I’m Working on It

I’m kind of a nerd and I enjoy psychology, especially interpersonal developmental psychology. I recently happened upon a subject I found super intriguing, attachment theory. For anyone who doesn’t know what that is, it’s a psychological theory that a how a person forms relationships with themselves and others is developed as an infant based on how safe they feel with their primary caregiver and in their home. Basically, if an infant/child has a chaotic environment/relationship with their primary caregiver they are likely going to develop disordered attachments. And on the flip side if an infant/child is brought up in a safe and secure environment with a stable and attentive caregiver they’ll likely be able to develop very secure attachments. There was an analogy I heard about this that I really liked; it’s going to be dramatic of course, but it makes sense. Imagine as a small child playing in the woods you come across a bear. You’re terrified, but not physically hurt. You run home, find your parents, you cry and explain what happened and how you feel. They hug you and comfort you. You feel safe and loved and the experience leaves you stronger. Now, imagine as a child a wild bear lives in your home. Each day you dread going home because you don’t know what to expect. Is the bear going to be there? Is it going to hurt you? Is it going to scare you? Do you need to hide? Do you need to avoid it? What can you do to mitigate the potential chaos that you could come home to? Those two children have vastly different experiences and they are likely going to develop relationships with themselves and with others in very different ways just based on those things. Your relationship with your primary caregiver as a child is going to instill subconscious core beliefs about yourself and about relationships in general. Do you know what your subconscious core beliefs about yourself and relationships are? I’ll go first. About myself: I am unlovable, I am broken, I don’t deserve happiness, I am unworthy, I deserve the bad things that happen to me, I have no worth, I am a nuisance. About relationships: everyone will always leave me eventually, everyone will betray me, love always hurts, no one actually likes me, I have nothing to offer, I will never be good enough. Now, why have I identified those? Because if you don’t identify your “bear” and how that has impacted you and take steps to heal there’s a huge chance you’ll end up being someone else’s bear without even knowing it. The goal is growth and healing so I can raise strong, resilient, secure children.

Death. Death is one of those things I’ve experienced a lot, but that I just can’t quite grasp. I don’t know if I just compartmentalize it or just dissociate from it, but I just don’t understand. It doesn’t make sense to me. You were just here. I can still hear your voice. I have these pictures. I have your contact in my phone. I still have our text thread. How is it that you were just here and now you’re not? You mean to tell me that you’re really gone? That you’ll lever answer my texts again? Or pick up my phone calls? You won’t answer the door when I knock? You were just here. I have proof. I want to cry, but I can’t because it just doesn’t make sense. You can’t really be gone. Where did you go? Heaven is what I choose to believe, because that’s where you belong, but what does that mean? I hope it means you’re no longer in pain. I hope it means there’s no sadness. I hope it means you can hear our prayers. I hope it means that we can still feel you here with us. I hope it means we’ll get to see you again, because I still haven’t come to terms with that fact that you’re gone. I wish you could tell me.

