Day One

Posted by Anonymous.

Before I can tell you about today, I need to tell you about last Tuesday. Last Tuesday was my first day of sobriety. But before I can tell you about Tuesday, I need to tell you about what happened before Tuesday.

Looking back, it's obvious that I've been an alcoholic, or an alcoholic in training, for a long, long time. My parents tell stories about me as a toddler or preschooler, stealing sips of beer. I remember drinking a glass of champagne or wine with dinner as a young child (maybe age six or seven) and liking it so much that I wanted a refill. I know that at age seven I preferred my mother's tropical cocktail (Planter's Punch) to my own Shirley Temple. I remember at around age 13, our family had a leftover keg in our garage from a block party, and I drank one or two glasses a day from it until it disappeared.

The first "official" time I got drunk I was 14. Fuzzy Navels and tequila shots. My friend, who had driven us to the party, wound up putting a very dizzy, barely conscious me into bed, obviously disappointed by what a crummy sleepover guest I'd turned out to be.

College? Plenty of binge drinking, followed by throwing up and blacking out. Bad behavior.

After college, more of the same.

I took a break for a few years, when I was pregnant and had small kids.

But once the kids got old enough to go away for sleepovers, more binge drinking. No more throwing up, but plenty of overindulgence followed by passing out and nasty morning-after hangovers.

Fast forward a few years. My husband's diagnosis of metabolic disorder gave us a great excuse to drink daily: red wine is a key part of the Mediterranean diet! My frequently-used jest was, "My doctor told me a glass of red wine a day is good for me. I say two glasses are twice as good!" In reality, however, two glasses? That was by six o'clock. We quickly got to a level of drinking that meant we recycled three or four boxes of wine per week. I was keeping up with his every drink, sometimes surpassing him, and he outweighs me by about 150 pounds.

I stopped going to sleep. Instead, I blacked out. Many mornings, I'd wake up naked, but not sure if we'd had sex. I had to ask my husband what we had done.

But certainly, I'd told myself, I wasn't an alcoholic. I didn't miss work because of drinking. I didn't start drinking until at least 5:00 p.m. (of course, sometimes I'd sit staring at the clock, with a glass ready, for ten or more minutes). I never got a DUI. I never went to jail. I never hit my kids.

But I started to get sloppy. Over the holidays, I drank too much and was obviously drunk at my in-laws' house. I embarrassed my husband. And the week after New Year's, my husband and I had a sincere conversation in which we determined that we drank entirely too much, and that we needed to cut down.

What happened? He cut down, even skipped nights, drinking one or two drinks at the most. I, however, started putting my wine in coffee cups, or, more disturbingly, waiting until everyone else had gone to bed before starting to drink, and getting drunk.

And that brings us to Monday night. The husband went to bed around 10:30 p.m. As soon as he was in bed, I went to the kitchen and turned on the faucet, as though I were filling up the tea kettle. Instead of tea, however, I made myself a glass of bourbon with one ice cube. (The water running disguised the sound of me pouring the liquor into the glass, as well as the clink of the ice cube.) I took my drink to the living room and played computer games, sipping on the drink as I played. Soon enough, it was empty. By this time, he was fully asleep, so I didn't need to disguise the noise when I poured the second drink. This one polished off the bottle, and for a moment, I considered funneling the bourbon back into the bottle. I quickly dismissed this impulse, however, and put the empty bottle into the recycling bin (in the back, so it wouldn't be easily seen). The second drink went down faster than the first. And here's where it gets confusing.

I must have gone outside to smoke a cigarette. I had my coat on. I fell. I don't know if I tripped or if I passed out on my feet, but I went down face first onto the patio. I don't remember falling. I don't know how long I lay there before I got up. I remember seeing blood on my right hand. That's all I remember.

I somehow got my coat off, and got undressed, and put myself to bed. I wasn't quiet about it, though, and my husband woke up. He says it was around 3 a.m. He told me the rest of it. I fell down on the floor on the way to bed, then got up and fell down again. He asked me what was going on, and my answer was "floor." He got up and saw what I would see the next morning: my face was covered with blood, with my upper lip bearing the majority of the injury. My glasses were scratched, my nose looked broken (it wasn't), and I'd broken a tooth.

Next morning, I woke up, aware that something was very wrong. I took inventory of my injuries with fingers and tongue. My front teeth were there. Good. But the next tooth, oh no. Was broken in half. My lip was numb, but everything else hurt. A lot.

My husband came into the room and discovered that I was awake. I'll never forget the look on his face, and the sob in his voice, when he asked me, "What have you done to yourself?" I tried to answer, to make up a story, but he already knew the answer. He wanted to take me to the hospital. I refused. He tried to clean up my face a little. And then he helped me get to the bathroom, where I took a long look at myself in the mirror, then collapsed onto the vanity. He helped me clean up more, then put me back in bed, where I was freezing and needed blanket after blanket. (I guess I was in shock or something.)

He ran me a hot bath, picked out some clothes, and took better care of me than I deserved.

While I was in the bath, he poured out the only liquor remaining in the house (1/3 of a bottle of vodka).

I spent the day resting, occasionally sleeping, crying a lot, and I asked for help. I called a friend who'd been sober for years, and asked her to take me to a meeting.

And that's day one. Today is day six. I've been to five AA meetings. I have not taken a drink since that night. I hope I never do again. I came very close to death that night. My blood is on the patio, only inches from four ceramic and terra cotta flower pots. I shudder to think how the whole thing would have gone if I'd fallen a few inches to the right.

I lied to my husband. My integrity? Non-existent. My self-respect? Right there with it.

I've got nowhere to go but up. I want to live in reality. I want to have integrity. I want to deserve my family's trust. I don't want to die because of alcohol.

Can You Hear Me Now? A Betrayed Wife Talks Back

Posted by Anonymous.

To my husband and his 'friend' -

I have slowly and bitterly watched the both of you for three years now. I've watched it go from a slightly older man mentoring a young woman to an older man befriending a younger woman. I've watched our phone records reflect talking up to 2000 minutes in one months' time and now see that after all this time of me crying and hurting and begging, you chop it down to 200-300 minutes and now it's supposedly, "just a friendship". Just because the two of you don't buy into emotional infidelity doesn't mean it doesn't exist. I'm glad you haven't had sex. I don't believe it, but I'm glad. Sometimes - when I'm crying alone in our bathroom because I know you've talked again and I don't want our children to see or hear me sobbing, I almost wish you had slept together. The emotional betrayal is so much more hurtful. I could, after a long time, eventually forgive a one-time indiscretion, but this on-going three year relationship is tearing my heart and my mind to pieces and causing me to lose respect for the man that I married and most of all for myself for putting up with all of it. I don't even know who you are anymore.

I am finished. I'm through being made a fool of - I'm through being disrespected. First, to you, my husband, I want to say that in a million years, I never, ever expected you to treat me like this. I can't fathom how you sleep at night or even how you can begin to roll over next to me as we fall asleep beckoning me to make love to you as if nothing has ever happened. I know that you called her on your way home or that she called you because you have that extra little hop in your step as you come in the front door - I've been proven right too many times after checking the phone records while you are playing with our children or watching a game on TV. Too many times, I've led myself into believing that you were just happy to be home and to see me and the kids only to see that you had an hour conversation with her. You don't think it affects our life together, but it does. You don't see how different you act when you haven't had your 'fix' with her. It affects us because it affects me. There was a time when you cared about how your actions affected me and you were proactive in making sure that you were considerate.

You are supposed to be my best friend. You are supposed to be my partner for life. I am supposed to be the only woman you talk to after a certain time of night. Why is it OK with you for her to call at 11:30 with each of her personal crises? Why is it OK for you to talk to her every morning on the way to work when you, yourself, have said you know that your relationship with her is going to cause the end of our marriage? Why would you still talk to her if you know that is the path it will put us on?

The only thing I can glean from this is that you are just being passive aggressive and are too chicken shit to end our marriage. You want me to be the jerk who walks away from a 12 year marriage and a 16 year relationship. You lecture our daughter about being accountable for her actions - about making good choices - about not just saying sorry over and over again, but really making changes to prevent the same mistakes from happening. Why don't you take your own advice?

And to you who I have affectionately been calling 'the whore', I am so embarrassed at the person that I have become since you entered our lives. I am a Christian and try so hard to forgive you and to pray for you. I've prayed so hard that God send a man into your life so that you would be removed from my husband's sight. I know you are only 24 and I try to tell myself that you are ignorant to the repercussions your calls/texts/emails are having on my marriage. I can't do that anymore. They are all excuses - my denial is over.

