Secrets, Words and Hiding.....

This is probably going to be long. So I forewarn you.
Many who know me, know I keep secrets. Many, Many, Many secrets. Even Kyle I lived with for 12 years has told me that I am emotionally numb and share nothing and I withhold affection etc.
No one really knows me.
My aunt came and walked with me last week and she was really concerned about the things I keep bottled up and don't share. It's hard. I'm tired of it.

The reason I do it, has been proven to me over and over. You give someone a part of yourself and you let them in. Give them information thinking that you can trust them. Especially when that person is your husband. One fight and they kick all your personal stuff right back into your face.

This thing with Kyle... Way back when we spoke of getting divorced a year and a half or more at the zoo... Words can not be erased. The words he and others have said to me stick in my head. It was much easier being hit. Much. Pain was overwith faster and I wasn't left with the junk in my head.

Kyle on several occassions verbally has beat me down so bad that I was left in the bed crying for days. He knows this. He will admit to it. He has apologized for it. Sorry, may be a temporary fix, but it doesn't erase the words. Today, this morning was a perfect example of that.

He has made references more than once, about me being a bad mom. Those are the ones that hurt the most and I spend time after time after time in my head trying to replace the words I hear from him. Words from each fight stick out in my head. When Kyle and I first met. I had no computer. NONE. Zip. Zero. I was in an apt run by the battered womens shelter. I had No money. I hadn't a pot to piss in. I have journals and journals of me writing about how hard things were. How I had trouble every day just driving a mile to get Anthony from school. I have a disability. I have anxiety and panic disorder. It is real and it has slowly destroyed my life. He married me/dated me knowing this. I could not go to many school plays. I had no computer. I sat home, upstairs in anthonys window watching the cars go by, crying and writing in my journals about how I wish I could be out there. My computer Kyle was watching out that window. How many times when we were together did you come home and find me watching out that window?

We move out to Washington park. Again no computer. I still have trouble even getting my kids a block away. Sometimes on good days I take them bowling, we go out. Stuff like that. Not to mention the fact from the very day that I met Kyle I have been in severe financial distress. I tried working at Fantastic Sams... Tried and tried, but I got so dizzy that I kept almost fainting. Again... You think you were disappointed. Amplify that by 20000 and imagine the guilt I feel upon myself.
Sometimes at Washington park I would have a good day. I could walk up and down the walk way or do this and that. It took me 5 full years of going to the store a little bit at a time, to just NOW, just this year, be able to go and stay and not worry every aisle if I am going to have a panic attack and have to leave. Do you know what its like to panic going through the store? I think now you know. Good thing for you, yours was only temporary.

So....... Here I am. 20 notebooks deep in writing and watching out the window about how I can't do anything. I feel so much guilt because I can't give my boys the life they deserve. I sit and I cry. Cry. I have cried probably almost every single day. Not many pass when I do not. Depression. It's real.

So, back a few fights. Kyle and I were arguing. The personal attacks comes. The thing about that one that stood out other than the screaming. Is someone screaming at you...he was mocking me or what have you saying... "Oh I can't take savannah anywhere because, i might have a panic attack, I might get dizzy" It was done in the most hateful voice, whining like at at the top of his lungs. I hear it and I see it over and over and over and over. A few weeks later Karma came to bite him in the ass, he had panic attacks so bad and depression so bad, he could not get up off the couch. He would have them wake up throwing up. Do it for 12 years straight......... then you have someone make fun of you for it. It KILLED Me insdie. KILLED Me. to have someone who is supposed to support you take the thing you hate most about yourself and just throw it in your face. You know it's real. You know I didn't fake my anxiety disorder. I wouldn't throw away my whole entire life to get out of going to a school play.

Again Words....

So the time comes and we get a computer. Do you have any idea what a computer is like to an anxious person who not only has no money but no social life? It becomes a world opened up and someone to talk to.

I met my March Mommy group. From that point on I started playing the computer alot. Funny... nothing was said when I was watching TV all those years, it just happens when I socialize... Computer is used against me also. Those March mommies saved my life. I didn't feel like a nobody anymore. I was encouraged to get out and try stuff. Alot of them struggle with some degree of panic, anxiety and depression. Most of us suffer from extremely low self esteem. But the thing is, we all.....ALL are there for each other. Even after 7 years. Friends. Something I lacked before.

2 years ago I started playing Toon Town. That was also used against me. Again, people I had fun with and that made me laugh so hard. I have a husband that comes home from work and immediatley would sit on the couch and sleep. We watch a movie... He sleeps. No attention. I have blog entries from years back about how I wake up crying in the middle of the night and I am extremely lonely. I tried explaining this to Kyle. It did of no good. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. Sleep. I was lonely. So I played Toon Town. Now, I play WoW.... It's like an extended family on there also. We have so much fun, laughing, goofing off...... and it's time I'm not spent crying.