***Warning graphic descriptions of domestic violence***

I’ve debated on writing this for a long time and today I’m finally going to talk about something that I’ve almost never talked about. From about 15 to about 22 I was in a very volatile and all around unhealthy relationship plagued with substance abuse and violence. I’ve never really talked about it for quite a few reasons; it makes me uncomfortable, it makes me feel stupid and weak, and it almost makes me physically sick because thinking about it brings back vivid flashbacks. I’m going to talk about two very specific instances of violence; the first time he hit me and the last time he hit me. So, we started dating when I was about 15 and I moved in with him on my 18th birthday. My birthday was in October and his 19th birthday was in January. We decided to have a huge celebration for his 19th birthday and we got beyond fucked up. We each dropped 5 tabs of acid, he had a handle of Jim Beam and I had a handle of vodka and we had been popping pain killers most of the day. We started the evening at one friend’s house party and he wanted to go to another friend’s place so I decided to call his buddy and ask him to come get us because I figured we were way past the ability to drive ourselves anywhere. That was a mistake. From the moment his friend showed up his whole energy shifted. He was furious and I still don’t exactly understand why. His friend was driving us over to his place and my boyfriend at the time actually tried to jump out of the car on highway and was restrained. When we got to his buddy’s place he refused to go inside and was wandering around in the dark muttering to himself. I had been inside the house just drinking and partying waiting for him to come in and when he never did I went to go see what was up. As soon as I went up to him he grabbed me by the throat and slammed me into a tree over and over again, calling me a whore and telling me he should kill me. A few of his friends came out and intervened. I hid in a back bedroom for the rest of the night. The next morning he had sobered up, drove us home, crying, apologizing profusely, saying he was just fucked up and that it would never happen again. And I believed him because he had never been violent before, I mean I had been with him three years before this and I’d had never any indication that he was capable of hurting me. I forgave, but the violence continued to happen more and more frequently and he became less and less apologetic, it became my fault. The last and very worst incident happened just a few months before I ended up going to jail for an extended period of time and he caught a federal case. We were both using quite a bit of heroin at this time and we’re at his parents house. He had been drinking Jag bombs and was trashed. I refused to drink because I was scared of how he got when he was drunk. It was late and he wanted to go home. He had a friend with us that needed a ride home too. My boyfriend at the time wanted to drive and refused to let anyone else. His friend just hopped in the back without a word, but the two of us stood in the driveway loudly arguing about it for quite a while until I finally gave in and got in the passenger seat. It was pouring rain and his driving was absolutely terrifying and I kept voicing my concern until he reach over and backhanded me in the mouth splitting my lip open. We were in town at this point and I swung my door open while he was driving in an attempt to get out. He slammed on the breaks and I tried to run for it and call for a ride. He hopped out of the car quicker than I ever thought he could and he grabbed me by the hair throwing me to the ground, took my phone from me and stomped on it all the while screaming that I wasn’t going anywhere. We’re in the middle of the road parked at this point outside the car fist fighting over my shattered phone in the pouring rain and his friend just sat quietly in the back seat of the car. I’m not sure how long we were out there fighting and screaming and he finally decided to just let me drive. He got in the passenger seat and the entire time I was driving he would pretend to punch me and then make fun of me for being stupid and flinching. We got on the freeway and were almost to our exit when a highway patrol got behind us and turned on the lights. I pulled over. I was getting daggers from the passenger seat. The cop came up to my window, which was weird because I was driving and he asked me to come back to his car. I had no idea how awful I looked until I got home and looked in the mirror. In his car he said he initially pulled us over because we had a headlight out, but that our car matched a description from several calls for a domestic disturbance. I looked the cop in the eye, with a straight face and told him that was ridiculous, I was fine, we weren’t fighting and I just wanted to go home. He looked so sad and handed me a card and said to call if I needed help and walked me back to my car and we left. When we got off the exit his friend asked if I could just let him out. I wanted him to stay because I was terrified. I let him out and when we got home I waited for my boyfriend at the time to get out of the car and my plan was to drive away, but he must’ve know because he went to get out and then turned around, grabbed the keys out of the ignition and fucking threw them into the abyss of trees in our neighbors lawn. I sobbed in the drivers seat. My phone was shattered useless and now my car keys were gone. He pulled me out of the car and again told me I wasn’t going anywhere and that if I said anything to the cops he’d fuck me up. We went up to the front door of our house before I realized our house keys were on my car keys, I told him this and he just kicked the front door in. When we went inside he teed off on me again and said if I ever tried to leave again he’d kill me and then he casually walked off to bed. I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. I was dripping wet, I had clumps of hair that had been torn out, a bruise on one cheek under my eye, and my lip was split and bleeding. The next morning he even laughed about the situation. He said that when I went back to the cop car he told his buddy “this bitch is gonna send me to jail” and was proud of me for not saying anything to the cop. I wasn’t going to send him to jail because I knew I would just end up paying his bond to get him out. Why, because I was scared of him, but at the time I really did love him. I never took pictures of anything. I never told anyone anything. I got good at applying makeup to not only cover track marks but bruises. I felt like I somehow deserved what was happening to me. I felt stupid and weak that I keep letting it happen and I was embarrassed. I didn’t want to ask for help. I was the girl that got beat up for 4 years and just took it in silence. I didn’t know how things went so wrong I thought maybe things would go back to how they were our first three years of dating, but after that first time it just got worse. Moral of my story is if he hits you once, he’ll do it again and again and again. It never gets better, only worse.