The feelings of hostility I have towards you weigh on me every day. I can't watch him text someone or decline a call when I am with him because I wonder if it's you. I hate you - and I don't think I've ever hated anyone in my entire life.

You distract him from his responsibilities - and he lets you. You pull him away from time with his children - and he lets you. You fulfill him in a way that only I should and I am not going to compete with you anymore.

I want to fall on my knees in front of you begging you to stop - begging you to please stop calling and please leave our family alone, but I'm not stupid. I know I didn't marry you - I married him. He's the one who should put a stop to it - and he isn't... so that should tell me what to do.

I hope you are happy. I hope that you both realize that your 'just a friendship' has slowly choked out a 16 year relationship and has left a piece of my heart missing forever.

I just don't want to feel stupid anymore - I don't want to feel this way anymore. I matter, even if not to the both of you, dammit - I MATTER. What I feel and what I know IS important and DOES have validity - even if only to me.

I'm done.

Waiting On My Thirty Pieces Of Silver

Posted by Leslie, Daniel's Mom.

Ante-script: My mother has early onset dementia. She is not yet 70 years old and her deterioration is fast, quiet, harsh, and ceaseless. Suicide is very rare among patients with this type of dementia (mostly because they haven’t the ability to plan and process the act) but we have a strong family history—her own father, in fact. Today my father took a gun out of her hand but I can't speak to how or why it was there. I am not there. I can’t be there. I am far away with three children—one is Daniel, my little piece of God. My sister is there, but for reasons never given, she wants nothing from me—I “breeze in” for visits. (Anybody else “breeze” anywhere with a special needs kid? Did I miss that workshop?) Anyway, this piece is almost a year old (2/09)—she visited us back then with the fully disclosed understanding that I would submit my observations to her doctor. Truly, as much as mothers watch our babies change in a year, so has this daughter watched her mother change, only in a backwards dying way. I will need to write on this again, so background information seemed only fair enough to offer.

I submitted my super (and completely un-) secret documentation of mom's visit to her doctor as directed. Or, rather, I emailed it to my dad and he submitted it because I just couldn't send all that crap directly to a stranger.

You see, I told on my mother. Laid out her secrets, one by one, day by day. I kissed her on both cheeks and now they will surely come for her.

It would appear that my mother is only able to function as a result of my father's constant vigilance and well-honed sense of I-Know-What's-Rightiness. It would appear that way because without my father, she is just simply un-able. Unable to what? Well, it's all right there in the document, and frankly, you should probably be on the lookout for a copy because my father is forwarding it around like one of those 'This is Cute' emails. And this, this horrid thing that is scraping my mother away from the inside out, is not cute at all.
She's been gone a week today and my anger is becoming soft and grief-y. Well, you would be angry too (maybe) if you had to hide food and tape containers shut and guard your kids' snacks and wonder why the autistic kid keeps bringing his empty snack bowl back for more crackers(vocab: perseverity/eating disorder--elderly onset) and double check the doors and gates left open and listen to endless lies (vocab: confabulation) and accusations that your Daniel stole her watch. And you would especially maybe be mad if you, somewhere in the back of your head, thought that When Mama Comes It Will Get Better. It was not better. It was her making kids cry at the twins’ birthday party because she wanted to Huuuuuuuug them. Like a very scary Grandma Clown. It was her ignoring her beautiful grandchildren unless they were packing graham crackers (vocab: apathy). It was her describing her father's death (suicide by gunshot, btw) to your children in lurid detail while you did everything but gag her to stop it (vocab: comportment and insight, executive skills). God save me, it was her wanting to pray over Daniel so that he might be healed. Healed. (See prev. entries regarding how he's glorious and I am a mess) I could not bear for Daniel to hear what she might say during this over-praying thing(No vocab for that, but boy, it pissed me off something fierce). It was her no longer able call a light a light or a bowl a bowl (vocab: agnosia).

It was her no long able to be her. I know that. I do

And here's the thing: For all that I did what was asked of me, for all that I checked and double checked and worded and reworded to drain every last drop of drama from it, for all that I swear up and down before you and God that yes, it sounds crazy, but yes, it did all happen, and finally for all that I only did it so that she might be treated and thus be Grandma, for all that, I ratted her out. Betrayed her. She is livid and bewildered (when she’s not talking about what a great visit we had). Her doctor is, as my dad says, "pretty shaken." Great. Just Great. I would like to speak to a manager please. Surely, there is someone in charge.

And also, can I get directions to the nearest Potter's Field on Mapquest?

But you must understand, I knew her when she was. When she was giving me her wedding dress as my own. When she was giving my biggest boy his first bath because I was bloody terrified of that red wailing wiggler. When she assured me that "twins are a good thing" and "we'll get through it." When she called me at the NICU when Fuzzy was intubated (5 years ago today). When she cooked and cleaned and ironed and yelled at me to "keep nursing and they'll be okay." All of these years before the first shadow and pall of autism—The mother of all “I want my mommy” screams. All this before that. And these, you see, are just the tip of the was's. Just the ones out in front in this one tiny bit of scribble. There are so many--God, how I do wish that had been my task, handling the was's and not the is's. Because then you would laugh and nod and think to yourself, "Oh, Daniel’s Mama’s mama, she was something else, that is for sure."

And she was.

About The Neighbor

Posted by Anonymous.

I know what I’m doing is wrong and that I’ve finally turned into a “statistic” but I feel like I can’t help myself. I’m your average, middle class, married working woman, two kids, nice house, church going, supportive family. Everything that should make me a “good” person. Here I am in the midst of a tumultuous affair with my next-door neighbor. Let me go back to the beginning…

I’ve been a good wife for the most part these past 10 years. Our marriage was never anything exciting but it was comfortable, solid, something I decided I just needed to be happy with. I never strayed all these years, though more than once I considered having an affair usually out of anger or frustration. Several jobs, two houses, and two kids later here we are at present day.

HE’s been there, lurking in my vision for quite a while now. Always a neighbor, never even allowing myself to think of crossing the line. Then this summer things changed, the world shifted. Suddenly I found myself flirting with him, albeit casually.

We live next door to each other and are the “outside” parents – the ones who are always outside with the kids, playing, laughing, and being the “fun” parent when we can. A little banter here, a little banter there. Suddenly I was in a whirlwind of having a crush on HIM. It was fun, harmless I told myself. But I found myself checking out the window to see if he and his kids were outside a little more frequently. My ears perked up at the sound of his truck coming home. I found excuses to be outside more and more and more.

I caught myself thinking about him here and there, imagining what a kiss would feel like, fantasizing about being wrapped in his arms.. Then that fateful night came. A neighborhood party. We hung out for hours, totally PG flirting. HE confessed HE wasn’t happily married. I could feel the tension between us. The interest. The desire. We finally walked back home and I wanted HIM to kiss me. It didn’t happen though we had some intense eye contact for a while.

Then two days later, a shot that rocked my world. HE was there. Just through Facebook at first. Sending an encouraging message, letting me know HE was thinking of me. One fateful day he popped up in a chat box on Facebook. I was sad and teary but he managed to make me laugh. Playing a chat version of 20 questions turned into him making a quick trip over to see me. The first time we had so obviously sought each other out. So friendly and neighborly. Numbers were exchanged and a few friendly phone calls followed.

A few days later, I was doing my best to put my life back together and a rare warm late fall day we got to be outside for hours with the kids. Flirting was rampant though kept in check due to the presence of both our spouses. In an opportune moment, HE leaned over and whispered HIS email address to me and asked me to email HIM the next day.

Our work email exchange was/is ridiculous. Sometimes as many as 50 emails back and forth a day. Pushing for more information, teasing, flirting, challenging me. I had the opportunity to be home early one day and let HIM know. HE came over to “talk.” I was a nervous schoolgirl. Couldn’t hardly look HIM in the eye. Things got close, intense. HE said I had to make the first move; I started to and then hesitated. He pulled back. A moment later, HE dove in. The most amazing kissing of my life. All the while, I was thinking, “I am breaking my marriage vows right here in my own kitchen with my next door neighbor. Seriously? This is my life?”

