at her bedside, reaching for her, wearing only his underwear. My husband told him to give him his house key and get out now. He offered no protest. He was gone within minutes. My husband was so angry, he was afraid he would kill him if he touched him.

In talking to our daughter, this had been going on for some time. How could we not know? Who would ever suspect that kind of sick behavior? Why didn't she tell us? The hole she kicked in her wall next to her bed that I thought was just from a temper tantrum, was made after another nighttime visit. I stayed home from work the next day and tried to talk to her about it. She was afraid to tell us, she said. I wanted to go to a counselor right away and tell someone who could help us. I wanted to tell my family. My husband said no. He was afraid that if we did, CPS might get involved and take our 2 daughters away from us while they investigated. That was too horrible to think about.

So began the secret.

In retrospect, there were behavior clues we should have identified. He poked a hole in our bedroom door that would have given him a view of our bed. I saw it right away and we covered it up. I worked in an office near our home and usually came home for lunch. If he was out of school, there were times he would be "napping" on the sofa and would be exposing himself. He would wear loose shorts and no underwear and sit with his legs apart. I would get furious and yell at him to get dressed. I never knew that during all these years he also had twisted feelings for me, too. To be honest, I never liked him. He was a brat and never minded me, but he was my husband's son so I tried to make it work. When all this happened with our daughter, I was more than glad for him to go.

Over the years, he slowly reentered the family, keeping his distance. A few months before the wedding, he and his fiance were staying overnight with us. I got up early to have coffee, as I do every morning. He came into the kitchen and tried to come on to me. I told him in no uncertain terms that he needed to knock it off. He started crying and saying he thought I had feelings for him. Let me tell you, I NEVER did anything to give him that idea. I always made sure I was dressed appropriately, way more so than you would do for your kids. I never walked around in my nightgown or underwear. We were active in church and encouraged them to attend youth activities. We didn't have movie channels on our cable or pornographic material in our home.

How do you not tell family what is going on, yet not let on that there is a problem? What about when he is engaged to a wonderful girl? And they get married? And have a baby? Our whole family attended the wedding. We were there when the baby was born. . Our daughter forgave him. My husband and I tried but you can never forget something like that. The grandparents, aunts and uncles don't have a clue that we have this secret. We love the daughter-in-law and the beautiful granddaughter. We want to be part of their lives.

This summer we went for a short visit. After dinner the first night, we were sitting around visiting. He was wearing snug knit shorts and periodically would make sure he was "arranged" down there. My husband was so upset that he was still doing things like that. We cut our visit short

Last week my mom asked me if they were coming for Christmas so she would know whether to mail their gift or not. I called him and he said probably not because funds were tight. I told him we really wanted to see the baby, she must be getting so big, and on and on. He called and left a message on my phone this week and said he was going to come see us this Sunday and stay until Tuesday, if I was going to be off work. HE COULDN'T WAIT TO SEE ME. Nothing about his dad or sister. He couldn't wait to see me. In all my phone conversations with him, I am always careful to say things like "we" want to see their family, never just me.

Now I feel sick. I don't want him to come here, especially not alone. If I tell my husband, he will tell him to not come. If it weren't for the baby, I would too. Do we sacrifice our relationship with our only grandchild?

Secrets are bad.

Wrecked

Posted by Katie.

I’m afraid I’ve wrecked our future. And we’ve only been married for 6 months.

This failure goes back, way back, to 3 years before I met you, to my freshman year of college.

I hated college. I hated every single minute of it. And I was scared of coming home because I simply don’t do failure. And calling and saying that I wanted to come home from a college 2 hours from my house because I was homesick was my definition of failure.

I called my mom twenty times a day, always in tears, unable to cope with anything. After several weeks, my family decided that it was time to stop this cycle of depression and get me some help. And I resisted, oh how I resisted. But my doctor convinced me that anti-depressants were the right choice. At the time I was embarrassed. I failed at keeping my emotions under control, I failed at being happy. I failed at something so innate that it shouldn’t be something you can fail at. But I did.

And that failure flipped a switch in my head. It was as if from that moment on, I needed control in my life. It didn’t matter where. The medication helped and the crying slowed down and my moods stabilized, but the fact that I couldn’t even control my own emotions without pharmaceutical aid ate away at me.

And so I turned to food. Not in the, gobble down everything in sight way, but rather in the, control every single calorie that my body ingests way.

I started slowly. Just cutting back on sweets, eating a little healthier, reading some fitness websites. And then I began running. And running was this freeing process where all that was going on was the wind and air and whatever music I chose to listen to for the morning. I wasn’t thinking about my classes, or my future, I was just thinking about taking the next physical step in the run. It was amazing.

But before long, it wasn’t just eating healthily or running for the exhilarative freeing feeling, it was a problem, a sickness. It was counting every single calorie I ingested. It was calculating the speed and distance I ran to convert it to calories burned. It was stepping on the scale each morning, and despite it showing a weight lower than what I’d been since middle school, it was wanting to drop just two more pounds. Or three more pounds. Just a little more.

It was anorexia.

At the height of my eating disorder, I was eating, (at best) 1 cup of cheerios in the morning, a salad of only vegetables and fat-free Italian dressing for lunch, a snack of green beans and a dinner of either a bagel or the same salad as lunch. On a wild day, I might throw a whole apple into the mix. But I always felt guilty about it.

There were days where my calorie count was easily less than 500, but I drank water and tea so I didn’t feel the hunger. I had over $1000 out of my initial $1400 from meal plan left at the end of the semester when most everyone else was completely out of money.

And the numbers on the scale dropped. 120. 118. 115. 110. 107. 103. I went from 145 to 103 pounds in less than 6 months. On my 5 pound 5 inch frame, these weights were dangerous. I looked gaunt, my hair was falling out, and worse, I hadn’t had a period in months, a fact I outright lied to my doctor (and mother) about when she asked after rightly assuming that I wasn’t just “exercising and eating healthier,” but rather, killing myself.

It wasn’t until the end of my freshman year, after all but one of my friends completely deserted me (understandably since the most important social part of college is meals and I wasn’t participating in any), that I realized that I had a problem. I remember getting into a car with my only friend and saying out loud what I had known for weeks, maybe months. And before I could stop myself, I blurted it out. “I think I have an eating disorder.” And she hugged me and said that she knew, but also that she knew I needed to realize it first.