My husband and I have been becoming more active members of our church. I went through RCIA, got confirmed, had our 4 youngest baptized, and we are currently taking marriage classes to have our marriage blessed within the church. We got married a year ago on May 26th with a beautiful, small ceremony on the beach in Florida, but we did this ceremony before we started increasing our involvement with the church, so we think it’s important to now have our union blessed. We were speaking with our priest and he said we would essentially have another short wedding ceremony in the church and we could invite whoever we wanted amongst other things. We could then invite people that didn’t get to come to Florida…and my first thought was “maybe I could invite my dad” I thought maybe an invite to this religious ceremony could be an olive branch to let him know that I forgive him for not coming to my wedding reception. I thought maybe if I did invite him that he’d come….but I realize after some thought that’s not forgiveness…that’s stupid. It’s stupid because I’m not the one that damaged our relationship. I’m not the one that lied, ignored phone calls and text messages, and skipped out on the most important events in my life. He couldn’t be bothered to come to my wedding reception, or send a congratulation text. He couldn’t be bothered to come to any of my children’s birthdays or even wish them a happy birthday, he couldn’t be bothered to contact me on my birthday or any holidays. It’s not up to me to extend an olive branch because I’ve extended enough. Inviting him would only inevitably break my own heart again. All I ever wanted was a first dance with my dad, but I guess that’s stupid.

I get that when I say my husband is my soulmate it sounds cheesy, but I mean it in the most genuine way possible. I firmly believe he was sent to me by God, an answer to my prayers, at exactly the right time in both our lives. Most my life I was plagued with deep rooted abandonment issues and a desire to just feel loved. When I met my husband neither of us were in a healthy place and together we were a wild fire of destruction for years. I had asked him once right when we first met why he liked me and his response is engraved in my memory; he said “I just feel this need to protect you”. That phrase reverberated in my soul because never in my life had anyone ever said anything like that to me. And you know what? He meant it. From the day we started hanging out we were completely inseparable. I wanted to be by his side constantly because with him I felt safe and secure and not just because he told me he’d protect me, but because he showed me over and over again. My husband has always protected me, he has never left me even when I wouldn’t have blamed him, he has always come back for me. I have followed my husband to hell and back and will continue to do so whenever necessary because he has shown me that he’s not going anywhere when things get hard, he’s never leaving me behind, that he will risk himself to save me. I have never experienced a love like the one I have with him and I don’t know if my words will do it justice. My husband has proven to me that real men exist. He has shown me what it means to love fully and to trust someone with your entire heart and soul. Our rocky start and all the hell we went through together just built our foundation stronger. My husband is my rock, my safe space, my confidant, my best friend, my fearless leader and everything in between. I couldn’t be more grateful for him and this life we’re building. My husband is easily the greatest person in my life. He has never wavered nor faltered no matter the obstacle. He’s the man I’ve always dreamed of and spending forever with him doesn’t seem like enough time. Eternally blessed and grateful to call him mine 🤍

Active addiction is like noticing a pothole at the end of your driveway that you have no idea how to fix, so you grab your hose and fill it with water. Then at least know one will know bad it actually is. Bad thing about water is it drains quickly and what you don’t know is each time you fill it when the water drains it deepens and widens the hole. Slowly but surely the hole gets larger and larger and requires more and more water. When it’s filled up it still doesn’t look like anything more than small pothole, but you know the truth. Soon you’re filling the hole with so much water so often it becomes completely exhausting. You have no idea what to do. You think “This hole is going to ruin my whole driveway!” Finally at your wits end, you tell someone “There’s a huge hole in my driveway, I’m afraid I’ve only been making it worse and I have no idea what to do”. You show them the hole and they recommend a concrete guy they know to fix it. You call the guy, tell him what’s going on and he comes and helps you fix the hole and tells you what to do next time you notice a pothole. Addiction is just like this. Except the driveway is you. There’s a hole in you and you keep filling it over and over with drugs, alcohol, sex, gambling, whatever feels good in the moment without realizing the damage it’s causing. You keep filling that hole with nothing of true substance and eventually the hole grows; it takes more and more to just appear normal. Eventually addiction will ruin your entire life unless you acknowledge that there is a hole that you don’t know what to do with and ask someone for help. Without help we keep turning to what we know and what we know will end up destroying us.

