For Everything There is a Season

"In order to write about life, first you must live it." ~ Ernest Hemingway

Category: PTSD

Keep Going

May 13, 2013 / / 12 Comments

There are very few people who follow my blog or who are even in my life who know the extent of the disaster my life was from about 2001 through 2009. I was in a destructive marriage with a man who was abusive, an alcoholic, had PTSD, and was just a difficult person to live with. A man who decided about two years into our marriage that he did not want children. I had distanced myself from some of my family and many of my friends. I held a job that I loved but yet found very stressful. For some of those years I was seventy-seven pounds heavier than I am now. I had a food addiction and low self-esteem. There were many times when I considered suicide and the threat was real enough that I was hospitalized several times for depression. For a period of time, I was even considered to have bipolar disorder and I was trialed on every class of psychiatric medications that existed. The diagnosis was later retracted by the same psychiatrist who diagnosed me and my mood issues were thought to be the beginning of my autoimmune disorder, coupled with significant environmental stressors. Then the physical symptoms of my autoimmune illness began.

2008-2009 found me very sick with Sjogren’s syndrome. I eventually ran out of sick time and FMLA and lost my job. On the day that my ex-husband threatened me and I thought he was going to be physically violent because he was so drunk, I told him we were done. I got divorced and lost my home. I lost one of my beloved dogs. No job, no home, no kids, no health, no marriage…no nothing.

But wait, I did have something. I had God. I had my family. I had a few friends.

I had myself.

So why am I even bothering to tell you all this six days before I marry my second husband? Because I want people to know. I want to tell anyone reading this who thinks that the only way out is through suicide that there is always a better way out. There is help out there. You can change your situation. The feeling of hopelessness you have now does not mean that things can not get better.

My upcoming marriage has stirred up a lot of emotions recently. Obviously that is due in part to the fact that I am marrying this incredible man who is my best friend and whom I love with all my heart. But the emotions are also there because over the past few weeks, I have stopped to think about where I am and how far I have come. Because at some point I stopped letting myself be a victim. I dealt with my depression and anxiety. I saw a therapist. I developed a positive attitude. An attitude that got me through some pretty dark days. I worked on my relationship with God and with myself. Step by step I made changes in my life that enabled me to be a whole person rather than the empty shell of one that I was during those years.

I still struggle with health issues. I still struggle at times with my self esteem. But at the end of the day I like the face of the person looking back at me in the mirror. Sometimes it is hard for me to think back on the past and even believe that was me. However I have to look back from time to time because those experiences have helped make me the courageous and determined individual I am today.

I am at peace.
I am happy.

So please don’t give up. You are worth more than the sum of your bad experiences. God has put you in this world for a reason. The reason may not be apparent to you now. It may never be apparent to you but I promise you, your presence in this world will make a difference to somebody.

Be strong.
Keep going.

The Smell of the Sheets

March 20, 2013 / / 10 Comments

I went to lie down on a stretcher this morning and as I got comfortable on my back and waited for the radiology technician to come back in the room, I was struck by a smell. A familiar smell. One that prompted my brain to flash various images through my head, one right after the other. Images of different procedures, some painful and some not. Images of myself sitting in a hospital bed in various rooms throughout this particular hospital where I was having my test done. Images of  emergency rooms where I have sat.

What was this smell? I finally realized, while laying on the stretcher this morning, that it was the smell of the hospital sheet covering the stretcher. All of a sudden, I realized that the smell of the hospital sheet is as commonplace to me as the smell of fresh baked cookies or bread to someone else. It is very distinct. The smell was representative of all the stretchers I have laid upon in the past several years. There are too many to count. The sheets have laid below or on top of my struggling body as I have tossed and turned in the middle of the night in my hospital room, while I have vomited on an emergency room stretcher, and while a tube has been put down my airway and into my lungs during a procedure. The smell of the sheets symbolizes my life as a patient.

I realized as I was laying there this morning that I had not smelled the sheets in exactly three months, which is when I had my last procedure or test done, excluding laboratory tests. This particular test on this morning was an ultrasound of my kidneys and bladder and was painless, as well as easy for me. Basically a walk in the park. No needles, no gagging, no fear of the unknown, as I have encountered with so many other tests and procedures throughout the past few years. But the smell of the sheets reminds me of those times and the struggles I have had.