I went to the school counselor, which was a huge failure (“You don’t look underweight, you’re probably fine”) and eventually just worked hard to let myself eat again. To get past the voice in my head telling me that that muffin over there would go right to my belly, or thighs (never my boobs of course). It was miserably difficult, I was forbidden from stepping on a scale and I hated myself. I could feel myself getting fat again and I hated every single minute it.

In the end I gained too much weight back, a fact that I came to peace with, and tried to move on with my life. But the damage I had done over the past year was not damage that could be fixed simply by gaining the weight back. As it turns out, depriving your body of fat and nutrients for more than a year is not a safe thing to do.

And that brings us to today.

One of the things that my gynecologist talked to me about recently is that because of the severity and length of time of my eating disorder, I may be infertile. We can already see that my bones are too thin and it makes sense that the after effects of my anorexia aren’t confined to just my skeleton. She said, actually very compassionately, that because I went 14 months without a period from being malnourished that there’s a good chance that I won’t be able to conceive a child. Ever.

Suddenly it’s hitting me that our dream of having children may already be over.

I know how badly you want kids, how badly I want kids, but I’m afraid I might have already ruined that life for us. What if what I did 7 years ago keeps us from the lifetime of happiness we’ve both wanted? How can I un-do something like that? What if my life and my mental illness caused us to be childless?

I know that you’ll forgive me and tell me it’s okay, because you love me. But I know I’ll never forgive myself for ruining the future we were supposed to have, because I know it’s my fault.

Dear Ex

Posted by ANTM.

Dear Ex-Boyfriend,

You suck. I am one of the nicest people on the planet and I hate you. Seriously – I hate you. Right now, as I am writing this you are messaging me wondering what it is that you did to push me away.

In the beginning, things were bright and shiny like all new relationships are. I liked you. We moved in together. I started to question your judgment two months in when you allowed your ex-fiance to sleep over night in our house together. Without asking me first. I let it slide since she was pregnant and obviously over you but I should have left you right then.

I am 6 years younger than you and I was straight out of college when we started dating. You partied just as much as I did. Funny thing is, I gave up partying once I got a job two months after graduation. You are 31 now and still go out every weekend. Not just out for a few beers with the guys. It is more like drink as much alcohol as you can because it might be banned tomorrow kind of out. Then you decide it might be a good idea to come home and wake up your girlfriend for sex. Who really cares that she has to get up and work in two hours right? Remember the time you threw up all over the bathroom and woke me up at 3 am to clean it up? Classy…

I moved away for a while to give you some time to grow up. Not just down the street away either. I moved to a whole new country. You would call and write. Messages of how much you missed me and you wanted to get married. You wanted to have babies. You wanted to move away and start a life together. I was pretty convinced you had changed so I moved back to the very town I hated for you.

I signed a one year contract for a job that I cannot stand. Miranda from the Devil Wears Prada is totally my boss. Each day it takes every ounce of strength I have to prevent myself from stabbing her with my letter opener. You promised after one year we could move to a bigger city. You took me to a ring store to look at rings. Then something happened and you stopped all of that niceness. I should have known better but I guess I didn’t.

You started going out every weekend again. You stopped talking about marriage with me and instead started talking to every girl who would look at you. So you know what? I stopped talking to you. For one week – complete silence. Then my grandfather had a stroke. A bad one. I hadn’t slept in three days. It was the night before my family was going to turn off the machines. I was going to the hospital the next day to say good-bye. I cried myself to sleep that night. You went out and got drunk. Around 4:30 am, you came home, stripped off all of your clothes and woke me up. You asked if I could help you out. When I told you to get the hell away from me, do you know what you did? You laid on the floor next to the couch I was sleeping on and asked if I would just go down on you for a bit. I should have kicked you directly in the groin but I didn’t.

I moved out two weeks later and you still cannot seem to figure out why. Perhaps I am just a selfish bitch but in reality I think it has more to do with the fact that you are a child and I would like to be with a man. You don’t love me anyway. You just love the idea of me being around to do your laundry, wash your dishes, and clean up your vomit after a rough night at the bar. So you can pretty much go screw yourself…

Sincerely,

Your ex-girlfriend

P.S. You can stop with the damn messages that I don’t care about your feelings and how you just don’t understand how I could be so selfish because frankly, I don’t give a damn!

Babies Having Babies

Posted by Anonymous.

So I might have to warn some of the mothers who read this....you might not want to and I'm sure that what I am about to say might offend some people but I don't know where else to say what I need to say.

I know a dozen or more people who got pregnant out of wedlock and yes I'm going to be judgmental and say that bothers me. Several of these people say its because they "could not afford birth control" well the last time I checked a box of condoms for about 3 was about $4 maybe even less than that. Oh and planned parenthood will give them to you for free!!! You can also get the pill for a 90 day supply at some drug stores for $10....wow that must be so expensive. But yet these same people can afford $1,000 a month town houses and the latest video game systems.....but who cares about trying to prevent pregnancy.

Did you ever think they considered how much a kid would cost? Probably not, I mean what could a little unprotected sex hurt, right?!?!?

My parents have also never been fans of unprotected pregnancy but they are also pro-life.....I know if I ever got pregnant out of wedlock I would quietly take care of the problem and never tell them. That's my own choice and I don't want to get into that, different topic and too many opinions there. But just today my mom informed me that a family friend who is 23, still in college, working an unpaid internship and has no medical insurance is guess what, pregnant. This is her bosses daughter, who I used to be very close with, almost like sisters. I was angry when my mom told me because I know that this girl is smarter than that, but her parents are excited for her and so is my mother. Her and the father will be living with her parents and I can almost guarantee they will take care of the baby, since she and baby daddy are still in college and jobless.

My mother, the person who would throw me out on the street if I EVER told her that I was knocked up - she is excited for this girl. I just wanted to scream.....I just cannot fathom how people think this is okay....maybe I am too old fashioned but I am also careful. In my life I have had 2 pregnancy scares and in one case took the Plan B pill just to be safe. I have been on the pill since I was 14 and I wasn't even sexually active then.

I'm tired of pretending to feel sorry for them when I know how easy it is to not get yourself into that situation. I know for some people things work out but for most they don't. Its much easier for one of the parents to get out of the situation when there is no legal marriage. Not planning for things almost always means there is little to no money to help raise that child either, so there goes my tax dollars into their WICK and Welfare checks.

I don't plan on attending her shower or calling her to tell her a fake "congratulations." I can't keep letting myself feel sorry for people like that. I cannot fathom how a person could be excited to be in that situation. My mother tells me not to pass judgment but that girl is not her daughter and if the tables were turned I'd be living in a homeless shelter. I've watched many of my cousins do the same thing, I've seen them fight for child support, work dead end jobs and one of them even had her 4 children put into foster care.