I’m going to preface this by making a relatively broad generalization. Men and women differ quite dramatically especially in the way we think. In my experience men are generally more logical while women operate on a more emotional level. Now, with that being said, my husband and I haven’t had a notable fight in probably the better part of a year (he can correct that if need be lol) and would you like to know why? Because I quit picking fights. Literally that easy. I’m not saying that I disregard things that bother me or things that need to be discussed, I’m saying that I’ve been working on how I address situations, which situations actually need to be addressed, noting when I’m being hyper emotional or irrational, and submitting to my husband and letting him take the lead for our family. All of that is easy to say, but a lot harder to do in practice. This is still a massive work in progress for me, but I’m getting better and better at just shutting my mouth and actually listening. One of my main problems was a listening with the intention of responding instead of listening to actually understand. Which meant I would interrupt, unnecessarily voice my opinion and feelings, and ultimately quit listening once I’d gotten myself all worked up over something generally quite small and end up making it a big thing. Sound familiar? My first step in truly submitting to my husband as the head of our household was identifying where I was going wrong with my role. Get ready this is lengthy. First and foremost, I’ve always had a problem with authority no matter who it was. I’ve never been one to do what I’m told just out of pure spite and pride. I’m very good at being selfish when something makes me emotional, ie that hurt my feelings so I’m not going to listen anymore and I’m going to hang onto that feeling for as long as possible and try to make you feel as bad as I do now. I’m very good at taking everything very personally. I’ve been known be become incredibly emotionally unhinged relatively quickly. I’ve been more opt to lean toward emotional or physical violence than actual conflict resolution. I’m also quite good at making myself the victim in most situations. And I’m also great at making myself be heard by any means necessary. There’s probably more, but those are the major faults I could identify that weren’t congruent with healthy communication whatsoever. My first step in remedying this was asking myself if any of that was working for me? No, it wasn’t. Asking myself if I was actually a good listener? No, I wasn’t. Asking myself if my husband has ever said or done anything intentionally malicious to me? No, he hasn’t. Asking myself if he’s ever intentionally done anything to endanger us? No, quite the opposite actually. Asking myself if my husband is a good leader? Yes, he’s proven that over and over. Asking myself if my husband’s intention is always to protect and provide for us? Yes, that’s absolutely apparent. Then what the fuck is my actual issue with just accepting that? If he’s proven that all he wants to lead, protect, and provide for our family then I need to allow him to do that without making it harder for him to do so. I’ve have been working on accepting the decisions he makes for our family because he operates on a more rational level than I do and he always has our best interest in mind. I support and back him up in all his decisions and if I question something I hold my tongue instead of immediately questioning his leadership. I sit and I pray on it, more often than not it ends up making sense and if it doesn’t I ask him about it. I don’t bring it up in a way that leads him to belief I don’t have faith in his decisions, but I’m such a way that expresses that I don’t understand and would like to. I’ve learned that my two cents isn’t needed everywhere even when I want to voice something’s 90% of the time it’s unnecessary because I’m aware it’ll fall on deaf ears and just start something much bigger all because I needed to feel heard. I’ve learned to speak to God in those times. My life is so much more peaceful since I’ve quit fighting my husband’s lead. Letting go of myself desires to control everything and always be heard have made everyone’s lives easier. I know that I’m a a stubborn, opinionated, argumentative person, but picking fights with the one person that’s always on my side isn’t helping anyone. Like I said this is still a work in progress, but so far it’s improved our lives dramatically. I understand that my husband is never the enemy and I’m so grateful for him and everything he has done and continues to do for us.