More phone calls and emails. Such chemistry. A few days later things progressed. I stopped just in the nick of time. Who am I doing this? On my own couch with my own neighbor? More days passed. Hundreds of emails, more than a few phone calls. It was time to piss or get off the pot. I got off the pot. We started having sex – in MY bed – on a fairly regular basis. Whenever we could meet up and it was relatively “safe” from discovery. The physical chemistry is just overwhelming. He’s so appealing to me even though this is crazy and messed up.

Almost three months later, I’m obsessed, wrapped up in a web of mixed emotions. I long to be with him but know it’s virtually impossible. Relationship with husband is seriously on the rocks and essentially over. All that’s left is for me to tell him it’s officially over. Know I’m hurting him but feel like I can’t imagine a life with us together ever again. As much as I try not to think of a “future” with HIM, it’s getting harder by the day.

We avoid talking about feelings other than to tease each other. We both have said we’re crazy for each other. My marriage is/will be ending soon. Not so sure about his. Life is complicated. Now the question is, will I be happy being the other woman in his life if he decides he can’t leave yet?

Dear Married Moms: Be Nice To Me

Posted by Anonymous.

I've had these words buried in me for years. After a recent postcard was posted on the Post secret website I have found myself choking to spit them out like a cat hacking on a hairball. If you have ever been a single mom you will get this. If not, take this as a plea from one woman to another.

I'm a suburban single mom. The choice to stay in our home after the divorce was easy. I felt it would be best for my kids. The schools are better here; the kids had been through enough. In other words while he moved on with a clean slate I remained at the scene of the crime. My neighbor actually asked pre-divorce who was getting the house. They wanted to know who their neighbor would be. I became the only single parent in my neighborhood and to my own detriment I carried on with a stiff upper lip. I might have as well developed the plague. I was not talked to but talked about. It will blow over, I thought. Ten years have passed it hasn't.

Here's where my plea comes in: married moms, be kind to me. I am just a mom like you. I am trying to juggle all the things your family does with half of the resources. I come home from work cook and try to help with homework, clean and do laundry. If I have a bad day I'm not able to tag team and get a break. It's just me. Just me to guide, feed and love these precious people I have been entrusted with. It's scary and hard as hell. If my child ends up on Dr. Phil someday it surely must be my fault. I am the custodial parent. I don't choose to be the only mom at the Cub Scout camp-outs; I just don't want my son to miss out on these things because his dad can't be bothered with them. I've yet to figure out if you find me a threat, or just a reminder that your dreams of happily ever after could fall apart in the blink of an eye just like mine did. Either way your cold shoulders hurt and they work. My son senses it and no longer wants to be in the cub scouts. It probably would have been easier to just sell my house and start over in the city where single parent homes are the majority. I wouldn't have had to hear from my mailman that it is confusing having “so many names” on our box since I chose to take my maiden name back. I wouldn't sit through an entire little league game with only a couple of the grandmas talking to me. We are all women, trying to navigate the rocks and holes life has scattered in our paths. Why not help each other along the way? In the end we will probably outlive our mates. In the nursing homes we are all single moms - some of us just got there sooner than others.

Dear Mother

Posted by Anonymous.

Dear Mother,

I am furious at you, and at the same time, have the urge to hold you until it's all better. Our relationship is over because of you and your mental illness. You need help. But I can't help you. None of us can anymore. It is time to help yourself. For the sake of our family, and most of all, for yourself.

I am slowly realizing that I will never be your child. Never be held close, never be comforted, never be allowed to be the weak one. Because you believe it is your right to have these things, even though you are my mother. You should have mothered me and asked for nothing in return. I am so angry that you would choose to adopt a child when you couldn't manage to care for my brother who had already been given to you by grace. To say that you feel your own son is a disappointment to you is shameful, because you created him that way. You raised him that way. And he still loves you. How? I don't know. Why adopt a child you can't care for? I would never say it to you, or perhaps to anyone face-to-face, but there are many times I have wished another family had the chance to adopt me, and not you. The lies you must have created, and the people you must have manipulated, so that you could adopt me, is a shameful part of you I just can't understand. One day you may be able to face the truth about yourself: that some things are entirely your fault, you caused them, and you deserve the outcome of your behaviour.

I am sad that now you will miss the birth of my second child. But what choice is there? You have tortured our family over the past 12 months with your pathetic attempts at seeking justice for your abusive childhood, and taking it out on your family who has, up until now, stood by you. You wonder why people have left you now? Because the truth is my father was holding it all together for you. He spent 30 years making excuses for you, covering up for you, and lying to protect you. And now that you have pushed him away, and are on your own, you can't cope. Surprise!

I have thought many times over the past few months that it would be easier if you had died than become estranged to us. It would be easier to grieve for you, and all that you never were to me, than it is to know you are just a short drive away, and dreading the next contact you might make with me.

I wanted a mother who was wise, tolerant, strong, educated, patient and could teach me how to be a great mother to my own children. But you can't do it. I have to teach myself, and learn from other strong, wonderful women in my life, how to go about it. I am determined to give my children all of myself, but unlike you, I plan to also protect them from the problems of adults around them, because they are CHILDREN. And not my counsellors, social workers, doctors or friends.

Please, please get the help you need. Even if we never see you again- just for yourself and to be healed from the pain you are suffering. I hope the people in your life who have hurt you so badly will one day say sorry to you. And mean it. But for now, please stay away from me, and contact me when you are ready to admit responsibility for what you have done. Yes, much of this is your fault. And it is time to take control.

I wish I had the courage to tell you this myself, and I wish that you were able to respond in the way that is needed. But we can't.

All my love.

Anonymous

Resenting The Leech

Posted by Anonymous.

My husband and I have a "leech" in our family. This person is grown up and college educated, but can not seem to live independently. My husband and I are both in our sixties and have worked hard and saved money. Now this younger family member is draining us to support her. A few months ago, she needed a new car, so she called us. We are currently contributing to the cost of her new car. We just found out that our 1998 model car is going to have to be replaced. But... can we afford it? Now she is moving to a new apartment that costs more per month than our mortgage payment, and she wants help with that. My husband has even co-signed on the lease. We were thinking of paying off our mortgage... but can we do that now? Doubtful.

We were thinking of retiring in the not too distant future. My husband has a good job, but his company recently merged with another company and they had to let some people go. He still has his job, but his assignments have been cut way back. I am worried about his job. I know he is too, but he won't admit it. Now I am wondering how we be able to retire. The recent economy has devastated our 401K accounts. On top of all that, we have this family member expecting us to help support her. We have never been extravagant spenders. The younger generation doesn't understand how we lived when we were their age. We lived in crummy apartments without all the "bells and whistles". We didn't eat out and take trips. They want it all and they want it now. And we are being asked to support their way of life. It makes me angry.

Frozen With Fear

Posted by Anonymous.

I am a mother. A blissfully happy mother to an amazing, brilliant, beautiful boy.

But I am also infertile. I was lucky enough to get a diagnosis quickly—after only a year. Premature ovarian failure. My eggs were shot at age 29. At that point I had undergone a laparoscopy and a single IVF cycle with my own eggs. The reproductive endocrinologist recommended donor eggs. He listed the likelihood of success of another IVF cycle with my eggs (5%), and the chance of miscarriage if I did conceive (greater than 50%) and the risk of chromosomal abnormalities if I didn’t miscarry (greater than 50%), and the right decision was clear and, well, easy.

Yes, I grieved the loss of a genetic child. I still do, sometimes. I’m sad that my son will not be able to go to my family’s ancestral home and recognize his nose the in the portraits on the wall. I’m angry that having a baby was such an emotionally difficult, lengthy, and frightfully expensive process for me, when it is free—and often accidental!—for most people. But the very fact of my son eases those pains. Now that he is here, I cannot imagine having had any other baby, and the pain, the anger, of infertility, has faded. Sometimes I think about how miserable I was during my first year of trying to conceive, and how I was consumed with jealousy of pregnant women and new mothers during the two years that followed, years that I had to wait in order to save enough money to try donor egg IVF. Years that one friend after another got—surprise!—pregnant. But now that’s in the past, and I am someone to be envied. I am a mother. I was pregnant. Those experiences are no longer out of my reach.

But the pregnancy! Infertility laid the groundwork of fear before I got pregnant, and my pregnancy built that fear into a monolithic tower. From the beginning, I qualified every statement about my pregnancy with an “if.” IF this pregnancy continues. IF I actually have a baby. IF my baby survives. I didn’t call to schedule a childbirth class until after they were all booked up, because I was so uncertain that I would actually need one. I didn’t plan for the baby the way other women do, because the last thing I wanted was to come home to a house full of baby stuff after losing the pregnancy. I couldn’t believe that he would actually be born, full term (barely) and healthy.