So this last fight a few things stick out over and over and over and over. Words go swirling in my head that I have a hard time replacing. One is when he went to the refrigerator and said, when was the last time you put food in here? I rescued your sorry ass out of a shelter and somehow I wrecked YOUR Life? That line is the one that gets me the most... Im not sure if you thought you could be some sort of hero. First of all...... I wasn't in the shelter when you met me. I was in a housing program they ran, i paid 27.00 a month for an extremely, nice huge townhouse. YOU encouraged me to move to Washington park and get out of there so we could live together etc. You didn't rescue me. I was making it on my own. Did you think somehow you would change my anxiety attacks? If you haven't figured it out by now... its done with love, compassion and caring, not hateful words and not yelling at me. That made me worse.

The other thing is when he nicely walked over to my computer and said "Savannah isn't your world....... this is your world right there"
.... Maybe to some degree it is a HUGE part of my world. It was one of the first places I ran after that fight for some support from my friends. It is sadly all I have. Would anything be said if I watched movies all day? I'm confused on what it is I'm supposed to be doing. I clean ALOT... I take care of the house... What is it Im supposed to be doing?

Only few people know what I am going to write below. So to the rest of you SUPRISE... Things are that bad

You know, I have spent days and days off the computer. When you have a girl. Me. Who has no money unless she makes some from pictures, cleaning etc..... What do you expect me to do? How many times has your WIFE run out of gas taking Savannah to the bus stop because she didn't have enough gas to make it a block. Did you offer ever to give me any money? I think I recall in 12 years you have never given me money that wasn't asked for. Ever. And even asked for you have given it to me a few times. I'm not saying I'm miss perfect at all, but I'm giving my reasons of why it is I'm in the position I am in. Yet chastized for it. So every day for over a year and a half, my car has been on empty or below. What do you suggest I take the kids to do? No money, no gas??? Anthony and Juan are above board games. They want to be with their friends. The past 4 years I have made so many strides in overcoming this anxiety disorder. I haven't missed many school functions til lately when I have to pick and choose what to do because every time we get it the van we argue. I have come so far with my anxiety stuff. Im not fully there, but depression has now taken me over. This year I have been on the computer way more than others... One fact you didn't know is, it was to keep from arguing. If I am removed from the situation and focused on something else... I can not argue. We all have had enough in this house. Now I just go for walks.

When someone can monopolize a childs time, because they have money and resources to do so, it leaves another person feeling like total crap. So Kyle can take her to Six Flags.... He has gas to get there and money to do that stuff. I do not. I have 2 kids that do not have lunch money at all. They go to school and most of the time do not eat breakfast and then they go without lunch. They both come home and go to eat something. The good stuff is hidden for savannahs snacks or lunch.... so they eat whatever they want. Then Kyle gets home and a fight breaks out about they eat everything in the whole entire house. About the comment about putting food in the fridge, I went to the store more than you thought I did. I bought all the stuff to clean with. Every single bit of it. Let me tell you that stuffs not cheap. I went once a month and bought groceries.. I did what I Could. I worked my ass off just to be able to do that. Then to use it against me. I remember stuff being hidden food wise at my dads... but my mom never ever hid our food. I never got into trouble for eating anything.... So that concept of the fights that break out over my kids eating in this house make me stark raving mad and I had no clue what to do about it.

Stress. Anxiety. Words. Juans been wearing the same pair of old contacts because He's too afraid to ask his dad to buy them. The root canal costed a fortune. Anthony has had the same shoes for 2 years but doesn't even open his mouth to complain becuase he knows I do not have the money. The day before school, this year, he sat down in the rocker next to me and I was crying and he said "Momma, I don't need new shoes, I can wear these ones" no complaints. Nothing. It was a relief. I had done some senior pics, one set didn't work out... So the extra money I had been counting on, didn't pan out fully. Leaving me scrapped.

This past year has been awful for me. The mold made me really, really sick. It took away a year of my life, combined with anemia. Did I get up and move much? Probably not. Ever try anemia on? Combine it with anxiety and depression. There was a point earlier this year. First time ever in my life, I wanted to just take a bottle of pills and never wake up. That thought scared me, that things were that bad, that I had wanted to die. I figured my kids would be better off without me. Its hard to get your life straight when you have so much coming at you and more people throwing words upon words at you. That feeling lasted awhile and I apologized to God over and over again. I would never do it, but wanted to. I wanted to die. The guilt I feel about not having the money to take my kids out to eat or to fun places is extreme. It's easier to take one out than it is to take 3 out. Savannah and I have developed our own thing. Just because I can't monopolize her time with money doesn't mean I can't or don't love her.