Okay, I haven’t posted in a while, but I’ve seen something lately on social media the irks me to my fucking core. Let me begin this with a question; what’s the most effective way to deter a behavior? You punish it. So, never punish a behavior you wish to see repeated. Now, let’s get into it. I’ve seen an alarming amount of posts, reels, etc from women complaining that their husbands “help” isn’t up to par. Meaning these women jump on social media to complain that the way their husband made the bed, folded the laundry, or whatever isn’t how they would’ve done it and then berated them for doing it the “wrong way” and went on to redo it themselves and then frequently these same women will post about how much they do and how they wish their spouse would help out more. MA’AM I SAW YOUR POST WHERE YOU PUBLICLY SHAMED YOUR MAN FOR TRYING TO HELP. You essentially punished the behavior you wanted because it wasn’t done how you wanted it and believe me I’ve been guilty of this, but I’ve learned that help is help and that if I truly want help then I need to shut up and say thank you when the help is given. Example: I don’t expect my husband to do ANY household chores. I mean that. When it comes to anything around the house that needs to be done that’s my job. Don’t get your panties all bunched up yet because this is a perfectly fair deal. My husband works his ass off five days a week working long hours at a demanding job so I can work very few hours and spend more time with our children; so I take it upon myself to keep up with the house, cooking and children. Occasionally he’ll do something like decide to cook dinner for everyone, which I love. He makes what I would call and unnecessarily large mess while cooking and although I might give him some shit about it I don’t genuinely complain and I happily clean up afterwards because I only had to do the clean up as opposed to cooking and cleaning. Now if I complained every time he cooked about how big of a mess he made do you think he’d want to cook? No. I accept the help gratefully, because it’s nice of him to do that. I think more people, women in particular, need to learn this. Either you want help or you don’t. If you actually want the help shut the fuck up, say thank you and accept it even if it’s not how you would’ve done it. If you can’t accept the help that’s being offered then shut the fuck up anyway because you must not need help as bad as you say. Rant over 🙂

I know it’s been quite some time since I’ve posted! I was just talking to my husband about it the other day and I told him I’ve just been busy and he said “excuses”. Simply put. After some thought he was right, I mean I have been busy, but definitely not too busy to sit down and write something..anything. In all honesty I haven’t written anything because everything has been going really well and it’s hard to write without sounding redundant when things are going well. It’s a lot easier to write when I’m struggling even just a little bit because writing it out helps me process. That being said I have something I believe is worth sharing; what I have found to be the secret to long term sobriety, gratitude and selfless service. Every treatment I’ve ever been to has preached “recovery is selfish” and I think maybe I had been misinterpreting that message FOR YEARS. Yeah, in the beginning getting sober is selfish. You have to make decisions specifically to benefit yourself in order to get and stay sober BUT after you’ve made those changes sobriety should be selfless. To quote NA “we keep what we have by giving it away”. That’s absolutely correct. You know who deserves you being sober more than you? Literally everyone. Who benefits from you being high? You and only you? Who benefits from you being sober? Literally everyone. Addiction is a cancer that spreads rapidly and aggressively. Addiction hurts not only you but your parents, your siblings, your children, your friends, the entire society. I don’t know about you but when I’m high I am a menace to society. I am not a safe person, I am reckless. Everything I do while high is just to benefit myself regardless of the selfless bullshit story I try to sell. I owe it to everyone around me to get sober, to stay sober, and to constantly make amends for the hell I created. I’ve discovered that constant selfless service is what is going to keep me sober. It’s of course a work in progress because everyone (myself included) are inherently selfish, but recognizing that and working to change that is a daily job. I commit myself daily to selfless service to family, my husband, my children. I had been trying so hard and for so long to figure out who I was that I ended up losing myself entirely. In my service to my family I have been discovering who I am, what my purpose is, and have given my life meaning outside my self and I am so grateful. That brings me to my second point, gratitude in all things. I am constantly reminding myself of the things I’m grateful for especially in the face of challenges. There’s always always always a reason to be grateful. I’m every challenge is a lesson. In every loss is a new door opening. I am trusting the process, I am doing the work, I am moving onward and upward and I am grateful for every single thing. I find gratitude so essential because if you can’t find a reason to be grateful not only the positive things but also in the face of adversity you’re going to find any excuse to fall back to exactly where you were before and you won’t even notice it until it’s too late. That’s one thing I seriously love about my new job. I scoop dog poop. I live in SD and I go yard to yard all day long to scoop up poop and I fucking love it. My husband got me a snowsuit for my birthday and I think it’s the best gift I’ve ever gotten. My job forces me to be grateful for things most normal people wouldn’t be. For example: when I get my son to school and the babies to daycare with time to show up early for my shift, that I can get all my steps for the day and then some, when I wear my snowsuit I get a much better work out, I get to pet dogs at nearly every house, if I work extra hard I get to get off earlier and sweat more, I get to spend more time with my family because the hours are perfect, I get time to listen to all my self help podcasts, I can have all the quiet time I want before everyone comes home from work/school, I get to play outside all day instead of being stuck inside, I don’t have to talk to ANYONE! And that’s just some of the random things just at work I’m grateful for every day. I make a conscious effort every morning and every evening to think of some things I’m grateful for. Things have been going so well…it’s almost weird. I love it and I couldn’t be more proud. My husband and I have been working so hard. We’ve been adhering to the plan and the work is paying off. We’ve got goals in mind and slowly but surely we’re knocking them off the list. We readjust the goals and keep pushing. I think that’s important too, you can’t just quit once you reach a goal. You’ve got to readjust your goals and game plan and keep pushing on. You should never stop reach for more. So, long story short get sober to serve others and stay grateful. You will give your life meaning and find happiness without even trying.