I started bleeding at 5 weeks. From 5 weeks through 15 weeks, I had regular episodes of heavy bleeding. Really heavy bleeding; heavier than any period I’ve ever had. Then, after a few weeks of blessed relief from the bleeding, I started having contractions. Regular ones, 7 minutes apart, that sent me to L&D first at 22 weeks, then again at 24 weeks. “Yes, those are real contractions,” they told me at the hospital. “You should lie down and drink lots of water.” “If they get closer together, 5 minutes apart or less, we’ll think about putting you on terbutaline.” Cervical ultrasounds, fetal fibronectin tests, contraction and fetal heartrate monitors. Intermittent bedrest. The first time I went to L&D, the security guard asked if I was in labor. “I certainly hope not,” I said. Did I really look like I was ready to deliver? I was barely showing!

So for the second half of my pregnancy, I listened to my contractions. Even walking for a few minutes could set them off. Here comes a contraction . . . here’s another one, 6 minutes later . . . and 6 minutes again. Every day. Lie down, drink water, time the contractions. Do I need to go to the hospital? Are these contractions causing cervical change? Am I in labor? What are the chances, at 24 weeks 3 days, that my baby will survive if he is delivered today? That he’ll be disabled? At 26 weeks 6 days?

I spent a lot of time working from home, lying on the couch. I breathed huge sighs of relief as I hit the milestones. 28 weeks. 30 weeks. 32 weeks. 34 weeks. By 36 weeks I was convinced that all the worry was for naught and that I would go overdue. So I was ridiculously surprised by his birth at 37 weeks exactly. It was fine. He was fine. I was (mostly) fine. Normal labor experience, just a few annoying complications for me afterward. All fine.

And he was here. And I was happy. And everything was OK.

And it was, for a while.

Now he’s 15 months old. People are asking when I’m going to have another. I wonder that, too. How could I not want another? The first is so delicious! Sometimes I convince myself that I don’t want another, that my family is complete, that I am happy with things just as they are. But the fact that I get viscerally upset when my husband expresses reservations about having a second tells me otherwise. I do want another baby. I want another baby.

But I don’t want another pregnancy. Well, I kind of want a “do-over,” a normal pregnancy experience, but I don’t think it’s really possible for me to have pregnancy without fear. A couple of months ago I had a moment where I thought the impossible had happened and I was pregnant, naturally. I wasn’t happy. Instead, I had an honest-to-god panic attack. Racing heart, nausea, panting, sweating, shaking, the works. My husband: “wow, you really don’t want to be pregnant right now!” Me: “Duh.”

I feel melodramatic even saying this, but my therapist says I have pregnancy PTSD. Have you ever heard of such a thing? Even though everything turned out fine. The very fact of my fear has traumatized me. And that is why I still find pregnancy announcements upsetting. Even from my very good friends. Those reactions made me feel guilty enough when I was waiting to become a mother, but now it’s even worse. How can I begrudge people the experiences that I’ve already had? How come I can’t just be happy for my friends? Why do I react physically to pregnancy announcements, shaking and feeling sick? Why do they leave me feeling unsettled for days afterward? I am just so sick of pregnancy being such a thing for me. I want to just not care anymore. Been there, done that.

Adoption isn’t an option for me for a number of reasons. So that leaves another pregnancy, if I really want another child. I can even face the idea of another donor egg IVF cycle. I’m not thrilled about it; not looking forward to finding a donor, to making all those appointments, to injecting myself in the ass every day for 10 weeks if I’m lucky enough to get pregnant again. But I can do it. I’m not even—may the gods forgive me—that worried about getting pregnant. I think I probably can get pregnant again, with enough perseverance.

But what I can’t face, can’t even really think about without starting to panic, is actually being pregnant. The day-to-day worry about whether I will lose the pregnancy, whether my water will break early, whether I will go into preterm labor. It lasts a long time, pregnancy. Or at least one hopes it will. It stretched out before me like an eternity, even when I felt like I must have already completed 24 months of gestation. And I don’t know if I can face that eternity again.

But I want another baby.

So here I am. Lucky. Unlucky. And frozen with fear.

Last Year

Posted by Anonymous.

December 10 2008 was the date grandma was transferred from the hospital to home hospice care. Friday December 12 I didn't go into work because at 3:00 in the morning I received a phone call from my mother that things didn't look good. I had to be there. I HAD to be there. My grandmother was always there for me no matter what. She was the one person who no matter what loved me. She was my refuge when I needed to escape. She was there to listen to me struggle through the new music I was learning on piano. She was always there for me. So I was there for her.

I stayed all night, I called into work and told them I wouldn't be in that morning because I was at my mothers all night. I went home and showered and made sure the kids and my fiance were ok. Then I would go back. I was there. I was there to administer her morphine and other medications to ease her breathing as much as possible. I was there. I was there to talk to her or listen to her talk. I was there when she was talking to people who weren't there. I was there the entire weekend. With daily shower breaks.

My brother never dealt with things as well as I do. He showed up but wasn't sure he could be in the same room as grandma. I went outside with him to have a smoke. I talked to him. We hugged, I got him to go into the same room as her, that was on Sunday. He also was good enough to come back Monday night as well. I know it was hard on him but he was there too.

Monday morning around 4 am, she told us it was her last night. She told us the running guy told her it was her last night. (and me being the folklore/mythology drenched person I am immediately thought of Hermes, the messenger, the god who guided people into death) I asked who the running man was, because she had spent the last few days talking to relatives or people we recognized by name. She responded, a god. This was one of the most odd moments of her last few days with us. However she was right.

She passed away on Monday night December 15 around 10:00. It was her last night. The running man, whoever he was, he was right.

I did everything I had to do. I did everything I could do. Yet to this very day I still feel like I didn't do enough. I still get upset when my mother or anyone says how much I did. Or how they couldn't have done what I did for her. It makes me angry. What do you mean you couldn't do what I did? I did what had to be done. I did it out of love. They couldn't do what I did? What? They couldn't do what she needed? I loved her, and now she's gone. I made her as comfortable as I could. I did everything I could.

So, this was my second Christmas without her. Last year I was still numb, but I can't hear O Holy Night, because it was her favorite Christmas Carol, and it makes me cry. Tonight I will go shopping with my daughter and hope like hell the noise of the stores drowns out any music. I don't want to hear it.

I miss her, I love her, I'm not sure what else can be said. I know eventually I'll feel better about it. But for now I'm still hurting. But I'll do what I have to do, and make sure the kids and everyone have a good holiday. I know that my nights, when I want to let loose and cry, my fiance is there to hold me.

I'm thankful that people see me as a strong person, I just wish that they would stop telling me I'm strong, because inside I feel weak.

The Upside Of Anger

Posted By Anonymous.

You're selfish.

It's what I've been dying to tell you since July 2008, when what you did came out: how you lied to investors and your family and your friends, lost millions of dollars but kept on collecting your fees, behaving like you were making a fortune for them. The first thing I thought of was the $500 check that arrived with a letter the week before my wedding, the letter that made me cry. It was the first thing I thought of when I found out, that check: he stole that money.

You're my cousin, but you've been more like my brother. I'm named after your mother and you were just a kid when she died, eight or nine maybe? You were the youngest of three brothers. Your oldest brother was a golden boy who never touched anything that didn't immediately turn to gold. Middle brother was so sweet; everyone loved him. It broke everyone's heart when he died at 18.

You moved to Hawaii and married your high school sweetheart and started having babies with her and I don't think anybody thought you'd come back to Michigan, but you did, determined to be a success right here in front of your family, be the success story that you always thought you should be. You started a hedge fund and you really hustled, you wanted to make it fly worse than anyone, more than the people who were giving you their money to invest. It was 1999 and it seemed like a sure thing.

And then. And then September 11th. And then the economy. And then your dad started to get sick and moved in with you. And then your wife had an affair. And then, and then, and then.

You ran for city commission, and it was a close race but you lost. You and your wife split up and you fought her for custody of your kids. We all wished you'd won. She let you have the older two boys and she took the twins and that wasn't okay with anybody, least of all you, but it was what it was and you did the best you could do. You met a woman and started dating her; it got serious fast because you'd never been alone but we all liked her. Stephanie was bright and independent and had a gift for drawing people out.

