Can you hear me now?

March 31, 2016

This is going to be another rant where I go off on what is really getting to me today and not caring about what comes out of my mouth. Ugh! 

I have this thing that I am VERY self conscious about, and when it happens to me it instantly makes me feel like I am in fight or flight mode, I get sweaty, my heart starts racing and beating through my chest, I can feel my eyes darting back and forth as fast as my mind is trying to think quick, then I panic and get scared and then the anger comes on. There is nothing I hate more than to feel this way over something so small, but it is what it is, learned behavior brought on by years of violent abuse and mind fucks that tore me down to less than nothing and that i have not been able to escape from yet. 

When someone asks me a question or wants my opinion or answer on something, I answer them truthfully the first time and generally try to mean what I say. So when they come at me again with the same question but a different tone after I have given my answer, my brain starts into what I described above because here is what logic my mind goes into.

When I answer the first time and my answer is not questionable but very solid, then when the question gets asked again just toned differently, I freak out thinking shit.....that's the wrong answer! what is the right answer? what the hell did I say wrong? maybe I didn't say it good enough? shit, what am I supposed to say now or how am I going to say it right? what if I say the wrong thing then what? am i in trouble? fuck! do i say something different now or do i say the same thing, or shit maybe I say nothing?

This is exactly what goes through my mind the moment the question is repeated. My husband used to love this mind game with me, he did it to me daily and I think it is one of the most devastating and debilitating mental form of abuse anyone can go through. It makes you doubt yourself and what you said, makes you question everything and then makes you panic because is this what he wants to hear or what he wants me to say? You never know what the right answer is because frankly there would never be a chance you could say the right thing because the abuser won't ever let you win. So I learned that I could answer the same question a million different ways but never get it right. It fucked with my head so badly that I still react the same way and have not figured out how to stop it. 

It is a sinking feeling to doubt yourself, or feel so stupid that you can't even answer right. You feel wrong no matter what you say and the anger and fury that builds up inside is scary as hell. It is devaluing as a human being to have to justify what you say and explain why you feel certain things. I want there to come a day again where I won't feel the need to do this because that might be the day that I feel complete as a person once again. 

I try not to be too negative because I know that I can get pretty black inside from everything, but the good things do not come as often for me so it tends to mostly be bad shit that spills out of my heart. I am tired of being tired and confused everyday. I can't get a grip on where I am going and even though it helps to be seeing Jack and working on things for myself, the moments in my day where I don't recognize that I am a valued person anymore are the moments that remind me of all that I allowed someone to take away from me and that I can't figure out how to get back. 

My frustration and depression is growing each day and I am scared more than ever. I have been good at pretending for so long that I can't do it anymore and the true feelings that I have buried deep down are starting to surface and it is scary to say the least. I need help yesterday but I don't know what kind of help. I feel like my mind has not only been murdered but that it is drowning too. Inside my mind, it looks like its being run through a paint shaker and I am screaming as loud as I can but nobody but me can hear it. My thoughts are scattered all over the place and never stop, I just want it to stop for a moment so that I can feel a tiny bit of relief from the chaos I am in everyday. 

Today is one of those days where I beg Jim to please take me to the hospital so that I can check myself in to the psychiatric ward and have them medicate my mind so i don't have to feel anymore. That is where I am at right now, I am broken down and beaten down without a logical thought and I know that I am feeling crazy as fuck and I feel like I am going to implode any moment. I feel like I am in a panic and that it is getting worse by the day. I don't know what to do today and I want to stop feeling this way. I cannot function or think or stop freaking out inside. I am scared and want to hear quietness inside my burning soul for just a moment. How do I find that before it is too late? I don't know how much one person is built to take but i know that i am probably far beyond my limit and living on borrowed sanity. God help me please, I can't do this much longer without losing everything I am. 