I don't know if its wrong or what to feel like this but it just makes me sick inside. I just hope and pray it never happens to me but if it ever does I know what to do and I know what would be right in my heart. Maybe there is something wrong with the way that I feel but I do know how else I am supposed to feel. How can I react to situations like this without feeling the way that I do.

Signed,

Too many babies and shot gun weddings

Broken

Posted By Anonymous

**A warning before you continue reading. This might get graphic, it might not make sense, it might go from one thought to the next, and it’s not well written, but I’ve got to get this out.**

I’m twenty-one and I have a secret that I’ve kept my entire life. I just recently told my therapist this secret (more like she flat out asked me saying that she just had a hunch). You see, I hate my father. I hate him with all that I am. It’s not your typical type of hate, but I am filled with a hatred that goes through every part of my body and soul. It is this secret that I keep, that keeps this hatred strong. My mother divorced him when I was around five because he came home so drunk one night that he hit her instead of coming for me.

I was sexually abused. How I hate typing those words. But they have been in my mind forever, swirling around, hiding at times, but it’s always there. Since freaking out and tearfully saying yes to my therapist, it’s been on my mind constantly. I’m constantly terrified. I can’t sleep, I either don’t eat or eat too much, I can’t take showers unless I’m wearing a bathing suit, and I sleep in jeans, sweatshirts, and sneakers. I have panic attacks throughout the day and I can never relax.

I can’t stand people to touch me. I don’t like people getting close to me. Even family members that touch me, cause me to coil in fear. The only people that have ever touched me and don’t make me feel sick are children. They seem to be the only innocent things that exist. I can’t explain to my mom that when she touches me on the shoulder why I jerk away. She won’t understand. As it is now, she yells at me for being inconsiderate of her feelings when I ask her to please don’t touch me. She doesn’t give me a chance to say why, instead she reminds me of how selfish I’m being. How I must hate her because I don’t want her to touch me. That’s the same thing he used to tell me.

Almost every night he would come into my room, smelling of alcohol and cheap cologne. That smell still makes me sick to this day. I can’t remember the first time, and I don’t remember every time. For that I’m thankful. He would wait till the early hours of the morning and sit on the edge of my bed. It started off with only his hands roaming over my body, then it changed. Apparently that wasn’t enough for him and he started having sex with me. I went away in my head, and that’s always worked for me until now. Since admitting my secret, I haven’t been able to just go away in my mind. Hours aren’t passing as quickly and that scares me because it means that the memories and feelings are always there.

I feel like it’s my fault. I didn’t do enough to stop it- I blame myself. I didn’t tell anyone, so does that mean that I wanted it? Did I subconsciously not tell anyone so it would continue? Did I want it? Did I ask for it? Is it my fault for tempting him? I not only hate him, I hate myself. I hate myself for letting it happen, I hate myself for keeping a secret, I hate myself for telling my secret.

I hate that because I am his only child, I have to take care of him. He’s sick. He has heart problems, lung problems, he still drinks and smokes, and he’s in and out of hospitals. I’m next of kin and power of attorney. Everyone expects me to be the adult and take care of him. I also am next of kind and power of attorney for him mother and brother (both who are in nursing homes- Parkinson’s and stroke respectively). I hate having to see him, and each time I spend days trying to feel ok again. I never feel safe. I never feel relaxed, and rarely do I feel ok.

I don’t want people to feel sorry for me, but I want to be a kid. I never got to be a kid. From the time I was little, I was a part of his adult fantasy, and now I go to school full time, I work two jobs, and I take care of him, my grandmother, and my uncle. I’m tired of it all. I’m tired of having to be the perfect daughter. But most of all, I’m tired of hating myself.

I’m tired of this secret, but I fear that if I say anything about it now, then no one will believe me. After all, I’ve kept it this long. I’m scared and really all I want is someone safe to hold me and tell me it’s ok. I want someone to tell me that it’s ok to feel like this, that it’s ok to be scared, but also that I will be ok, and that they will protect me.

Should I Stay Or Should I Go?

Posted by Anonymous.

It's depressing to me that what feels like the most important decision I will have made up to this point in my life can be reduced to some stupid, cliched song lyrics. My husband and I have been together for more than a decade. We have an amazing two year old son. And more bad blood between the two of us than I care to think about most days. Our marriage got off to a rocky start, I'll admit, what with me attempting suicide a few months in and then again a year later. What can I say? I was young, and depressed, and felt trapped in the horror of feeling that the walls were continually closing in on me. I tried to kill myself, in part, because I thought my husband deserved better. Now, years and scores of pills and hours of therapy later, I look back on that time in our marriage and regret that I felt so utterly incapable of letting in my husband (or anyone else) even the tiniest bit. And I regret having ever put him through that mess.

Five years ago when he told me that my depression and emotional withdrawal from the marriage led him to have an affair, I cringed. I felt responsible. What was wrong with me? The fact that he waited to tell me about the affair until after we had planned a move across the country to be closer to (his) family eventually infuriated me. Cue the start of breeding resentment. And then, six months after we had moved across the country and he told me he was having another (emotional) affair with a coworker, the world slipped out from under me and I ran, no, sprinted head-on into the land of denial and workaholism. Maybe it was because my body was telling me, in a voice not unlike what I imagine a shrieking harpy to sound like, "You need to have a baby! Right now!" and having one with my husband seemed the most accessible option. Maybe it was because I couldn't imagine giving up on the years of history built up between us. Maybe it was because neither my family, nor his family "believe" in divorce, and I couldn't imagine shaming them by telling them I just wanted to give up. Maybe it was because I felt incapable of living on my own. Maybe it was because I was scared.

Not surprisingly, we had had sexual issues from the getgo. We had waited until marriage. Why, I don't know. Our honeymoon was one long disaster. I have always found sex uncomfortable at best and painful at worst, and not infrequently, would cry after intercourse because I felt as if something was being taken away from me. I know, I know, that sounds pretty fucked up right there. He wanted it all the time; I never wanted it. I was convinced (and he was convinced) there was something wrong with me. I had sex only out of a sense of obligation, and never really out of a sense of anticipation or enjoyment or intimacy. And then, after a long dry spell, he subtly pressured me to have sex. I can't really blame him for that. I understood that he had needs that weren't being met. I don't know if I can blame him for continuing to pressure me - "Come on, it'll be fine" - after I said no, it wasn't a good time. I know I blame myself for not standing up more strongly to him. Of course, I got myself good and knocked up. I was never really ambivalent about being pregnant. I knew from the moment I found out that I wanted the baby.