You and your middle son came out to Washington D.C. and we had a great time with you. We went to the zoo and to Georgetown and when your flight was cancelled that night, I came to Reagan in the middle of the night to rescue you and brought you back to my apartment.

A couple years later and your hedge fund was floundering and Stephanie broke it off with you. She said she couldn't see an up side to marrying you, and I know that reinforced all of your worst feelings about yourself. It was an awful thing to say and we were all furious when you told us what she'd said. She kept stringing you along though, kept seeing you. You did things like back out of obligations you'd made to your kids to spend time with her and as someone whose father abandoned her, I was pretty disgusted with you then, but I swallowed it. You convinced your elderly, nursing-home-ridden father to buy you a house, said that you'd pay the mortgage on it and eventually put it in your name. You picked that house because Stephanie loved it and you thought if you had that house she'd see an up side.

The day the house closed, you were indicted on multiple counts of wire fraud and securities fraud.

You told my mother, your aunt, and she kept it quiet from the whole family. She didn't tell me until the day you were sentenced to 19 months in minium security federal prison, and then she called me at work. "I have some bad news," she said. She was crying. It was such a burden to her to have kept it quiet--she'd been going to court with you, quietly persuading people to write letters on your behalf, trying to minimize the impact of what was crashing into you.

You pled guilty and were taking responsibility for what you'd done, she said. The sentence was less than half of the 40 months that the federal prosecuters asked for and everyone was grateful for that. You'd be out in time to see your oldest son graduate from high school in 2010. That was what passed for an up side in this sorry-ass case.

I was devastated, for you, for your kids, for me. When my parents drove you down to West Virginia to begin your prison term, I almost drove the two hours to West Virginia, but couldn't do it. It was too sad. It was too hard to imagine. I didn't want to see you like that, in that place. But I was disappointed in you when my mother told me that you'd spent the weekend before you left in some bed and breakfast on the beach with Stephanie instead of with your kids--an interesting turn of affairs since you were, apparently, too destitute to pay child support.

I got your emails, and I watched you turning into a selfish, self-centered person. The person who was accountable, who took responsibility for what he did was gone. You blamed other people. You shrugged off responsibility. When I told you that we'd decided to move back to Michigan after the baby was born last summer, you were the only person who was negative about it. Don't you want to live somewhere warm? you asked. Well, no, and I never did, but it's not really about that, I said, we want our kids to know their family. It was a mistake, you announced, it was what you'd done when you came back and look what had happened.

I'm not you. I would never steal from people who trusted me. And what we were doing was hard enough without your vote of no confidence. The economy in Michigan stinks, and my husband's a teacher. We knew it was a calculated risk to come back. Everything you said just made it scarier and harder.

We came back, and my husband got a job in your youngest kids' school. We rented a house a few blocks away from where you grew up. We were thrilled; our kids would grow up knowing your kids. We could be there for them. My husband, who isn't their teacher, keeps tabs. When they were writing about not having enough food in the house, their English teacher came to him, knowing they were family, wanting to know what was going on. When your daughter was having anger management issues, he came back. We've gone to their swim meets, invited them over for dinner and game night. We've stretched ourselves thin to be there for them.

Your father died on Monday, five weeks before you were scheduled to be released. And now, it's all about you and a 48 hour furlough and who's going to drive from Michigan to West Virginia in a snowstorm to pick you up and who's going to take you back after the funeral. The federal bureau of corrections is funny about letting people out on furloughs, they want to know where you'll be and what you'll be doing and where you'll be staying.

You want to stay in your house with your kids. Well, first and foremost, it's not your house. It belongs to the estate. And at the moment it happens to be occupied by your ex-wife and your children, where she moved so that they could stay in their school. She's been paying rent to your father for the last year and a half, even though she has a house of her own. I'm no big fan of hers and I never have been, I think she's a flake and a lousy parent. But she's got a good reputation in the community and she's doing her best, which is more than anyone could say about you.

Don't come barreling into their lives for 48 hours and turning it upside down again, just to have to turn around and go back to prison. Don't you know what it would mean to have you in their house again? They're finally getting used to you not being there. Your brother generously offered to wait to hold a memorial service until next month, when you come home, but you insisted on the expense and inconvenience of being flown home now.

You're like a spoiled child, and everyone in this family bends to your will and I am sick to death of it. I'm sick of watching my mother torn to pieces by what's happening to you. I'm sick of watching her endlessly playing referee between you and your brother. I'm sick of watching your kids break into a thousand pieces at the thought of how much they miss their father. And I'm sick of how disappointed I am in you and what you've become, because you were my hero growing up.

Mostly I'm sick of your completely deluded spin about what your life will be like when you come home. Stephanie hasn't written, called, or visited you. You haven't heard from her once. And why should she? She's not like your ex-wife: she's educated and ambitious, doesn't need anyone to take care of her (and if she did, God knows you wouldn't be capable of it), and if there was no up side before, I guarantee you there's less than no up side now. She's just not that into you. Your kids are pissed, and rightfully so. You didn't get drafted into miltary service, you went to prison, and rightfully so. Don't think they didn't notice that, or that you didn't pay any attention to them for the three months before you went.

You need a job, a real one, not some "lead-generating" half-assed thing that one of your friends has made up for you, one that will allow you to take some responsibility for your obligations--like the $700,000 you owe in restitution, like the child support you need to sack up and pay. I'm sorry you're not the success story you thought you would be, but you've lost my respect in trying to steal someone else's success and you're verging on ridiculous. You're selfish, and for the first time in my life, I can say that I'm disappointed in you.

Yes-Mom

Posted by Anonymous.

I wonder if my entire relationship with my son has been based on my saying yes to everything.

He's 17, a high school senior, successful student and generally a good guy, except I learned he's not so nice and we're not so close when I say no. When he was 9, he was diagnosed as having an Autism Spectrum Disorder, Asperger's, but was "highly functioning" which meant that he was intelligent, oppositional, argumentative, sweet, loving and exhausting to raise. We sought all kinds of social and occupational therapy for him in order to help him develop the social skills he did not intuitively have. We indulged him when he found an interest in the video arcade game, Dance Dance Revolution, and we drove him to tournaments up and down the East Coast just like other parents drive their kids all over the place when they are on travelling soccer teams. He formed friendships, built confidence, and figured out how to deal with his quirks. He became popular. His dad and I indulged him by taking him on these trips to visit his friends and to participate in DDR tournaments. We permitted him to sleep over at friends' houses in the city where the tournament was held. We hung out in the town and got a hotel room, so we could be close by.

This started when he was 13. As he got older, he told us there was drinking sometimes but he did not participate. Then last New Year's we let him go to North Carolina with a friend, without us, to visit friends. Yes, there was drinking and yes, he drank. He concluded that because we allowed him to go, we approved of his drinking. Then over the summer while his father and I were on vacation, he begged us to stay home and we let him. His response was to have his friends over for a party, with alcohol, purchased with the spending money we left for him.

Since then we have had many conversations about drinking. He tells us that we're punishing him for being honest. We tell him that we worry about him making bad choices. Now, he asked to go away with friends to a New Year's party this year out of state, and we said no. He's angry and is acting out. He says that he's much more honest with us than his friends are, and that we need to trust him to make good decisions, since he is going to college next year and will be on his own. We tell him that there are so many bad things that could happen, like getting into a car accident or having a run in with the police and getting charged with underage drinking. We won't be anywhere nearby to help him if there is a problem. He said he's not handling his anger better because we have modeled bad behavior when we're angry. He says we're being inconsistent and arbitrary. He's saying whatever comes to mind.

He's being so unkind and so impolite that I don't recognize this rude person. Or rather, I see him clearly for the first time. I've been far too worried about being his friend and not being his parent. I did not think that is what I was doing but now I see it all more clearly. And it's too late to change it. He's leaving home in less than a year. He's 17 -- a know it all and barely listens to me. He's grown up thinking that we'll always say yes and he's hardly ever heard us say no. I thought I was teaching him and I see that by indulging him, I failed him. It feels like our relationship is a sham. We are not close because he loves me; we're close because I always said yes.

Even Shady Pasts Can Lead to Bright Futures

Posted by Erin W.

This post has been a long time in the making. The story is hard for me to look back on and harder to tell, so please bare with me and be gentle in judgment.