Vision

March 28, 2016 

Slept until 7:30 pm tonight, woke up with night terrors and everyone was gone nobody was home. Hate waking up that way, always scares me and makes me feel vulnerable and alone. I was up until 9 am this morning after helping my girlfriend finish cleaning up the last of her late mothers things from the apartment. See Jack tomorrow which is a good thing to look forward too for me, has been weird not seeing him twice a week but happy that my kiddo gets one day a week with him. He really respects Jack and is enjoying the time he has, I think it will help him as much as it has been helping me. 

This morning before going to bed I was getting my tasks in order for the week and when I went to write down something in my notebook, I was thrown off and stopped dead in my tracks. The once white pages of my notebook were no longer white, I started to look around and noticed nothing was the color it once was. Everything white appeared bright yellow and other colors looked as if they were filtered colors, sort of like when I edit photos on my phone. They have sephia, lomo, and other filters that change the colors. That was what I was seeing. I could not explain it and it freaked me out so badly that I just went to bed. When I woke up colors were back to normal again but I don't have an explanation for why the bright yellow color. It was about 15 minutes of seeing this before I went to bed. 

I am at a loss for what I am supposed to do anymore, I guess that I need to find a neuro doctor and go in for some tests or something. There is nothing I hate more than trying to find a new doctor to help me. It is exhausting to think about searching for someone who is willing to listen to a new patient and not try to guess whats wrong with me, or put me on medication or order a bunch of tests I don't need, or do nothing after hearing about my history. My experience is generally that of doctors who only want to put you on meds without taking the time to figure out the source of the problem first. I refuse to see a doctor who pushes meds and doesn't genuinely listen to their patients. I understand that I am not a doctor and cant treat myself however, I do know myself better than they would and I have a good documented history of my medical issues and am pretty educated on the things I do know I have. 

I am fearful of doctors and our health care system after what I have seen with Jake and what he went through. I am fearful of being dismissed in my concerns or worse, being considered a nut job when they hear my medical history. I am somewhat ok not really knowing how advanced my issues are but on the other hand, it might be better to truly know everything that is going on inside my brain. I know that I will not find a doctor like Jack out there, he is by far the best professional I have been lucky enough to find and I would not ever replace him, but I don't know if he can diagnose me with anything or if I need to see a specialist. Either way I need to move forward with my decision to apply for disability because not working is killing us and we are running out of savings so I have to do something soon. I have some of my medical records which do state I had a tbi and it has now been almost 3 years since I have been able to work like I used to for nearly 16 years of my life doing the same job efficiently, which i can nowhere near do anymore. 

The more I think about where to go from here, the less sure I am about my future. The one thing that I haven't lost though is the HOPE that I can and will find a way to be better than I am right now. I know that I am depressed beyond comprehension, I struggle everyday with my constant emotional overload, the tears come daily as do my fits of confusion and anger. But I am trying and I want to keep trying to find my way. I am trying with my kiddo on every level, and things are ok for now but they are up and down I just need to remember where he is emotionally as well and be mindful that this is not easy for him either. 

Back to bed for me now, just wanted to jot down the color vision before I forgot. Goodnight

grrr

March 26, 2016


There is no happy medium between a parent and a teenage boy I am figuring out. A relationship that lately feels like love me or hate me and no matter what I try, our disagreements turn into arguments into blow ups. Buttons get pushed and sometimes, like today, shit gets "accidentally" kicked my way which then ends up hitting me and I freak out because it reminds me of my husband throwing shit at me.

So I stormed off to my safe place after Jim had to step in and remind us both that he was trying to sleep as he works tonight. I am tired of giving in to teenage demands and getting resistance when I ask for things to be done like cleaning up his room or doing his laundry or doing his homework. These things go undone but when I say "No" to being asked if I will drive him to Post Falls for the weekend so he can hang out with friends, I am being unfair and all hell breaks loose. He will push me until I either give in and take him or I have an episode whichever comes first. There is no winning in it for me because either way I am forced to give in in some way, and if it escalates to an episode that is unfair for me.