For a brief period, we got along better. We tried really hard. We stopped the constant arguing and forced ourselves to look forward to the oh-so-bright future. And then he told me that he was still in contact with the woman with whom he had had an emotional affair. That he was still attracted to her. He described the sex acts they had discussed. Even though something in me was screaming, "Get out! Get out! Get out!" the thought of being a single, graduate student mother flooded me with fear. So I stayed. I have tried to forgive him, but I can't. I have told myself I need to live with the consequences of my actions that led to my (wonderful, brilliant) son being conceived. I thought that meant staying with my son's father and "working it out." I thought it meant providing my son the perfect nuclear family. I thought it meant swallowing my pride and self-respect and getting on with life.
But now I just don't know. I went through a horrifying postpartum depression and have emerged from the other side. Emotionally, I'm still a thousand miles away from my marriage. I cringe inwardly every time my husband touches me. I don't feel attracted to him. I've stopped sharing things with him. We haven't had sex since our son was conceived. I'm angry. I'm hurt. I'm exhausted.

Last weekend, the issues in our marriage, sexual and otherwise, came to a head once again, as they tend to do when even the strongest denial is insufficient to fill in the gaping cracks in our relationship. He shared his frustration that I won't touch him. He told me "We need to do something about this. I can't ignore this need forever." In my head, I agree, yes, we need to do something about this. In my heart, I feel sick about the idea of touching him. He told me that he thinks I need to touch him, even if it is uncomfortable for me. Even though he took it back later, a part of me flew away and started singing a high-pitched tuneless tune when he said that. I can't live with that expectation, I told myself. I can't live with that expectation, I told him.

I spend most of my time feeling utterly numb. In the moments when I touch the despair in our relationship, I feel like I cease to exist. I want to make this all his fault. Outwardly, I do. But inwardly, I keep chanting, What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? What is wrong with me? I look at our son and think How can I shatter his world with a divorce? And I think How can I keep living this nonexistence in his presence? And I sit here, paralyzed.

How Could You?

Posted by Anonymous.

How could you?

While we were at the ER, getting my husband's tachycardia treated with beta blockers, you called me. While I was sitting there wondering how he could possibly be this sick - whether it was a reaction due to the rare illness he thinks he has, or a simple panic attack - you were at my house thinking. You called me, and you asked if I knew what dexamethasone is. No, I said. You asked me if I knew about Cushing's Disease. I said yes, that's what my husband thinks he has. You said that you were concerned about some things.

Silly me, I thought that your husband had been looking on the computer and finding out information to try and HELP, because he is a smart man and maybe he would like to help out.

How could you?

When we walked in the door, you were both sitting on the couch. You said we needed to talk because there were some things you were concerned about. At that point, I could tell that you weren't going to say anything helpful.

I thought that you were going to have a talk with us. At the worst, I thought you'd accuse him of being a hypochondriac who tries to self diagnose himself on the internet. At the worst, I thought you'd try to intervene, saying he needed to stop and just see a doctor and let the doctors decide. At the worst, I thought you'd make me feel embarrassed for letting him go on about this illness that he is convinced his symptoms fit.

How could you?

I could not believe my ears. You asked about the prescription bottle of dexamethasone on the desk. For a minute I was confused, then realized that you were talking about a bottle of CAT MEDICINE. Medicine that the vet prescribed to our cat this summer to try and treat his huge fucking ear infection that keeps coming back. You asked if my HUSBAND had been EXPERIMENTING on himself, if he had taken the steroids that were prescribed to my CAT to try and test himself for Cushing's Disease. Have you been experimenting on yourself? you asked. It is the exact steroid they use to test for Cushing's - do you see how that looks to us?

HOW COULD YOU?

How could you look at me like that? How could you ask me several times about the drugs even after I disbelievingly said that those were the cat's pills, that they've been sitting untouched on that desk for six months? How could you look back and forth between us and ask if we could see why you'd be concerned? How could you accuse my husband of experimenting on his own body like that?

YES, he mentioned that he'd been testing a theory. Do you know what he MEANT by that? The ONLY thing he did differently today was eat a BIGGER DINNER than normal. That was his big, scary test. Well, it seemed to work, better than he'd thought. No, he could not have forseen that taking his normal ADD meds, then drinking some soda (things he does every day) then eating Thanksgiving dinner would send him to the hospital with a VERY high heart rate and blood pressure, dizziness, shaking and practically fainting.

How could you think that he would take unprescribed steroid medication, medication that was prescribed to an ANIMAL? How could you think that my husband would put himself at THAT kind of risk? Even if he did, how could you think he would do that TODAY, on Thanksgiving, when we were going to be around family. Come on, we're smarter than that. If we wanted to hide something from you, we would DAMN WELL hide it. How could you think I would let him do that under my roof, when we have a child? How could you, after all these years, so misjudge both of us?

How could you accuse him of putting himself at risk that way?

How could you look at me like that, and think I was LYING to you?

How could you make me feel so stupid? So untrusted? So childlike?

How could you put me in this place where I sobbed after you left, and now I don't know what to do, if I should tell you how much you hurt me, how much you added to the stress of an already stressful day, month, year...?

How?

Bummer

Posted by Anonymous.

You tell me that in your head, I'm a fuck up, and you can't see past it. That I'm just a bummer and you want to have some fun.

You want to spend all your time talking online to other people, texting, messaging, interacting in ways that just aren't real. You work part time and do nothing, I come home from work, you run away to talk to your friends, leaving me to handle everything, if I'm lucky you've made the kids dinner.

You can't understand why I'm so upset that you sat texting someone else while we were out as a family. Yeah, no one was talking. Because you were being RUDE.

But I'm the asshole. I have a mental illness see, so every single fucking thing I ever do, or will do, will be assumed to be invalid because of this. Because I can't POSSIBLY be upset that he almost makes a POINT of disrespecting me. Because I should just lie down and let him do whatever he wants.

Because I'm not fun. I ask to go do stuff. I say hey, lets go out. He doesn't want to leave the house. That fucking laptop has been the bane of my existance the minute in came in the door.

Sure, I'm fine with other women being your friends. I'm ok with that. I'm NOT ok with you spending every waking second with them, any more than I'd be ok with you hanging out with guys friends in real life every single night.