In a lot of ways I'm like a first time mom with Kairi. There are a lot of very public ways, like that I breastfeed Kairi and I didn't with Gracie, I babywear, I co-sleep... There are a lot of very different mothering techniques (I guess) that I am using this time round. But there is also one very big, very private way that I am a first time mom...

When I was in high school I liked to party. I skipped school to go smoke pot until the principal threatened to suspend me for skipping one more time. Even then I still left campus to get high at lunch. Just after I got out of school Jason and I got together. I was 17 at the time and still smoking. He smoked then too. It wasn't a huge part of our relationship, but it was there. We moved in together after 8 months with no savings and crap jobs.

After a few months of living together, things were getting rough financially. The job Jason had been working for the past 6 years (on and off, mostly on though) refused to give him a raise. When the state raised the minimum wage from $5.15 to $5.85 his boss told him to consider that his raise. One day, Jason found an easy fix to our money situation. He had bought an ounce of pot off a friend for $80 and had another friend who wanted to buy half of it from him for $50. This friend had another friend who wanted to buy the other half for $50 as well. Jason made $20 out of the deal and went back for another. And that's how it started.

At first Jason and I both kept our jobs. Over time I traded up jobs and was making more money, and over time he was making bigger deals - eventually quitting his job and becoming a full time pot dealer. For a time it was fun. We constantly had friends coming over, we always had money, and we were always partying. But over time I began to develop an allergy to THC, so smoking was no longer fun for me. And the constant flow of people coming over was no longer close friends, but distant strangers who didn't want to visit and have fun - they wanted what they came for and then wanted to leave. Not only that, but they had no respect for any kind of house rules. Looking back, I don't know how I expected them to, but at the time I was pretty worked up over it. But we still always had money and I still enjoyed spending it. After a while Jason was making enough selling that I was able to quit my job and never look back. This went on for 3 years.

When I was 20 I got pregnant with Gracie. During my pregnancy I tried to talk Jason into quitting and getting a job. He kept saying that he was trying to save up enough money that we could make due on it for a while before having to go back to work, but the money kept getting stolen, or a deal would go bad and we'd be out $500 for it. It was always 1 step forward and 2 back where the saving was concerned.

Gracie was born in the end of January '05. While I was in the hospital my family asked me how we were going to make due. They didn't come right out and say it, but the urged me to try to get Jason to find a job, and for me to do the same once I was able to. I talked to Jason until I was blue in the face about it, but he had just lost a big chunk of the savings in a bad deal and thought he could for sure get it back within a couple of months.

I know what everyone must be thinking. I know what I am thinking in hindsight: Why didn't I just leave? Take Gracie and flee? It's not that I didn't love her enough - I just kept believing that Jason would quit after "this next deal." Finally one night in April I made a decision: if he doesn't get a job within 2 weeks, I'm gone. That's it.

10:00 am, April 12, 2005 - The next morning....

BANG BANG BANG BANG!

The loud, hard knocks at the door shot my out of my bed like a bullet from a gun. I had had it up to here with all these inconsiderate druggies waking me up! I didn't even put on my glasses. I looked out the window in the door and saw several people standing on the porch. As I went to unlock the deadbolt the banging on the door started again, this time shaking the house. I stepped back just in time to see the door fly open sending splinters from the door frame across my living room, one slicing my hand open as it flew through the air.

"Get on the ground! Get on the ground NOW!," screamed the 6'5" 300 lb policeman in the front. Immediately I was on my stomach with his knee hard in my back as he was putting handcuffs on me. I had just barely missed the swing where Gracie, then 2 months, was sleeping when I hurled myself to the ground. Within seconds there were 8 men in black in my house rummaging through my things. One policeman went to the bedroom and gently and politely asked Jason to roll over onto his belly on the bed so he could cuff him.

Almost right off the bat they took Jason to the police station. I stayed behind to stay with Gracie until a Child Protection agent could come get her. I begged the officer in charge to remove my cuffs so I could feed her and change her diaper. He said he was already doing more than he should by letting me do those things in cuffs, so it was definitely a no-go on taking them off.

You know those movies where there is an explosion and everything goes in slow motion? The ones where you see everything slightly blurred, debris flying everywhere, blinding light bending your perception on things? That's what those moments felt like to me. The only completely clear thing I remember from that whole morning was sitting in my rocking chair, holding my daughter who through the whole thing did nothing but smile at me. She had the biggest smile on her face the whole time, even as I handed her off to the social worker. The memory of that beautiful, bright, toothless grin will always be tainted by the hazy memories of that morning.

Immediately my mother made arrangements to move back to town so that she could become the guardian of her granddaughter. I thank my lucky stars every single day that my mother dropped everything in her life and spent her entire retirement to get here so Gracie wouldn't have to be in a foster home with strangers.

Gracie lived with my mom, her Mimi, for 10 months while Jason and I worked hard to complete the treatment plan laid out by the social worker assigned to our case. Jason had to go to rehab for a month, we both had to go to group counseling for drug addicts and abusers, I had to go to counseling to work through my enabling issues, we went to parenting classes and additionally attended Narcotics Anonymous meetings every night we were able. We worked hard to turn our lives around.

But our social worker was new - we were her first case. Prior to becoming a social worker she was a foster parent. She got the kids who were in the worst conditions and as such was out for blood on her first run. She needed to make an example out of someone, and we were that someone. Now, I'm not trying to play the victim here. We wouldn't have had to deal with her like we did had we not gotten ourselves in the position in the first place, and I will be the first one to admit that. That being said, the woman really was out for blood. She kept our case open for 2 years. After the initial 10 months of work we had to do to get Gracie back home with us, we were subjected to another 14 months of hoop jumping. She even removed Gracie from our house for a month again because we had it sprayed for bugs.

One night we were at a friend's house eating dinner when I got a call on my cell phone. It was Carol, our worker. She called to tell me that a woman within CPS, but not in her department had audited her cases and told her that our case was to be closed effective the following week. When we went to court to close the case Carol was not there, but her supervisor was there in her place. She apologized on behalf of CPS for keeping our case open so long (it is customary to keep cases open once the child returns home for 6 months. Some have to stay open longer, but only those who aren't cooperating.)

Since then we've been working hard to keep turning our lives in the right direction. We got a foot up in the process of getting Gracie back, but that was only the beginning. Since then Jason has stayed at the same job for 4 years, a job that gives him raises as deserved (for the most part). I got the first job I could get my hands on while we were trying to get Gracie back. I worked for over a year and a half at McDonald's, working to become a manager. Then I went to work at Chili's where I stayed for 2 years until I started school and found out I was pregnant with Kairi.

It's been a long, hard road and we missed a lot of the parenting experience with Gracie as a baby. She lived with my mom from the time she was 2 months old until the week after her first birthday and then for a month the following summer. A friend of mine is constantly laughing at me on Facebook because I'm always making comments about what new things Kairi is doing. "You sound like such a new mom!" she tells me.

And in a lot of ways I am. But I am loving the experiences I am going through with my kids. I have learned from my mistakes and because of them I know that I will never take my children for granted like so many parents do. I am cherishing every single moment I have with them because I know what it's like to go without. A friend of mine told me throughout the whole ordeal, "I don't know how you do it. If that happened to me, if I was separated from my daughter, I'd go crazy. I'd either be in a mental facility or I'd kill myself." At the time all I could tell her was that I knew I had to be strong for my daughter so I could get her back. Recently someone sent me an email with a picture in it. The picture said, "You never know how strong you are until being strong is the only choice you have."

In my life I have few regrets. In a way I don't regret what happened because the change made us better parents and better partners to one another. I think that we are amazing now. (Not to be cocky or anything, but I really do.) But the most heartbreaking regret I have is how the change came about.

I realize that my story will turn some people away. Some people just can't get past what we did to get where we are or how we've lived our lives. I would love to say that it's fine with me, that I don't care. But I do. In a lot of ways it makes it feel like all the work we've done to better ourselves for our family has been in vain, that we're still nothing but a couple of pot-peddling druggies. But in the same respect I can understand. A lot of people have not walked in the same neighborhood as what I've gone through, let alone the same path or shoes and it is hard for them to see what motivated me at the time. I'm in no way defending my actions at the time or trying to say that I had the right motivations, but I have always ALWAYS loved my daughters and so has Jason. We have lived through one of the most heartbreaking, life-altering experiences we will probably ever go through (fingers crossed) and we are better parents for it.