I don't know how to be a better or more effective parent right now, i don't even know how to be better for myself and fighting both is exhausting for me. It makes me want to give up and just lock myself in my safe place forever and stop talking to or answering anyone. I don't want to keep fighting with my child but I won't be a pushover anymore either so I need to find a way to deal with the conflicts or it is going to shut me down or make me really fucking lose it. I am angry, hurt, upset, scared, and disappointed right now. Some days, I don't want to be the parent because it is too hard.

Birthday girl thoughts

March 24, 2016 

Today was my 39th birthday, hard to believe another year has passed by. It was the perfect day on all accounts: woke up to birthday surprises and spent the morning with my two favorite men, Jim and Jacob. Got the kiddo off to school and spent the afternoon with Jim, taking a much needed nap then dinner with my best friends and my boys. Food was amazing as was the company so you would think that sleep would come to me easily, but my mind had other ideas. 

After laying awake for a few hours trying to quiet the hamster wheel in my head, I finally got up and thought it would be helpful to write down my thoughts. Maybe this is a good time for me to introduce a part of my past that is the reason I am in the mental place that I am....my life with Jake. In March of 2011 I experienced for the last time, the destruction and pain of Jake's anger and control just a few day after my birthday. It was to be a three day ordeal that began on March 24 and would end everything I had known with Jake on March 27. I vaguely recall celebrating my then 34th birthday with Jake at our apartment in Hawaii. I wore the camouflage spaghetti strap dress he had bought me along with his black fedora hat, both appropriate attire for the beautiful sunny weather and Hawaii climate. Jake had left early on the morning of the 24th on a mission to buy me a birthday present at the local flea market. He returned a few hours later with a cake and presents and seemed to be happier than usual. While most would accept the upbeat behavior I knew better, it had previously been the predecessor to violent fits of rage and physical beatings for me so I was careful not to get too carried away with my own happiness. 

He sang "Happy Birthday" to me while I made a wish and blew out the candles. I opened the gifts he had gotten that morning, a handbeaded black and white bracelet and purse to match. I remember vividly wishing for the same thing that I wished for every year on my birthday; I wished for the pain and violence in my life stop and that I could be with my son again living unafraid and peacefully. The rest of the day was uneventful and unusually quiet until later that evening after we had gone to bed. I have never spoken about Jake and I's night time rituals, I have never spoken about much of my private life with him to anyone but I feel like this is the right time to open up a little and share some of my life with him. Before he laid down each night I would lay out two bed pads and an adult diaper so that I could easily change Jake's bedding if he needed me too. He would wake me up and tell me he needed a change. He always slept on his stomach which made it easier for me to do a bed change in the middle of the night. He would hold himself up by his arms so that I could grab the soiled pads and slide them out from underneath him, then slide the clean dry ones back in their place and we were done. All of this took no more than one minute to do but for me, that one minute could turn into a night of no sleep if he decided he didn't like the way I changed his bedding or my attitude. 

That night he decided he did not like my attitude and from then until the sun rose he verbally and physically attacked me, making sure that I knew he was unhappy with me. Around 7 am our neighbor came over and shouted through the open bedroom window. "Hey! Jake! I have had enough of listening to your mouth for one night! You had better lay off of her or you are going to have a problem with me!" And as always, Jake mustered a forceful "yes mam" so she would leave him alone. For whatever reason she was effective in getting Jake to listen to her and stop at any time. She had become my savior since moving in next door to her and she would ultimately put her own life on the line to save mine just two days later. Doreen was a 70 year old hospice nurse who didn't take anyone's shit, not even Jake's and she is still my hero and always will be. 