I'm sorry I've been sick. I'm sorry I'm losing my fucking job. I'm sorry I got snagged in some internet drama because I'm a fuck up. I'ma fuck up! I get it! I'm not 25 and fun with no kids and no real worries aside from where my next tattoo will come from and how sad it is that my boyfriend is emo. I'm sorry that I am only your WIFE with two children. I'm sorry that HAVING your bloody children set my illness off. I'm SORRY that you can't see that it isn't all about you!

You complain that I'm always drama, and I try and tell you, that on some level, if the ONLY WAY to retain your focus is to have a problem, then guess what? THAT is what will happen. If I'm nice and happy, you get weird, and you disappear. You don't WANT me to be normal. You don't WANT me to be better. What excuse would you have to treat me like garbage?

Worst of all, you never, ever say I love you anymore. Not since the summer when I tried to kill myself because you were too caught up with some chick online, and we came THISCLOSE to divorce and I sat in that hospital room all alone, and came home all alone. Not since I had enough of competing with figments on a computer who think you're cute and an "awesome father"

Of course they say that. They don't see you ignore your kids in favour of someone on a compute. They don't see you yell at them to shut up because it's interfering with your music. They don't see you lose your shit with them over nothing. They don't see. THEY AREN'T REAL, because they have one input-YOU, and YOU can say whatever you want them to hear. Of COURSE they think you're wonderful.

I have been trying. Trying to change the habit of a lifetime, trying to control the idiocies of my disease, trying to be a better person but I'm rapidcly beginning to realize that with you, this just isn't possible. I will never, ever be enough. I will never be special. I will be the girl you fuck, and that's it.

I want someone to talk to. I want someone who tells me we'll figure it out, even if he's scared, and MEANS it, just as I've done in the past. I want someone who realizes that people are human and makes mistakes. I want someone happy to see me, someone who loves me, really loves me, instead of making me cry and much as you do.

I want someone who hears me when I say these things. Someone who doesn't roll their eyes. Someone who is willing to seek counselling.

I want a man. Not the boy I married.

I didn't think I'd be staring at the spectre of divorce again, but I'm beginning to think I am. I'm too old to waste my life with someone who can better support a stranger in Minnesota than his own wife in front of him.

Can't Say No

Posted By Anonymous

I am not a whore.

I don't get paid.

What I am is 30, newly single and unable to say no to anyone. I have a man that I've been dating non-exclusively who is falling harder all the time and I could see myself falling madly in love with him, as well. I also have my Monday night date that entails sex and some general chatter afterwards. I have my 23 year old who I'll spend hours and days in bed having mind-blowing sex. I have my military boy that comes home on occasion for dinner and a blow-job. I have the one who wants it bad, but I just haven't found the time. I have the girls who are vying for our first dates and I'm desperately trying to fit them in, as well. And not one of them knows about the others.

I don't understand this part of me. It's been like this since I was a teenager. When I am with someone in an exclusive relationship, I'm loyal-- fiercely loyal to the point of not even thinking about anyone else. When it's just me? I want as much as I can get, as often as I can, I want to sample everything. It feels almost dirty. Something shameful I have to hide from my friends and family. I want to say it's because I'm a sex-positive female who's in charge of her own sexuality.

In reality, I think it's low self-esteem and self-loathing.

I could care less about the talking to them afterwards or maintaining any sort of connection to them later. Better that I don't get attached. That hot boy isn't going to love me, he's just going to want what I can give him better than anyone else has. And so I want to keep giving it to him. Maybe someday he'll want more or realize how good he has it with me. Most likely he'll move on to someone prettier, someone smarter, someone skinnier, someone lovable.

'Tis A Gift?

Posted by Anonymous.

I don’t want to post this on my blog because it’s totally humiliating.

I got a phone call from my daughter’s school the other day. The teachers and staff wanted to add my kids’ names to the gift tree they do there every year. The guidance counselor said that she knew we were struggling and she wasn’t trying to insult me, but that she thought we could use the help.

I told her that I wasn’t insulted, just embarrassed. Because the thing is, she’s right.

We are broke. I bought some presents for my oldest last week because I’d had a little larger than expected paycheck. But I had to return them because we ran out of oil. And if you think that doesn’t suck, you don’t know jack. I hadn’t bought her much – pajamas, mostly, and a book. Nothing extravagant. But if I didn’t return them, we wouldn’t have eaten much beyond beans last week. So I took them back. What really sucked is that I bought them where I work, so, yeah. Fun.

I feel like I’ve really cut back a lot on our expenses. We never go out to eat. We may order a pizza once a month, but other than that, I cook every meal. I buy dried beans and cheap cuts of meat. We eat a lot of rice. I get my bread on the day-old shelf and buy produce from the about-to-go-off shelf. I obsessively check the grocery store ads for savings and will even go to the hated Wal-Mart if they have better prices. I bake my own bread and I don’t buy convenience foods. I buy 99% of the girls’ clothing at the Salvation Army and Goodwill. The only new things I’ve bought for myself in the last year are two bras and a package of underwear. We don’t rent movies, we don’t have NetFlix, we never go to see a film in the theatre. I don’t own a cell phone. I keep the heat at 64 and we all wear sweaters in the house. I never wash my clothes in hot water. I Freecycle like a madwoman. I haven’t been on a vacation of any sort in four years.

I could cancel cable and the internet, but I think I might kill myself if I didn’t have the internet. At $70 a month for both, it wouldn’t save us all that much anyway. I could hang my clothes to dry, but I have a very, very, very small house and three kids and a husband in plumbing. I do 4 or 5 loads of laundry a day – I don’t have the space to hang stuff inside in the winter.

I feel like such a failure. I’m not a stupid person. I have a part-time job, my husband has a decent job making decent money, but we can never seem to get ahead. We lost our house to foreclosure last year and are now renting in a rather sketchy city, somewhere more affordable than the college town we used to live in.

I don’t want to accept these gifts from my daughter’s school. I told the guidance counselor that I wanted us to be at the bottom of the list, that I’m sure there are other families out there in much more dire straits than we are in, who are in more need. She was very sympathetic and nice about it. I’m really hoping we don’t get anything – picking up charity gifts is going to break my heart.

But the upshot is that I can’t really afford Christmas for my kids. Sure, they’ll get some things and I don’t want it to be all about the presents, but still. It’s killing me.

(Ed. note - submitted before Christmas. I'm so sorry for these posting delays!)

Move

Posted by Anonymous.