Last fall I made a very thought out decision to see a therapist/counselor who has a specialty in seeing people with chronic illness. I was at the point where I felt like I needed some help in learning how to cope with my illness and the multitude of issues surrounding being forty-one years old and disabled. I did not like the fact that my illness seemed to consume most of my conversations with my fiancé, friends, and family. I was finding it harder and harder to discuss anything else besides my symptoms, treatments, fears, and anxiety. I wanted more out of my relationships than that. Easier said than done when you have an illness that you are physically aware of almost every minute of the day. It wasn’t that I did not want to learn more about Sjogren’s, continue my book about it, or socialize with other Sjogren’s sufferers, but rather I wanted to find a way to have Sjogren’s be a part of my life instead of the focus of it.

I was also starting to struggle with significant anxiety in relation to upcoming procedures and I was having nightmares about them as well. Not surprising considering what I have gone through in the past couple of years and even before that with my lymphoma diagnosis, both in regards to procedures and medical experiences in general. I have had incisions made in the tops of my feet and had thin wires threaded up along the lymph vessels of my legs. I have woken up during a bronchoscopy because I was not properly sedated. I have had scary experiences with my heart in the emergency room and honestly thought I was going to die. The list goes on and on.

So I have been working diligently with this therapist. I have not mentioned, previous to this posting, this fact to many people. Actually only my fiancé, parents, and minister have known. I have not kept it to myself because I am embarrassed about seeing a therapist, but I guess I did not want people to know exactly how much I do emotionally struggle with having this illness. I want to be viewed and known as a warrior; a person who can handle all this illness business without much difficulty.

Yeah, I know. That’s crap. It’s the people who know they need help that are the warriors.

I have realized recently how much working with this therapist has helped me. Many times when people have trauma issues of any type, there are certain triggers that can bring back memories and feelings surrounding the traumatic event. For me, sometimes it is the smell of the sheets. The smell that brings back those images and reminds me of the pain, fear, and uncertainty that surrounds each difficult medical event. But this morning was much different when I recognized the smell of the sheets. When the smell prompted me to play back some of the difficult procedures and medical experiences I have had, mostly over the past year, I did not have the anxiety. Rather, I remembered them just as events that took place. Events that are a part of my journey. Were the events unpleasant? Yes. But the memories no longer haunt me while I sleep.

Therapy has also made a difference in my interpersonal relationships. Sjogren’s is still a part of my conversations at times. It needs to be as it is part of who I am. However I have recently found myself able to consistently focus on other aspects of my life in conversations and dealings with others. Because despite my continued physical struggles, I no longer think of myself primarily as a sick person. Instead, I think of myself as a person who has an illness. There is a huge difference. That difference actually made me realize something about one night last week. I had attended a social event with my fiancé and five friends that lasted about four hours. Not once in that time of conversing and socializing did the topic of my health come up. That is a very good thing. Not because I don’t ever want to talk about it or have people ask how I am doing but because it means that I have been able to have a life outside of Sjogren’s.

The smell of the sheets this morning transported me back in time to my struggles, but not to my anxiety and fear. This time the smell was a strong reminder to me of my strength and my ability to endure. It reminded me that yes, I am a patient. But that is not all I am. And so I have chosen to share this experience with you. To remind you that you don’t always have to be brave and you don’t always have to be strong. It is OK to ask for help. It is OK to be human.

Road To Marriage

January 14, 2013 / / 2 Comments
 
“Become the kind of person the kind of person you would like to marry would like to marry.” ~ Douglas Wilson

Four months from this Friday I will be getting married.
A whole wedding and everything.

This is a big deal.

I know marriage should be a big deal in general, but let’s be honest. In our society today, people get married and divorced more often than many people change jobs. My fiance and I have both been married before so now we are going to be included in the second marriage statistic. You know, the one that says half of all second marriages will end in divorce.

We will not be on the wrong side of those statistics. I’m sure everyone in love says that right before they get married again. Truth be told, I was fine with never getting married again. That was before I met a partner who made me experience real love for the first time.

That is a strange thing to say considering I was married once before and engaged to someone else even before that. My first fiance was this great guy I met at work when I was about twenty-three years old. We started out as co-workers and then became friends. We dated for a while, I moved into his house, we talked about marriage, I got cancer, he proposed, and then four months before the wedding, the bomb dropped.