Shortly after she had told him to lay off, Jake got up out of bed and instructed me to do the same. He wanted me to make him his breakfast and take his two service dogs out to use the bathroom. I let the girls outside and went back to the kitchen to start breakfast but never made it the 10 feet from the front door to the kitchen because Jake blindsided me in the face with one of the wicker chairs in the living room. I remember hearing the "crack" of the wicker as it broke across my cheekbone and temple before I ever saw him swing it at me. Knocked to the ground he came after me in his wheelchair, grabbing me by my hair with one hand while his other arm had me in a choke hold on my hands and knees. This wasn't the first time I had been in that position and I knew if I panicked, screamed or tried to get away from his grip that things would become worse in a hurry for me so I did nothing. Nothing but try to breath and stay conscious while the air was squeezed from my lungs. My face was on fire, I could see all the blood dripping down his arm to the floor in a puddle, my hair now a matted mess as I saw him pull chunks of it out while he tried to make his grip around my neck tighter. 

I don't know how long we were entwined that way, I had started to begin to lose consciousness and was seeing stars when I heard a mans voice coming from behind me telling Jake to let me go or force would be used on him. For the first time in the year that I lived in Hawaii, the police had shown up and arrested Jake for Domestic Violence and put a restraining order on him for me. They had been visitors to our apartment an average of 3 times a week for the year we lived there. All calls from my 70 year old neighbor Doreen and all calls asking for assistance on a domestic. Not once in that year had they ever arrested him when they showed up, not once in that year did they ever ask if i was alright or if there was anything they could do to help me. I was always told to leave and go sleep somewhere else for the night to let things cool down which ended up with me sleeping in my minivan somewhere on the island next to the ocean. But not today, today they stood by me and not him and they hauled his ass away to jail. I couldn't believe they actually did it, I recall the officer telling me as I watched them drive Jake away, that everything would be ok and that I could sleep that night without being in fear of my husband. 

Looking back on that moment I would have never trusted that Officer and his promise that nothing would happen and that they would protect me. Trusting him would almost cost me my life the next day but the rest of this story will continue on at a later time. I am finally tired enough to try and sleep once again. 

Good night 

The Stranger

March 21, 2016

Finding the right words to say how I am feeling is getting harder and more difficult each day. I am at a constant state of frustration lately, the mind blanks are becoming more frequent and I am feeling very crowded within my own self. I have spent the past week or so trying to enjoy my life with Jim and Jacob, getting up and ready everyday, spending hours outside doing yard clean up, limiting my "safe time" to only 1-3 hours a day which has limited the amount of time I can spend working on my blog. I took time to answer my phone on Saturday night when my new neighbor called asking to borrow milk. I went against my safety and ventured across the street to where he was waiting for me at the end of his driveway. We made small chit chat but it was awkward like it usually is when we see one another. Then, out of nowhere this surge of emotional energy shot through me and I broke out in tears right there in front of my neighbor. 

I immediately felt shameful and angry for letting my emotions control me and for having an outpouring of tears stream down in front of my neighbor with no explanation to give him. And instead of doing what was expected, he surprised me and made me feel human in that moment. He started talking to me about traumatic brain injuries and how they completely change your life and the way people treat you. He himself had a pretty severe motorcycle accident just two years ago and the more we spoke it became very clear that him and I shared alot in common. He extended the offer to talk more again and let me know that I wasn't alone in what I was going through because he struggled too and understood the pain and stigma that can come with having something nobody can physically see wrong with you. 

For a few hours, I felt better and I tried to ignore the craziness in my mind as long as I could but eventually it prevailed. The conclusion of this battle ended with these thoughts. please keep in mind that all of these things are simply thoughts I am having, they bear no literal translation and are not leading up to any actions on my part. Just my train of thought for the moment that I wanted to get down on paper. 

Each day that we are here, we are fighting to be alive in some way aren't we? We all know and face the same inevitable fate, that none of us will live forever so we are essentially living so that we can die. We fight to take one step closer to our demise, fight to wake up and be one day older than yesterday, some of us fight to be here one more happy day and some of us fight to be here one more miserable moment. I am fighting to live for one more day of being lost, confused, frustrated, angry, afraid, disorientated.....I fight to get through one more day so that I might forget it like I am forgetting everything else, I am purposefully prolonging the pain I am in by forcing myself to stay one more day in the prison that my mind is becoming. Where is the life in any of that fight??  I want to understand and know what my purpose or direction is supposed to be after all of this. 