I appreciate you taking the time to read my story. I've tried writing this out time and time again and just have never found the right words. Even now I'm hesitant. But I over the past few years I have met families that have been in the same type of situation and sharing my story has seemed to help, to give hope or if nothing else to give a sense that they're not alone in the battle. I hope that maybe someone in need of help will see this and see that it can be done, it's not a never ending battle (even when your social worker has a personal vendetta against you) and in the end there is hope for change and strength.

Living With The Hurt

Posted by Anonymous.

You hurt me and the hurt has not gone away. I can't seem to push it down or pull it out of my mind. You, my "mother" for more years than my real mother was able to spend with me, lied about me. It was several years ago that you sent out a vicious email in response to an innocent question from me. The saying "ripped me a new one" came alive for me as I read your diatribe. I felt physically ill. I felt a deep rage. I go for months without thinking of it and then it pops up in my head. It still can make me sick to my stomach.

You, you go on later as though you are the kindly Christian woman you'd like all of us to believe you are... no apology because you are right no matter how horribly you act. You think you deserve an apology. I won't give it. I go along with your stupid game only for the sake of my siblings and my poor Alzheimer's father. Without them you would have been the recipient of a hard slap and then I would be gone. Forever, never to be hurt by you again.

I don't know where your anger came from exactly but I can be fairly certain it has something to do with the fact I won't kowtow to you. I won't leap to the rescue with every crisis. You don't seem to be able to live without a crisis. You make everything all about you. Someone's mother-in-law dies and you talk endlessly about the guilt you feel for not praying a specific prayer over her. WTF? I am pretty sure that God would have heard your prayer regardless of where you said it. What in the world does that poor woman's death have to do with you?

Everything revolves around your little bank book of pluses and minuses - You did X for me, so I need to let you treat me like shit and be at your beck and call. It took me a long time to realize that no matter what I did it would not be enough. I would never be good enough. Never. And then to wonder why, why would I care? All I wanted after my mother's death was someone to love me and encourage me. Instead I got you. Lucky f**king me.

I try not to hate you because that hate will just hurt me.

Out From Under The Table

Posted by Anonymous.

Many years ago I used to build forts under the kitchen table. It was my safe spot in a home life that was hell. My mother was in an abusive relationship. He was an angry mean drunk. He started abusing me when I was 10. At first the abuse was just physical and then it turned worse. I was dragged from under the table one night and raped. I would be raped again and again for some time until my mother finally got the courage to leave him when I was 13.

This past week my mom went back to that street, that house where her daughter was raped to see it. When I asked why she would want to do that I was met with don't you remember the good memories and from my sister you should concentrate on the good times we had growing up.

My memories of childhood are of a fleeting number of good times but most lets just say I could write a best selling horror novel based on my tween years. After leaving the drunk my mom got involved with men who ran drugs and my mom was a mule into the prison system, what is worse she took me and my sister with her. She never got caught. I have few good memories and those I do have are not of times with her or that house but when my father would come and take us away from it all for a fleeting moment.

I don't think I am crazy when I say why in the hell would you want to visit a place where you almost died and where your child had their childhood stolen from them! I think visiting that place brings back nothing but bad memories at least for me even hearing of her visit I was brought back to that moment when I was dragged from under the table and raped.

Then when I blogged about being a childhood rape survivor my mother and sister got after me and said some things should remain private. Some things should not be talked about. My mother dared to say to me, "What kind of mother will people think I was?" You see, even at her old age she is in a new relationship unfettered by past choices. She doesn't want to acknowledge the hell we lived through and survived. My sister wanted to just bury it.

Me --the survivor-- needs to talk about it and share because maybe just maybe I can help someone else. I did survive and there is life out from the under the table and it needs to be shared and cherished but with that said the past needs to be remembered or it will be repeated and I will not let that happen as long as I have a voice.

Keep Away, Revisited

Posted by Anonymous: an update to Keep Away.

An update to the post that I published here earlier this year: I've ended the relationship with this man. It was honestly the hardest thing I've ever had to do, and it didn't come without a lot of heartache, tears and pain from both of us. I now know that it was not only the right decision for me, it was the right one for him and his family. I realize that he and his kids deserve better than me, and I also deserve better and a situation that I am comfortable with. I just wanted to say thank you to everyone who took the time to comment on my post, whether I wanted to hear it or not at the time, it's what I needed to hear. Since the time this post was published, I went back and read your comments time and time again, and believe it or not, your words gave me the strength I needed to end this. Sometimes, the words of strangers who don't care about you, are not invested in your life and are just being brutally honest is just what you need to thrust you into reality.

I really miss my old boyfriend, but I'm also really excited about finding a new relationship where I can start from scratch with someone and plan our lives the way that both of us want to. I realize that in my previous post I sounded selfish, immature and self-centered. I don't apologize for these things. You have to be selfish when trying to come to terms with what YOU want. So, again, thank you for your honesty, you never know when your words (no matter how hurtful they may seem at the time) will help someone. And thank you to HerBadMother for giving us this forum!

What She Said

Posted by Anonymous.

“That’s great, but you are going to have to pay for cheerleading camp on your own” was her response when I told her I made the cheerleading team.

“Why can’t you be like your sister?” was what she said when she came home from a parent teacher conference and was told that I was a “social butterfly”.

“You deserve all of the pain you are going through” was what she said when I cried after giving my daughter up for adoption when I was 16 years old.

“I guess you can't go to church tonight” was her response when I had my stomach pumped.

“Are you on drugs? What is wrong with you” was what she said to me when my ex-husband and I went through a devastating divorce.

“Your children will never experience true blessings unless you have them baptized” was how she replied when I told her my son was being bullied at school.

Why can’t I ever find the words? Why can’t I say… “Isn’t a mom supposed to love her child unconditionally? Aren’t Mom’s here to celebrate with us when we have a moment of joy, and cry with us in times of sorrow?”

How do I move on from this? How do I forgive and let go when it continues? How do I fill the awkward silences, after her words have hurt me and I can’t find the strength to respond?

I would give anything to feel her arms around me and her voice telling me that I am good enough, to hear her say that I am a good mom and a good wife.

And that she is sorry.

You Don't Know How Good You Have It

Posted by Anonymous.

Dear Husband,

You don't know how good you have it. I cook, clean and care for you. I drive you to the doctor's, I pay for your insurance, your life. For over 2 years now you have been actively seeking out women to cheat on me with. I am not sure if and how many times you have actually succeeded in this. I know why I stay but I don't know if you know why I am still here.

I am here because you are disabled and I promised "in sickness and in health". While I don't think anyone would blame me for leaving you, I don't know if I can be that woman - the one who leaves the physically and mentally disabled man.

And yet I wonder what you tell these women you email. I wonder if every time I go out of town for a day or a few days if you are meeting someone for a tryst? I wonder if I should start having my OB/GYN check me for STD's? I wonder how you can sit in church on Sunday morning without the guilt eating you alive?

If you were not disabled I would have divorced you in 2007 when this first came to light. If it were not for you I would not have left the job I liked to take the one I didn't but paid more. If it were not for me spending far too much time on personal things (like your disability applications) at work I wouldn't have lost the job I hated.

The thing that kills me is I met someone else, someone who is kind, caring, sweet, someone who I have an almost electric attraction with. We both feel it, one night in a moment of weakness I spent some time alone with him, he held my hand, he stroked my knee, he told me I did not deserve what was happening to me. I resisted temptation. I will not be THAT WOMAN. I will not be the one to cheat. And yet I think when I find out more and more about your ridiculous sex site accounts and the things you say you want from these women - I think if only you were gone maybe just maybe I could develop a relationship with a man that knows what it means to be faithful.

I have to remind myself frequently that your disability is not just physical. That mentally you are incapable of making logical decisions. And I'm so sad that I am tied to you by vows I guess I never thought I'd have to keep even though I know you are not keeping up your end of the bargain.

It sucks. I cook, clean, care for you, and yes I still love you. And day in and day out you betray me in the worst possible way while I have to pretend I know nothing about it. I'm 39 years old and feel trapped by all of this responsibility and duty. Trapped is no way to live.

I'm Angry

Posted by Anonymous.

I'm angry. I've been angry for three years, five months and ten days. That was the day you called me in the middle of the night (afternoon in your time zone) to tell me that you are an alcoholic and suicidal and you needed my help to come home. We spent so long on the phone and for the first time in my life I used my social work skills on a family member to make a contract with you that you would not kill yourself that night. When I hung up with you, and then with our parents, I collapsed into bed and sobbed into my husband's arms for hours. And the entire time there was a little voice nudging me from the far corners of my consciousness saying "what is all this stress doing to the baby?" You see, this was my first child, and I was new at this, and I was worried that all this stress on that poor little five-month-old fetus might cause some negative effects.