He told me that he had come to realize that he never truly loved me and had only proposed because I had just finished my cancer treatments and he felt like he was obligated to propose. That is was what he was “supposed” to do. He should have said something sooner he told me.

Nice.
Problem was, I still loved him.

So I moved out of the house, sought refuge at my parent’s home because I was such an emotional wreck and spent the following weeks cancelling all the wedding plans that were already in place. To this day, I do not think he was a bad person. Confused and gutless yes. But not bad. After a while, I decided I was too young to pine away for a man who would never love me. I found my own apartment and continued to throw myself into my career, my family, and my friends.

Enter the next love. My ex-husband. I met my ex-husband approximately eight months after the break up with the ex-fiance and I did not date anybody in between. I am here to tell you that is a big mistake. I would have sworn to you up and down that I was not on the rebound and maybe I wasn’t. I was twenty-eight years old and all of my friends were getting married and having babies. Now I absolutely thought that I loved him and that he loved me but now looking back, I wonder if subconsciously, I was more in love with him or the idea of being in love with him and having the life society tells us we are supposed to have. You know, the one with 2.2 kids and a white picket fence. Because there were signs there that maybe he was not the right person for me but I did not pay attention to those red flags. I wanted to spend my life with someone and raise a family. I thought this was the way to be happy. Tough thing to admit.

Approximately a year after we got married (we had dated for two years prior to getting married), my ex-husband changed in a way that resembled Jekyll and Hyde. He decided that he did not want children after all. His mood started to change dramatically at times, he developed flashbacks, and he was subsequently diagnosed with post traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) which was a result of severe childhood abuse. Then the heavy drinking started and the only thing more difficult than living with an alcoholic, is living with one that has PTSD.

I tried and I tried as hard as I could to keep my marriage together. Eight long years of trying. I certainly made my share of mistakes during my marriage but none that warranted the way I was treated. I thought that if I loved him enough, he would be able to work through his issues, we would have a family and be happy. Instead, I became an emotionally abused wife. The day that he became violent and I thought he would hit me, I began the journey to becoming his ex-wife.

It was not easy, but I have never looked back.
I was finally free.

Despite the fact that the year prior to separating with my ex-husband I began to get very sick from autoimmune related issues, my life really started to evolve. I took control of my life. After we sold our house, I took one of our dogs, moved into my own apartment and discovered I truly enjoyed living by myself again. No chaos. I spent the following two years figuring out who I was as a person and reshaping my definition of what it meant to be happy and that it did not have to include being married, or even having a partner for that matter. Being happy did not depend on whether I was a mother or not. In that quest to find myself, I truly became happy.

I reconnected with my old friends and I made new ones. I began to write and pursue other interests when I wasn’t dealing with my significant medical issues.. I became involved with my church. I dated quite a bit. I even fell for a guy or two. However after a while, I found dating to be exhausting. As a thirty-nine year old with a severe chronic illness, dealing with the drama associated with dating just became too much. Too many liars, cheaters, and men with severe issues. It wasn’t worth my precious energy. I decided that I was going to be content with living on my own, in a great apartment, with my very cool dog and my wonderful family, friends, and church community surrounding me. I had my head on straight now and I was not going to compromise my happiness, health, or peace of mind for anyone else.

Best laid plans, right?

Then enter Chuck. What is it that they say? That love often happens when you are least expecting or looking for it? If you are interested, you can read our story here: Summer of Friendship…Summer of Love.

I knew within weeks of dating Chuck, that I would spend the rest of my life with him. I didn’t care if that involved marriage. I just wanted to be with him. He had become my best friend and it quickly became apparent to me that I could not imagine spending one day without him in my life. It was a big risk for me and maybe he would say the same thing for himself. The risk of loving again after you have been hurt so deeply in the past is probably one of the biggest acts of courage a person can perform. The difference for me this time though was that I knew I was with the right person. I knew what true love felt like.

The type of true love that makes you want to be an even better person than you already are. The type that supports you and encourages your dreams. The type that makes you want to work through all the very difficult questions and differences between you.The type of love that is ultimately unconditional.

I think I just wrote part of my wedding vows.

I am the woman who said she would never get married again but yet, here I am. Older, wiser, and with eyes wide open. I am the woman who is very glad to be a stronger, confident, and more self aware version of her younger self. One who, when she stands in front of her family and friends committing her life to another on May 18th, will know, with all certainty, that it is possible for marriage to last forever.

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