I cannot accept that this is all that my life has to give to me. I didn't spend 17 years working my way up the Corporate ladder in a man's world and make it to the top just slide down the slick ass rungs I used to climb my ass up with. Everything up until now is a faded picture in my mind and I cannot tell the difference between what memories are of mine and which ones might be of someone elses life. I want to feel who I am, no matter how lost and scared I may be. I want to be able to feel by body without looking at it because I am so numb from the pain inside me. 

I want to walk past the mirrors that hang in my house without being startled because who I see looking back looks like someone other than me. It's like having a stranger move in to your place and getting cozied in, at first taking over little amounts of space that you may not really notice until it becomes unbearable that this stranger has violated the space within you and has pushed you out of place. Right now this is where I am sitting, with my place pushed out from the stranger inside of me.....wondering what comes next and how am I ever going to be ok again after this. 

Can't wait to see Jack tomorrow, he seems to understand exactly what I feel because (he has a trainer in field). * ( I decided to leave the parts in here where my brain did its own speaking because this happens several times a day though I have no idea what it means or why. 

"Concussion"

March 10, 2016

Tonight we sat down and watched the movie "Concussion", and I am so glad that we did thanks to Jacks recommendation. It painted a very clear picture of the dangerous effects of repeated head blows primarily in NFL players, but not exclusively to them alone. 

Chronic Traumatic Encephalopathy (CTE) is a progressive degenerative disease of the brain found in athletes (and others) with a history of repetitive brain trauma, including symptomatic concussions as well as asymptomatic subconcussive hits to the head. This trauma triggers progressive degeneration of the brain tissue, including the build-up of an abnormal protein called tau.  These changes in the brain can begin months, years, or even decades after the last brain trauma or end of active athletic involvement.  The brain degeneration is associated with memory loss, confusion, impaired judgment, impulse control problems, aggression, depression, and, eventually, progressive dementia.

They have created four stages of CTE to describe the process of damage to brain tissue. 

• Stage I. Headache, loss of attention and concentration
• Stage II. Depression, explosivity and short-term memory loss
• Stage III. Decision-making (executive) dysfunction and cognitive impairment
• Stage IV. Dementia, word-finding difficulty and aggression

I can relate to the symptoms of Stage II CTE in my every day life and can see parts of Stage III that I could be affected by. By watching the movie, it gave me a better understanding of why I am experiencing certain behaviors and makes me feel somewhat more at ease knowing that there are others out there who have felt the same things. One of the most difficult emotions for me to explain or give reason for is Anger and rage. Sudden outbursts of anger can turn into a fit of rage in a second, with no notice or inclination as to when or where it comes from. But once that threshold has been crossed it is near impossible to just snap out of it and can take over every other emotion I am feeling. 

Since seeing Jack Tuesday I have been lost in a fog of some sorts, having no idea of what day it is or how much time has been passing by. I have been extremely emotional, very weepy, upset, feelings of defeat and hopelessness have filled my heart and I have felt like things would be better for Jim and Jacob if I just left. I don't know where this irrational thinking comes from, but it is there. I spent an average of 5 hours in my safe place each day and earlier tonight I found myself wandering around the house constantly feeling as if I was looking for something I had misplaced or was misplaced myself. Certain things were not where I thought I had left them, several times I had to stop and think about why I was doing something because I couldn't remember that I was attempting to do anything to begin with. 

My cheeks have been flooded with tears for two days but I couldn't explain what for. This innate sadness has consumed my spirit and I am literally on the brink of emotional exhaustion right now. My train of thought is scattered and choppy, almost manic at times and it is more than bothersome. At least I have tomorrow to look forward to in seeing Jack and Jacob is coming with me!! This is a bright spot to these last few days.....until tomorrow, goodnight. 