Every day we sit around the table and pray together. Somedays she doesn't wanna say prayers, but I will say mine and usually she will come around if I bless the geeky dogs and she will combat my geeky dog prayer with her, good dog prayer. We have been praying together for years. It's just not something I share with anyone. I didn't ever know that I had to. I thought they were private moment shared between a mother and child. Til the time comes when comments are made about how nothing is done with the children.

Savannah and I every day sometimes the boys write little notes on the board to each other. Juan, I sneak into his back pack and write him notes to have a good day or I hope that he's doing okay. He has anxiety attacks at school. So I figure it might put a smile on his face to see a note from mom, being goofy. Lately I schedule my walks at times I know Juan will be out.... Me and Savannah start out and we walk. We sing a song and dance down the block. I drop her off at jannas to play with her and the twins. On my 2nd time around, I see Juan off in the distance, I start to smile as does he.... we make goofy comments from a distance... then as we get closer we hug each other and love each other. Just a moment between us. I look forward to them. Then Savannah on my trips around, I stop and hug her and we share gum. Little things that are free.

Every morning this summer, I would wake up before Savannah and I would kiss her on her head, sometimes pick her up and hold her. Rock her. We would tell each other stories. Again Loved her.

Anthony and I have a music connection. He sits at the kitchen computer and I at the living room one and we will discuss songs, he will play his guitar and I will tell him my feed back on it. Anthony has a pretty tough wall up. A lil harder to joke and cut up with. He doesnt wanna do much with me anymore. If i ask him to go to the store or something, hes like no way. Hes got chicks, my space and joe satriani to contend with.

A comment was made during the last fight, about how one day savannah didn't have lunch and she had called kyles mom and his mom wanted to know why that baby didn't have lunch.

Funny, the one day I probably didn't make lunch, i get chastized for. Forget the 20 million i have made lunch for. Also funny about how nothing is ever said about the 2 that do not have lunch every single day.

All this comes from this morning.... Savannah is sick, fever, stuffy nose etc. In the middle of the night she had wanted to sleep with me so I took her in my bed. He walks in to check her forehead...I make a comment something like......What I can't see if my own daughter has a fever? He was just checking her head, but words all the words about me being such a bad mom....... My defenses kicked in. I got to find some way but the words are so powerful.

I know I'm not a bad mom. I have been here every day for my kids. WHen they get home from school, when they wake up, when they go to sleep. I have been here. I don't have the money to show them that way, but I do a ton of little stuff to show them that I do indeed love them. Just because I don't share everything about myself and for good reason. Doesn't make me a bad mom. You ever see the way the kids flock around me when I pick up my sketch book and pencils? They all get excited because I do draw well and they wanna see what Im doing. Savannah drew an I love you on the board to me and had a girl crying and I said savannah whats that? She said I love you and I drew you crying because you always are. I just want you to konw I love you so you dont cry anymore. Was sweet. When I cry about money, she's going to get her piggy bank and telling me I can have hers.


Sweet Savannah. The thing she says most about her in her prayers is for a real family to sit down and eat at the same table. So I make it a point now to eat 1 meal with her at the table. We have never ever sat down as a family to eat dinner. Ever. I can't recall a time.

Kyle and I both agreed that I would be a stay at home mom with Savannah. That's a sacrifice parents make both ways. Even then, I had to come up with my own money. I babysat, I cleaned. I remember at one time, i was making more than Kyle. Went to the grocery every single week, never asked him for money. When I had his car out would fill it with gas. Thats what a marriage is about. I never once complained about it. I bought all the kids shoes, i bought their toys. ALL of it. Paid half of every single bill. Paid half the rent. It even bothered Kyle at one point that I made more money than him. I never ever complained about picking up the extra stuff.

I think thats why they throw the line in the marriage vows about for richer, for poorer, for sickness and in health, in good times and bad. They are there for a reason because sometimes in marriage you do have to carry the other person.

The year I get sick and can do nothing, I am sailed down the river. Funny how the years I took more than my fair share of responsibility are forgotten. The worst year of my life being sick and broke is the one every one will remember. Unfortunatley I had no one to help me out. My mom did what she could do within reason. I was only allowed to sink. I'm not sick anymore. I have a good handle on panic attacks and I have an excellent support system. I have no doubts that I will be okay and never again will I put myself in such a vulnerable situation.

Words hurt. Id rather be punched in the face.

So off to try to dispell every bad thing I have heard with a good one....

All from an innocent fever checking.

If you get this far you need a cookie or something.

Happy Monday
Love
di