Up until recently I lived my life solely in survival mode. When things would come up that I had no idea how I was going to make them work what would always came out of my mouth was “we’ll figure it out” and I’d always do it. I always figured it out, I always made it happen, I always got it done. I survived by any means necessary. This is where a lot of people get hung up on how I could’ve possibly made some of the decisions I’ve made, clearly you’ve never felt quite as desperate and hopeless as I have felt. And thank god for that because desperation can lead you to some pretty ugly places, let me tell you from experience. I was kicked out of my parents’ home the day after my 18th birthday and I NEEDED to make everything work out purely out of spite. I wasn’t going to go crawling back with my tail between my legs; I was gonna show them that I was fine. I got a place to live, I got a car, I had a job. I was fine. And that’s how I lived my life for years. I made all the ends meet; sometimes just barely, because my pride got in the way of asking for help. My pride said, “If you tell anyone you’re struggling, you’re weak. You have to figure this out on your own” What I didn’t realize was that my pride, my own ego; made me weak. My inability to ask for help was my downfall. I didn’t understand that bending my morals and values to match the lifestyle was making me weak. I played the victim. I was always so proud that we were always able to make whatever it was happen “by any means necessary”. The depth of that statement is hard to verbalize. When it came to making ends meet there was no “too far”. Possessions were disposable and crimes were simply a means to an end. We don’t have enough money for everyone to eat dinner, then I’ll skip dinner tonight and see if there’s a food drive in the morning, if not I’ll have to steal some. We’re short on rent. Well, how short are we? Can we push it to payday or are we going to have to find a lick to hit? The vehicle is out of gas, can I find enough change around the house to walk to the gas station and fill a can or do I have to post something for sale online for pick up only? When it finally clicked that we need to WIN I mean like really really WIN by any means necessary…that meant swallowing that pride that had driven me for so long and saying “we can’t do this anymore, we need help”. We’ve flipped it. We are going to win by any means necessary. We’re no longer just trying to survive, we’re trying to live! No more sacrificing our morals, warping our values, caving to our lesser selves. We are going to do what it takes to win. We are setting an example we would be proud to have our children follow. We are living a life now I’m not ashamed to share with the world. I’m able to look back on what we’ve gone through and thank god we’re out of it. And I’m able to look forward and see a better brighter future. Living the way we were living was hard, but it was such familiar chaos. Living right is a new kind of hard. Almost scary at times. And I have to remind myself it’s not scary because I’m incapable, it’s scary because it’s new. I have been capable of great evil in the name of survival so I know I’m well capable of great good in the name of living. I know I am capable of so much more than I even understand right now. I have accomplished great things already in my life and as a person and I have so much farther I want…I need to go. Because my family deserves it, my children deserve it, I deserve it. Going back to where we’ve come from isn’t an option. Now, we are winning by any means necessary.