Sleepless night

March 09, 2016

Last night was a sleepless one, I tried but failed and here it is quarter to 8 and my mind has raced all night. So many things going through it, like a movie of my life the scenes repeat over and over and the questions remain unanswered. So much of me wants to crawl in bed next to Jim and snuggle up to him, but I know if I do then I will break and fall apart and I can't do that right now. I have this innate sense of emptiness and loneliness that is consuming me, even when I know the people who love and care for me are always with me.

I am self destructive and uncaring when it comes to myself and what I deserve out of life. For so many years Jake pounded it into my head how worthless and wasteful I was as a person. I heard how I was a whore who could do no right, who no man would want or need and certainly not a woman a man would ever love again. The first time in my life that I find someone who does love and want me, I cannot accept it as true because I hear Jake's words everyday telling me it isn't real. How do I stop his words and replace them with my own? Why do I feel like I have to sabotage my love with Jim when things get too real for me? Real is scary for me, I don't know why. I can give others advice all day long, see where they are in a situation and find the words to help them heal. But I cannot do that for myself, and I don't know where to begin either.

Being this depressed is depressing lol There is no definitive line between reality and the unknown, days blur together as does time. I want to do nothing yet find myself trying to do everything all at once. My mind is in a constant state of confusion and frenzy and the more I try to make it stop the worse it becomes. This is the absolute lowest I have ever felt in my life I believe, and I cannot imagine how or why I have ended up in the place that I feel is killing me inside. I want to be better, to feel better but it doesn't come and I don't know where to find any more hope inside me that I can dig deep from. I want to know where exactly I went to if I am no longer me. How does someone just disappear from the inside but yet the outer self still remains?

I hate being this lost and confused, it scares me to no end and I am angry beyond angry at where I am as a person without knowing where the hell I am going. No matter what I am still hopeful that there is a plan for me and my life and that Jack is the one who can help me get to where I want to be. There is nothing good about feeling like I have disappointed and let down the people in my life who matter to me, Jack being one of them. 

The driver

MARCH 08, 2016

The 5th marked my 9 year wedding anniversary to Jake, and for whatever reason this year hit me harder than any year before. Maybe it is because I am more aware emotionally, of all that I have lost with his death and realizing that it brought about the death of so many other things was what hit me most. When he died, I thought that my grief was only for him but now I can see that it was for much more than just him. It was grief for the death of who I used to be before him, during my life with him and it was saying goodbye to all I was until he died because that girl is gone now. 

I can remember how cruel everyone in my life was to me when Jake died, how I was chastised for needing to go to his funeral. I needed the closure and certainty that he was really dead because I was so terrified of him finding me and finishing what he started in Hawaii. Nobody understood why I needed to go, why it fucked with my head that I never saw him get in the accident or lay in that hospital bed, and i wasn't there when they pulled him off of life support to see him take his last breath. I didn't see his body afterwards and I couldn't even see the ashes in the urn so I needed to be at that funeral to see the process of everyone grieving in order to know that it was really real. After the funeral was over I came back home still not knowing for sure and it took me holding his torn and gravel filled clothing still sticky wet with his blood, to show me the finality of his life and mine. 

The fact that anyone in my life gave me shit for going makes me sick, these are people who are supposed to love and care for me yet tried to make me feel badly for trying to give myself closure. For the first time in my life, I didn't care what they said and i didn't listen to them. I went against them all and I went to Jake's funeral, and i am glad that i did because i cannot imagine where i would be had i not had that closure for myself. Where does one get the notion that they have any business at all deciding for someone what is right and what is acceptable in a situation like that? To tell someone that it is wrong to attend their spouses funeral and that they are an idiot for doing so sounds more crazy than I feel, and that is fucking crazy. I don't give a shit if you don't understand why I feel the way i feel because it has no bearing on what my choices make me feel like inside. If you could experience a small dose of the hell that I live inside of then maybe you could see things differently and not be such a selfish, judgmental asshole and tell me what to feel and how to live my life. 

