Hope? Not likely......

Well D is down to four beers a day now.  At least, for now, the yelling has stopped and I am not a big bundle of nerves on D's days off.  I went to counseling last week and my counselor told me that I was in an severe domestic violence situation and I should go to a shelter.  I told D about what she said and that I was going to have to leave if he doesn't change.  So he is trying to "cut down" on drinking.  It is sad to say that I don't have faith that he will conquer his addiction.  I have already accepted that fact that after I graduate I am most likely going to have to get my own place and start working again.  Five years.......I have tried to save him.....to help him be the good man I see inside but now I am just tired.  Tired of trying.  Tired of the lies and disappointment.  I just can't do it anymore.  If he gets better then great but I am not holding my breath.  Not this time.  It is so painful to watch someone that you love dearly, consistently, choose alcohol over you.  To have your husband love something that isn't even alive more than you is enough to tear you all apart.

All I have ever wanted is for someone to love me best. Someone to really see me and love me anyway.  I am more lonely now that I ever was when I was single.  At least when you are single you expect to be alone and to have to do things for yourself.  =(

Moving on?

It has been a long hard road with D and lately I have felt like I may need to let him go.  We love eachother but we are both so very damaged.  I struggle with agoraphobia, depression, and avoidant behavior.  D drinks and gets mean, he calls me names and gets violent.  His anger triggers my panic attacks, self harm, and suicide attempts.  We feed into one another's madness.  I would let us both go down in a blaze of glory but we have children and my counselor pointed out that our behavior is going to teach the kids to be just like us.  To be damaged.  I cannot allow that.  My mind tells me that I need to go but my heart is still hanging on.  I cannot become my mother and selfishly hang onto a toxic love while it destroys my children.  D is trying to change but I have heard it all so many times that I don't really have any faith that he can follow through.  So I just mope around feeling like I am already alone.  I am angry, I'm hurt, and I am scared of having to face the world alone but I already lived a life much too similar to this with my father......I am not going to perpetuate it with my children.

I told D that I might have to leave.  I told him that me and the children need to be safe and us living apart might be the only way for both of us to get better.  I don't want another man, I just can't be in a situation where I have to depend on D anymore.  I practically do everything myself now anyway so it wouldn't be much different if I lived in a different house.  He seemed to understand but sober rational D is much different than the drunk version that would prompt my leaving.  I don't know what is going to happen.

I'm praying for a miracle but I know it is time to move on if he won't get better.  It makes me sad.  =(     Why can't love just be enough?  Why can't you love someone better?

Introductions and Backstory

I am beginning this blog to exercise my demons, so to speak.  I have spent many years dealing with crippling anxiety and bouts of extreme depression.  I am hoping that by starting this blog and talking about my daily struggles that maybe I can help myself and perhaps someone else along the way.  I am a wife, mother and soon-to-be college graduate.  I have a 3 year old daughter and a nearly two year old son.  I live in a small farming community in the middle of nowhere with my husband and my kids.  

For the first 20 years of my life, I was abused verbally, mentally, and occasionally physically by my father.  My mother was too scared to be alone to leave and I felt obligated to stay because she needed me. I felt a sense of loyalty to her, like it was us against the world.  Later, those feelings would change drastically. I began cutting when I was around 13 and have indulged off and on ever since.  I think the cutting is one of the hardest things for people to understand.  People often assume that self-harm is some sort of misguided cry for attention but that couldn't be farther from the truth.  I cut because physical pain is the only relief when my emotional hurt becomes too much to bare.  As the blood seeps out so does my anger and desperation.  It is like a purge of sorts.

My mother left my dad when I was 20 and I was elated, until I realized that my mother had left him only to run right into the arms of another man.  A man not so different from the one she had just left.  A man that she would choose time and time again over me.....just like she had done before by staying with my abusive father.  I don't think that she did it in a malicious sort of way but rather doesn't ever realize what she is doing.  My mother's new relationship and the deaths of a few friends began my true descent into mental instability.  I felt lost and unloved.  I spent the next few years drinking too much and dabbling in the drug scene.   I became very reckless with my actions and truly didn't care what happened to me.  I used to pray that I would get into a car wreck and die.  I got into a car wreck but only busted up my face.

I met a cute guy at a party and fell in love with him very quickly.  He was in between jobs and so was I so we had a lot of free time.  We spent all our time together drinking, smoking some ganja, and making love.   It was great.  We were only together 7 months when I became pregnant.  It wasn't really an accident.  I was off my birthcontrol because I couldn't afford it that month and I really didn't think I could get pregnant.  I had sex many times with other boyfriends without using birthcontrol or withdrawl and never even had a pregnancy scare.  We had talked about wanting kids and decided that if I did happen to get pregnant we would be okay with it because we planned on getting married eventually anyway.  The guy (we will call him "D") drank pretty heavily at the time but I didn't think much of it because I drank alot too.   We didn't wake up drinking but after we were off the  clock when spent alot of time at the local bar.  When D found out I was pregnant he told me that he would stop drinking so much.  D got transferred to night shift at his new job.  He started drinking at work because his job was quite tedious and one of his coworkers told him how he buys fountain pops and puts Black Velvet in and no one at work noticed.  D got to where he was drinking from the minute he woke up until he passed out.  By the time I realized that he had a problem I was pregnant and very much in love.  

I am still with D and still dealing with his alcoholism.  We have been together for 5 years now and married for 2.  D's drinking problem has cause me to relapse with the cutting and even eat a bottle of Ibuprofen.   Well, I think you are caught up.