My husband and I are moving to a big city, in a different province, in 8 days. EIGHT DAYS!!! we've gotten rid of basically everything we own. Our bed, dressers, couches, everything! Were moving because my husband is sick of being told if he's going to work or not, and for how long. In August, he was laid off by a company he worked for, for 3 years. I mean, it's completely understandable that they had to lay him off, they were shutting down. He was jobless for two weeks. Then got another job, at another mill. He's been there all of 2 months, and was recently told that, for Christmas there taking two weeks off. Everyone has to, there's no odd jobs he can do. On the following Monday, they held a meeting to inform their employees that, after the two week break, they will promptly going down to 3 shifts a week. WHAT!!!! you have GOT to be kidding.... So now, my husband is seriously pissed off, yet again he's going to be laid off. He has no seniority at the new job, so chances of him even being on the three shifts a weeks, is basically non-existent.

He wants to move. He wants me to move away from my family (and the rest of his) And head off to Alberta. What really, really makes this suck so much. Is because i made the final decision. I can't back out now!! I mean don't get me wrong, the only reason were doing this is because his brother has a job lined up for him. So its not like were just winging it. And there kind enough to let us stay with them, until we get on our feet. Which i couldnt be happier about. But i know myself, i don't do well in big cities!!! don't have my liscence and have had somewhat bad experiences with transit and greyhound bus rides. Although, i heard it is easier to get your liscence there. We'll see.

The upside, is that there's way better job opportunities there for me! Should I feel bad for feeling so selfish?!?!? I know he's scared and nervous about it too, he asked me not to voice how I felt, because then we really would be backing out. We can't turn back now, his two weeks notice was already put it, we leave in 8 days, i don't have a job anymore, and ALL of our stuff is either gone, or spoken for, and leaving this weekend. The reason I keep re-thinking our decision, is because in one day, I was asked by my dad, his step-dad and my other sister's best friend's mom if I truly wanted to do this, and do I have any doubts, and basically just begging me to tell them i'm scared shitless. I've never been so scared of the future in my entire life. I've also never been so excited about it at the same time.

I was hoping that writing how I felt out would help me feel better. In a way it has, but I still feel doubt....will it ever go away?!?!

The Facade

Posted by Anonymous.

We have been married for nearly 15 years.

We stopped having sex 10 years ago, right after the baby was born.

You were dishonest with me.

You used me.

You married me because you wanted to have a child.

You knew that I was scarred from my divorce and the distance from my oldest child.

You knew I wasn't the kind of man who would walk away from his own child.

I know that you like me. I know that you are fond of me. I know that you might have some feelings of love for me... but the truth is that you don't really respect me.

Do you know, or would you even care if you knew, that I get sex elsewhere? Probably not.

You know... in blogland, most people think that I have the greatest life. I should be more honest with the people that read me... but I guess I am as dishonest with them as you have been with me. We have a nice home. We have nice, responsible, respectable jobs. We are active in our church and community. We take family vacations and smile in the pictures.

We are full of shit.

You may be happy with all of this, but I'm not.

It's 7 A.M. on Sunday... and in two and a half hours, I'll be at church, teaching Sunday school... I haven't been to bed yet. I don't know what to do. I just don't. I am fucking miserable.

When our child graduates from high school in eight years, she will be going off to college. When she leaves, I'm leaving, too. I gave you the best years of my life, and as much as I still love you, deep down, I hate you for it... but, you probably don't care about that, either.

Whole

Posted by Anonymous

The phone ran a year ago. My silence shattered. My sister on the phone. Crying. Nothing new. Her life stained in a bad neighborhood. With drugs and gangs. There she raised her children, no matter how much family tried to help. She stayed.

And life fell apart. With that phone call and with the tears, her life ended. Her son's life ended, all because her son.

My nephew.

Took someone's life.

The unthinkable. No words could say how I felt at that moment. All my love and all my hate swelled up in my throat. I had no thoughts. I was sick.

Sixteen, on drugs, an alcoholic. Sixteen. And he had killed another man.

In a instant too many lives change. My family shamed and stained with the choice of a young man, a young man taken in by so many, hands that tried to reach. And still he choose that road.

This is the unspoken at parties. We laugh. And talk, but over our heads is this darkness. The unspoken child sitting in a cell, for the rest of our lives, for the rest of his. And we go on. Our life goes on. But his stands still, forever. Till the day he dies.

And that unknown family that mourns. For the father, husband that is forever lost. They shares in the darkness of the brutal. Unthinkable. The pain of losing someone they loved and cared for. That cared for others. And dreamed of happily ever....

And I know no words, no thoughts will make it go away. But sometimes I close my eyes and wish it away.

Wish for that boy to walk the earth again and do good. To know we loved him.

For that father that is gone to embrace his family. Whole.

Numb

Posted by Anonymous.

What do you do when you can’t get over the anxiety and fear that your husband might betray you?

I have, on the surface, a perfect marriage. We have a beautiful daughter. We have a lovely home. But I spend every day dealing with a fear that my husband may not be able to fight his demons and be too weak and take prescription painkillers (opiates).

It started in February 2005. He became ill and went on the painkillers (doctor prescribed) as a result. But he got hooked and after the doctor stopped filling his prescription, he secretly bought them online. Then he faked a back injury to get pills at the hospital. And finally, he came clean to me in June of that year. He said the pills got rid of his social anxiety. Made him feel like he was Superman at work. Made him feel “on top of his game.” I felt so betrayed and so angry.

He went to a shrink. Got on anxiety meds. He took a urine drug test whenever I asked, to help me feel secure. And I guess I got over it, at the time. Time passed, things were great, and we had a child.

Then, last year. He had to have surgery on his leg. Serious surgery, and he needed pain meds. I kept the bottle and dispensed them to him. Things seemed okay, but then he began having major stomach issues, unrelated to the leg surgery. We’re talking pain that landed him in the ER over and over again. After months of doctors saying, “I have no idea what’s wrong” they finally removed his gallbladder and viola! He was better! The bad news? He’d been on pain meds (between the leg and stomach issues) for nearly seven months.

After the surgery and some recovery time, I tried to wean him off the meds. He got angry and demanded the pill bottle. He took nearly a whole bottle of meds in a 24 hour period. His anger and irrational behavior scared me, and I realized that months on these meds had made him dependent on the drugs yet again. Even though he wasn’t LYING to me, I felt sick about the whole thing. I felt scared. I realized that these drugs can get a grip on you and never let go.