Imagine being the driver in a car, but you are blindfolded and your hands are handcuffed to the steering wheel on 10 and 2. The radio is blaring Slipknot or some other crazy heavy metal thrasher song, and there is the smell of burning flesh all around you. You have passengers in the front and the rear and you are on a dark, winding mountain road filled with potholes and rocks the size of baseballs. Your goal is to navigate down that road in tact without killing yourself or your passengers and you must do it based on what the passengers tell you to do. You must listen to all 3 of them yelling at you at the same time and you must decide who is right and who is wrong in telling you where to go. You cannot take the blindfold off, you cannot turn the radio down you cannot open a window to air out the stench that is making you sick....you just sit there and fucking drive. That is it, could you do it? Could you make it down that mountain in one piece without wrecking? Could you steer that wheel with your hands bound to it without driving off the edge? You could try, and maybe one out of a handful of people to try might make it out of pure luck but i say? FUCK NO you wouldn't make it, not on your life. So now that you have that visual how the fuck do you feel knowing that YOU have been one of those passengers in someones life? YOU have contributed to someone losing their life or their mind, or both. YOU have been in that seat yelling and screaming at someone to do this and do that, go this way no go that way, you aren't listening! you are going the wrong way! turn the wheel! slow down! speed up! Can you see it now? Yes, that is YOU, how does that make you feel? 

Better yet, how do you feel if you relate to the Driver in this scenario? I am the driver, that has been my role in this life and I want to take off the blindfold and make it safely down this mountain. I don't want to be in the dark, blindfolded to what is around me, I want  to see what is going on so that i can save mine and my passengers lives. I don't want that stench filling my nose, I need to breath and smell fresh air and the flowers, the water, the earth. I don't want to be bound to the wheel, to what controls the vessel I am steering I want my hands to be free so that I can guide the car wherever I think it is safe to go. For too long I have tried to navigate my life by listening to the screams of my passengers and it has taken everything that I am away, leaving me scared and afraid of always doing the wrong things. Fear has taken over my rational mind and I have lost the ability to know what is right for me, what path is the one I need to walk on my own, and that makes me angry as hell. 

I do not know why I allowed myself to live this way for so long, because it has caused me to be in the pain that I now live with everyday. Nobody but myself has to lay down at night and have the thoughts that I do about my life and this journey. I am the only one who has to look at myself in the mirror, and it is me who can no longer recognize the woman staring back.....what do you say to that? No matter how much I want for others to understand my pain, a part of me doesn't want them to truly understand because nobody should know what I feel like. How do I navigate myself through my hell and make sure that I come out whole on the other side without destroying what is left of me or others around me? I have spent countless nights wondering how the hell am I going to survive now that I have no idea who i am. Just because I was capable of surviving my life up until now does not mean that I can do it anymore. 

I want to be whole again, to find my identity and feel like I belong somewhere again. I love my life with Jim and Jacob, they give me things that I could have never imagined having in my life. But they cannot give me the one thing I so desperately need right now, they cannot give me Michelle. Nobody can, I don't even know that I can but I am still fighting to try and find who I am so that I can make it another day. Over the last 4 days or so all I could think of was how much I didn't want to be here anymore like this, in limbo and in so much pain. I couldn't even begin to describe how deep my pain is or where it even comes from but it is slowly creeping into the one last bit of me that wants to live. No, this doesn't mean I am going to off myself it just means that I am exhausted and running out of options and give a shit, that is all. 

The beautiful thing about life is that for every tomorrow there is a chance for a new start, and the fact that we got to put our pain behind us from yesterday to take on new pains is beautiful too. I used to lay my head down at night next to Jake and tell myself, "if I wake up alive tomorrow then what i thought was impossible is really not as bad as I believed".  So, If i should wake up alive tomorrow then my pain right now is not as bad as i think it is because if it were, It would kill me and for now i'm still breathing.