A few weeks later you arrived home. Against my advice (and all my training), you chose to stop drinking cold turkey. I warned you about the side effects, but you thought you would be fine. At 6 months pregnant I found myself trying to roll your stiff body onto your side so you wouldn't choke on any potential vomit while you were in the middle of a seizure (recommendation of the 911 operator). I was the one who tearfully convinced you to ride to the hospital in the ambulance instead of me driving you (terrified that you might seize again on the way). The entire time, that little voice in my head kept worrying "what about the baby?"

My second and third trimesters were filled with phone calls and planning sessions with you and our parents. Despite the fact that I had worked with countless families over the years with very similar situations, my suggestions were rarely heard or followed. I always knew when you had a particularly bad spell because the daily emails from our mother would stop. Then, a few days later I would hear about how you tried to slit your wrists in the shower, or how you were arrested for a DWI - twice (the second time after sideswiping a tractor trailer truck).

I'm angry that my entire pregnancy - my first child, our parent's very first grandchild, was overshadowed with your illness. I'm angry that our mother began to get hives every day when leaving work because she never knew what to expect when she arrived home. I'm angry that you showed up to my son's birth drunk (and you drove there!) I'm angry that our grandmother used her fixed income to pay your DWI fines. I'm angry that I start to worry when three days go by without hearing from our mother because that almost always means you've relapsed again. I'm angry that you've mooched off our parents for over three years now, giving little if anything in return. I'm angry that you were sober for so long, and I trusted you to watch our son for an afternoon, and you got drunk. I'm indescribably grateful that a friend happened to stop by and notice something off with you and call us so that we could race home to find our 8 month old scared and upset but not injured. You irrevocably damaged our relationship that day. Nearly two years later, I still haven't been able to forgive you for that incident. I have of course never trusted you to be alone with my children again either.

I'm angry that three years into your "recovery" you're still having relapses. You (finally!) found a part-time job, and with your very first paycheck you bought alcohol, hid it and drank for weeks. Now you want to get your license back and somehow I'm supposed to believe that your very first trip out of the house won't be to the liquor store.

I'm angry that you were often treated differently by our parents. You were the one who could crawl into bed with them after a bad dream while I was sent back to my room. You were the one who got a kitten for your birthday where my pleas fell on deaf ears for years. I didn't get a car until you were old enough to drive and "share" it with me. In high school and college I always worked 2-3 jobs. You just started your first part time job at the age of 26. Our parents always paid your rent and food and tuition bills. I still hear about the one month when I was a junior that I didn't have quite enough money for rent (despite working 30 hours a week and maintaining a full course load). Did our parents somehow always suspect that you were the "weaker" sibling? Did their special treatment help to contribute to your addictive personality?

I can't tell anyone in our family that I'm angry at you, because I'll sound mean and unsympathetic. They won't understand my anger and frustration. I have no where else to go with these feelings, so I write them here (yes, I know about ALANON. I've been before, but it feels like I'm sacrificing my already scarce free time to address your disease, and that just makes me more frustrated). I know that alcoholism is a disease. I know that you don't have control over this disease, that it controls you (and the family around you). I know that you don't want to be this way. Despite all of that, I'm still angry. I'm angry at the disease, and at what it's done to you. I'm angry that we've talked about this exact hazard for years. You've known and understood that our mother is an alcoholic since you were in middle school. I know you were a little lost when I left for college - you were stuck in the house with the drunk mother with very few opportunities to talk, but I tried to make myself available to you - I called often, and we emailed when we could and I visited regularly. You know and understand the genetics and the science, and you knew the risks involved when you started to drink in college. We were so very close for so very long. I'm angry that you didn't come to me, didn't talk to me, didn't ask for help before it was too late.

I'm angry that I've lost my sister. I don't think I'll ever see her again.

A Common Problem

Posted By Anonymous.

I suffer an involuntary pang of jealously at every pregnant woman I see. Of course I’m jealous of the stay at home wife with a six-figure earning husband who has an decorator design the baby room and gets mommy massages and has her prenatal yoga class before her appointment with the midwife at the private birthing center, not that I know any of those in real life. I’m also jealous of the young unwed mothers in the grocery store with their pimply baby-daddies dragging sullenly behind, of the cute girl I used to like until she married some ugly “godly” dude and went crazy and moved to the Middle East to live in a mud hut, and of the friend who can’t afford the two kids she has with her good-for-nothing husband and who deliberately got pregnant again on welfare. I don’t envy these people’s lifestyles, I am really grateful for my own husband over any of theirs, and I don’t want to be them, but why do they get to have kids and I don’t? Don’t bother telling me the problems and stress that their ill-timed pregnancies will bring, don’t tell me how smart it is to wait until you are financially stable to have children, don’t give me statistics about how waiting a few years can make all the difference. I want babies. I am really getting obsessed with this, experiencing feelings of longing and anger several times a day as I think about or see pregnant women or moms with young kids.

My husband wants to have children, and more than just one or two, or I wouldn’t have married him. But he wants to wait until we are more financially secure (i.e. have a house, not just renting) before we do. I understand the wisdom in that. He wants to have some time to ourselves (we’ve been married a year and a half), to be free to sleep in on weekends, to be able to buy tools and furniture and such, and have two incomes. I understand the wisdom in that. These are good things, and a lot of that does stop or at least slow down when you have kids. His thoughts make sense and his plan is designed to bring us and our children the best. But I don’t care, because I want them now. In addition, my PCOS could make getting pregnant take longer, so I worry that waiting even a few years will impair my fertility and reduce our chances of having our own. If that happens, I will be mad. Like marriage counseling mad. I’ve told him all this.

Bottom line, I don’t trust my husband and I don’t trust God to give me good things. I’m so selfish, but if I don’t try to fulfill my desires, who will?

Sadness

Posted by Anonymous.

I’m so sad.

I’m scared. I’m scared that in this instance hindsight has totally burned me.

In the summer of 2007 I found out I was pregnant. My husband and I made the decision to terminate that pregnancy. That decision was the hardest decision that I have had to make in my life so far. This was not a decision that was made lightly. We talked and talked and when we thought we couldn’t talk anymore about it we talked some more. In those talks he told me that of course he wanted to have another child with me but that at that time in our lives it was not a good time for us to have another baby. I agreed with him. I still agree with him. At that point in our life it was really not a good time to have another baby.

Here I am today a little over two years after the termination that I was and still am ok with it. My husband has made up his mind that he doesn’t want anymore children. We have one child that I love with so much completeness it makes me ache. But I never pictured myself as someone that would have only one child. In a perfect world I would have a lot of children but the reality is that I definitely wanted two. I feel like we talked about this all through our marriage and before we had kids but maybe we didn’t agree then either. I don’t know.

The point is, here I am wanting, like the kind of wanting that oozes through every cell of your body type of wanting, another child. My husband does not want another child. He’s done. What hurts is not just this impass. We will work through this; we’ve worked through much larger things than this. What is breaking my heart is that at the time when we were faced with one of the most difficult decisions ever, I was under the impression that he did want to have more children. At the time that was a very comforting thought. Because to me it meant that it was ok to think that it wasn’t the right time, that we would in fact have another child at some point and that the decision (we) I was making was really going to be ok.

Now it just feels like he lied to me to get his way.

I don’t know how much of that I truly believe. He was very much torn up over all of this. As was I, obviously. I just feel betrayed.

Yes we’ve talked about this since the termination and his response is that he was not lying to me then but that he’s just happy with the way things are now and doesn’t want to change that. I can respect that. I really can. It doesn’t make the hurt go away or make it feel any less painful.

So here I am now wondering if I knew then what I know now would I have made the same decision. I just don’t know.

What I do know is that I’m hurt. I’m sad. I feel betrayed. I feel like a part of me is missing and unfulfilled. I also know that in order to stay as the family unit of three that we currently are I will feel these things for a lifetime.

I refuse to guilt him into having another child with me. That notion is just too far away from who I am for me to be ok with.

I will continue to cry silently at night when I know he’s asleep. I will continue to wonder at all the what ifs. I will continue to be scared of the questions that will come from our child when she gets older.

For now I will put on my brave face and go forward. For now that’s all I can think to do.