And now… fast forward to today. It’s been a YEAR since he stopped the drugs (that I know of) and every.single.day I battle fears that he is using some sort of opiates. My husband has taken drug tests whenever I ask, and they have always been negative. He offered to go on a drug that would make him ill if he took opiates. He tries to understand why I live in fear of this, but I can tell he gets frustrated. I do feel like he makes an effort to help me feel secure, but it’s not working.

EVERY DAY I look in his eyes and evaluate his pupils. Do they look super-small (a sign of opiate abuse)? Do they look huge (a sign of withdrawal)? My whole goddamned life revolves around this FEAR I have of being betrayed and of him getting hooked on something that will ruin our life. I obviously don’t trust my husband… I don’t trust that he can fight the possible urge to do those drugs, and I have this NEED to be in CONTROL. To be VIGILANT. To KNOW if something is wrong. It’s like I REFUSE to be betrayed again, to be a FOOL who has no idea what is going on. But my hyper-vigilance is ruining me.

It’s going to ruin my life and my marriage. Already, I feel numb and I feel like I am letting happiness pass me by, because I am so obsessed with this. I just don’t know what to do. I’m going to a therapist but so far I haven’t seen any difference in my feelings.

Like a ten year old boy with an anthill and a magnifying glass...

Posted by Anonymous.

I really need to hone my powers for good rather than evil, but where would the fun in that be?

I am a... I am...

How do I say this diplomatically?

I am a flirt.

I think you know this about me. You see it in my eyes as they peel the wife beater off of your oh so tanned, sweat beaded chest. I run my mental fingernails down your arms, all knotted and muscled from the manual labor you've been working so hard at (unaware that I've been watching every. stroke. of your hammer and each ropelike tendon as it rippled under your skin) and it gives me a cheap thrill to see your Adam's apple bob as you swallow sharply, realizing that I really AM eye raping you right here in front of God and everybody. And I am not shy about it. I stare at you, daring you to stop me, shivering as I imagine your calloused hands touching me. It would take so little. I let you know this when you look at me with your puppy dog eyes by dropping mine as though I did not want you to catch me looking at you in such an intimate way. You squirm uncomfortably as you realize that you can have me this way, but ONLY this way. One word of acknowledgement, one question verbalized, one physical touch and it all comes to a screeching halt. You don't want that any more than I do, do you? Otherwise, why would you seek me out like this? You want to play my little game. You want me to want you in the way my eyes say that I do. You know that I enjoy toying with you, and that if it was not you it would be someone else. Not because I need to, but because I can.

I am evil.

Of Prayer Lists And Politics

Posted by Anonymous

I noticed it on her nightstand as I was tucking my daughters into my mother's bed after an evening of early-Thanksgiving cheer. I know I shouldn't have read it, but there it was--my mom's prayer list. And on this list of prayer concerns: mine and my husband's political views.

I know my mom and I don't see eye to eye on politics. But is this really something of such concern that it requires prayer? Can't she trust me to prayerfully come to my own conclusions about politics and the leadership of our government? And better yet, shouldn't she ask me what my political views are rather than assume they are cause for prayer? Is that too much to ask? Or is it that there is only one godly choice and anyone who votes otherwise is outside the fold and needs prayer to bring them back? Is this really something that a parent needs to critique about their adult child?

I won't lie. It hurt. It bothers me. And, unfortunately, I'm not going to say a word to her about it because I don't need the drama. Thanks for listening/reading.

Jealous

Posted by Anonymous.

I am smart, kind, and generous. I am loving and lovable. I am a great mother, daughter, sister and friend. I am open-minded, gracious, well-traveled and successful.

My ex-husband is none of those things.

He is, however, jealous of me because of who I am. And because of that, he spent years tearing me down. I was "old and fat and ugly." I was "not fun". I was "dragging him down". I "ruined his life". He mocked my friends, my business, my parenting skills, my brother, my clothes and hair, my weight. He was never proud of me.

And now, when I know he's seeing someone else, started seeing her a few days after he "left my ass"? It makes me crazy. I can't stop thinking about it. And I'm jealous.

Jealous.

I can't believe myself. I know that if this woman is anything like me, if she's as good as I am or better, it's only a matter of time before he starts tearing her down, too. And if she's not, if she's like him, or worse, then what do I have to be jealous of? Let them have each other.

For my kids sake, I hope she's great. I hope she's smart and lovely and kind to them. But I'm stuck in the "why her and not me?" loop. And I really, really, want to get out of it, because GOD he sucked as a husband, and God am I better off now without him and with full custody of our beautiful kids.

I wanted to write this because I wanted to see the things I am in black and white. Because I'm hoping if I say it enough, if I think it enough, that I'll start to believe it.

I don't love my ex. I don't like him. I don't want him back. And I really don't want to care about who he's seeing. I want to move past feeling discarded. I want to know who I am.

I Feel Broken

Posted by Anonymous.

Let me give you a little background on my relationship with The Ex. We were together for four years. We have a soon to be 2 year old daughter. For the first couple of years, our relationship was fine. Up until right before I got pregnant, that is. That was the first time he cheated on me. I was devastated, but not yet a believer in the old adage, "once a cheater always a cheater." I forgave. I let it go. All was well for my pregnancy. Then, a month after I gave birth to our daughter, he says he is leaving me. He has met someone and fallen for her. Says he has wanted to leave since before I got pregnant and just decided to try and stick it out. Once again I am crushed. The bottom has fallen out of my world. I am terrified, alone, and a mother. How will I deal with this? I feel desperate. I will do anything if only he would come back to me. Acting so pathetic makes me disgusted with myself, but I do not care. I love him. Lo and behold, suddenly he wants to come home-and so I let him. But there is a catch. He does not break it off with her. I tell myself that this will just be temporary. If only I can stick it out, we can be happy again.

This goes on for weeks. Then months. Before I quite know what has happened, a year and a half has gone by. This woman is still in his life. It's been going on for so long that it almost seems normal to me. Then, again. One night he comes home with a hickey on his neck. I know where he was, and it wasn't with her. There is yet another woman. An old friend of his, whom I had always been friendly with. I realize I am simply a member of his harem. I finally get angry. For some time now I have been harboring a secret lust for my neighbor, K. He knows what is going on with The Ex. Many times he has told me how wrong it is, the way he treats me. He knows I am about at the end of my rope and to my surprise, starts making tentative advances. He drops hints. We have long conversations, sitting outside on the stairs, smoking, late at night when the Ex is with her and my daughter asleep. He is a whole different world from the Ex. He doesn't insult and degrade me.

One night, when the Ex is out for an overnight fishing trip, I invite him in. We spend hours curled up on the couch. Ever so gradually, as if he's scared I will run out of the room if he moves too quickly, he inches closer. There is, finally, a kiss. There is much cuddling. He lets me set the pace and does not pressure me. Eventually, one thing leads to another. It is amazing. I haven't been with anyone but the Ex in 4 years. I had forgotten what it feels like to be with someone that hasn't hurt you so terribly-for it to be easy, and simple, and to have nothing niggling away, reminding you of past hurts. At first I think, this will be it-a one night stand, my private victory over the Ex for all he has done to me. Petty, perhaps, but also cathartic. But a few nights later, a conversation with K, coupled with the fact that I haven't been able to stop thinking about him, changes that. I tell the Ex we are done. I tell him to get his things and leave. He rages. He yells. He cries. He swears he will change, asks what I have to lose by giving him another chance. I think of K. I stand firm. Finally, I have taken a stand. Never did I think I would be strong enough to do this. I feel as though a weight has been lifted off my shoulders.


And now, there is K. For a few months, all is well. I am constantly amazed by how much easier things are with him. There are no fights, no screaming, no name calling and no cheating. He treats me as though I am some fragile creature, and he is afraid I will blow away in the wind. He is calm and kindness after anger and chaos. He is amazing, and there is a fiery passion between us that had been missing for far too long in my life. I start to fall in love with him. I feel as though he is safe-I sense none of the coldness or cruelty in him that the Ex had. Being near him centers me, calms me. Whenever he is around I feel as though nothing can touch me. He is safe. He is my courage. Alas, happiness seems to be fleeting. One day, after an offhand remark by him, I realize he is not so perfect. It seems he has problems staying in a long term relationship-not because of cheating, mind you, but because as soon as he starts to feel something real he takes off. He refuses to stay with anyone for long. I am floored again, and tearfully I tell him that if that is the case, then I must cut my losses and go now. I am too close to being head over heels in love with him to wait around for him to bail out on me. I must be the one that walks away. And so with one last hug, I do.

And now, I am afraid. K gave me one thing-he helped me to move on from the Ex. Now there is no longer any danger of me taking him back again. I feel nothing for him but a tired sort of tolerance, in that he must be in my life because of my daughter. But he no longer owns me. But he was so big a part of me, for so long, that I feel strange and empty not loving him. And I am still hurting over K-I let myself feel for him because he seemed safe, I thought he would never hurt me. I know he felt something real too-there is just no way to fake what we had. So I am hurt and confused over how he could just turn his back on it. So, twice heartbroken and wondering what to do, here I sit. I feel so battered down and beaten by everything I've been through, I just can't seem to find any reason to try anymore. Now, I'm not suicidal, don't take it wrong. I just feel like giving up on life. What is the point of risking yourself, of trying to find something, when all it does is turn around and bite you on the ass? Why even try? I am so utterly tired of being hurt, and used, and never good enough for anyone that I feel like I should just slam the door to my feelings closed and throw away the key. I'm sick of giving myself to someone only to be thrown away.

I have my daughter to raise, and I feel as though that should give my life purpose and illumination. But it doesn't. I love my daughter fiercely and completely, I would lay down my life for hers, but that does not automatically make me immune to the trials and tribulations of life. People speak of parenthood as though it should be your one purpose and goal in life, as if you cease to be a person and are merely a child raising automaton the second you give birth. But I am still me. I still have all the same doubts and fears, I still love and still hurt and still wonder what it's all about. I can't help that. But I just can't seem to get back on my feet this time - I don't know how to find the strength to keep trying anymore.

How To Forgive/How To Forget

Posted by Anonymous.

I literally cannot forgive my mother, but the problem is, I can’t forget her either. My life would be so much easier if she were to just disappear to a far away planet so I would never have to deal with her again.

My mother is in her early fifties and she has eight children, four of the eight are under the age of 11, and the other four don’t speak to her. We try to avoid her like the plague. She is bi-polar, manic-depressive, with a splash of OCD.

I found out about a year ago that her bi-polar had got so out-of-control that her house had filled with junk from the top to the bottom. She filled it with random things, literally anything that she could buy. Shopping feeds her need. I am not sure what that need, or hunger is but I know that it is insatiable. The house was in such despair that there was no food, and the silver ware drawers were filled with roaches.

They have absolutely no money. My mother has a Masters in Biology and my Stepfather has a Ph.D in Business Communications. They both were at one time very successful but this lifestyle, and all of these problems now control their lives. They abuse prescription medications and spend most of the day in a drug induced anti-depressant comma.

In my mother’s last manic moment, she decided that she wanted a divorce. We found out that she was emailing some random man in Oklahoma, who I later discovered was the same man that destroyed her first marriage. She picked up last Christmas day, left her children and moved to Oklahoma. She bought a car along the way, but she basically just drove the thing right off the lot.

My sister is a little older than me, and she was in a position to take the children. She took them last spring until my mother could get her house under control. My mother sent the children with a stash of medicine, enough to feed an ADD army of children. We promptly called the doctor that was prescribing the medication, and then put the rest down the toilet. The girls said that they needed this medication because their mom said that they “were stupid”. Oh, I forgot to add that they were withholding them from school.

We sent the kids back after a few months, because my sister said that my mom got one more shot. We make sure that the kids are in school, and being fed. My mom finally got a job, but she is still the same. We are good for the next few months, until she does something manic again.

It’s this never-ending cycle. It wasn’t always this way, and I think that’s the part that hurts the most.

I haven’t seen my mom since my junior year in college, about four years ago. I spoke to her last May, when she told me she wasn’t sure if she could handle that I was a dirty liberal and dating a Jew.

She doesn’t know that I just got my first job as a law clerk, or that I know that I have found the greatest man and that I am going to spend my life with him. There are a few milestones in life that you want share with your mother. Sometimes I pick up the phone to call her, but then I hang up, because I know that the woman on the other end isn’t the mother than I know, or want to know.

I have a Step mom, but it isn’t the same. I think she tries to love me like a daughter, but I don’t have mother-daughter moments with her, like I did with my mom.

I keep hoping that she will come back to me, and be the mom that she was when I was little.

She sent me a birthday card yesterday. She is trying to talk to me again.

I don’t know if I am strong enough for her games this time.

Does anyone know if this gets better? Any advice on how to deal with her or people with mental illness?