Blow #3

I’m back! It’s been a rough year….but I really want to get in the habit of keeping some sort of journal, so I thought I’d start here!

On to the story of Blow #3

I was really involved in my church youth group. Not because I really believed everything that the Catholic church believed, but because these people were different. They weren’t super “churchy,” they were fun. I also liked it because there was no one from my high school in the youth group there, so I was able to reinvent myself when I was there. I grew up in Saline, MI where there was a good mix of farming families, and very very wealthy familes (and not much in between). I started there in Kindergarten and graduated, so I spent my whole young adult life there.  Everyone knew me, it was a small town. I was shy, quiet, and a pushover. But when I went to this new church, there was no one that knew me there, I could be anyone I wanted to be.

I had just gotten back from a wonderful trip with my Youth Group to St. Louis for the National Catholic Youth Conference. We had gotten back late on a Sunday night, but I had a class I had to go to on Monday morning. My mom picked me up early from school so I could go home and get some more sleep after that one class. On the way home she started crying. She said that she had something she needed to tell me. Now, if you know my mom, you know she’s obsessed with her cats. So I assumed she was going to tell me that one of our 4 cats had passed away. Then she said it “your dad and I are getting a divorce”

Now, I know that my parents did fight a lot, but I NEVER thought they would get divorced. I mean, how could my dad leave my mom??? She was paralyzed!! But, they got a divorce. And it just about broke my mom. She turned into someone that I didn’t recognize. She locked herself in her bedroom all the time, and drank more wine than I’ve ever seen anyone drink.

At the time, when I was young and didn’t fully understand everything that was going on, I was so mad at my dad. How could he leave us?? How could he leave her, she needed him! On top of this, my mom is telling me that he cheated on her, how could he do such a thing! There was a stand off in a parking lot in front of some of my friends between me and my dad that I will never forgive myself for (hopefully he has). I yelled and screamed at him, but it wasn’t his fault.

Now that I know what I do about my mom and her mental status, I’m so happy that my dad left. I’m happy that he chose to have a good life, and to get out of that toxic environment. Yes, he moved out and left us there, but he was ALWAYS there for us, always. I will always be greatful for his encouragement, and the love that he has given me, when I wasn’t getting it from my mom. My dad is the most amazing human I know. He’s my rock, he’s my strength. He has always pushed my, and encouraged me to be great. Whenever I had doubts, or concerns about my ability to do something (usually school related), he was there to tell me how smart I was, and how proud of me he was. I will be forever greatful to him, I wouldn’t have finished college if it weren’t for him.

The Fallout From the Storm

My senior year of high school I had a boyfriend. I really did love him, so I guess you can say he was my “first love.” One day, I was hanging out with him, and then I was going to go home, and my mom and I were going to go see a movie. She was at home with my little brother waiting for me. I drove home, and for some strange reason that day I took a different path home (my neighborhood was  a circle, and we were at the opposite end of the circle as the entrance, so instead of turning right to go to my house, I turned left this day for some reason). When I drove up within site of my house, I froze. There was an ambulance and a police car in my driveway. I new it was my mom. I threw my car into park in the middle of the road, ran out of the car, leaving the car on and the door open and ran up to my house. A police officer stopped me at my moms bedroom door, but not before I could see her. She had attempted suicide he said, she overdosed on sleeping pills. My brother, who was in 8th grade, was at home, in the living room, watching tv the whole time. The police officer told me what was going on, and that they were going to take my mom to the hospital to pump her stomach. He then asked me if I could move my car out of the street. As I was walking through the front yard, I recieved a phone call, from my older brothers girlfriend. I don’t really know how this all happened this day, but someone was watching over me. I explained to her what was going on, and her and my older brother met me at the hospital with my younger brother (at least I think that’s how it went, they might have come to pick us up, but I remember bits and peices of this memory, flashing in my head like a movie). But, before that happened, my dad pulled up to the neighbors driveway with a close family friend. He knew about what was going on? How did you know? I yelled at him again to just leave, that this was all his fault, and he just needed to leave. I later found out that he was the one that called the police. She had called him and told him that she “just wanted to sleep forever,” luckily, he took that as a sign, and made the call. Then, he came to check on us, and I just yelled at him.

At the hospital, my mom was forced to drink carcoal to make her throw up all the pills. I remember when we were allowed to go back to see her, she had charcoal all over her mouth, and her mouth was black. It was disgusting. She kept telling us that she wasn’t trying to kill herself, she just took too many pills on accident. This was all just a big mistake. We didn’t believe her, and niether did the doctors at the hospital. My brother signed her in, involuntarily, to the in patient program at a local hospital (either that, or he was able to convince her to go, I don’t know, I wasn’t in the room. This was also my first experience with my mind going blank, and just staring in to space).

I remember visiting her every day. One day, she had me climb into the hospital bed with her and lay with her. She began to cry and told me that she never meant to hurt us so bad, and she would never do this again.

I remember going in to her bedroom afterwards, and finding the pill bottle spilled out on her nightstand. Pills crushed and strewn about. I decided that she couldn’t come home to a room like this. I cleaned her room, and made sure there was no evidence of what happened when she came home.

I would later, much later, be diagnosed with PTSD. I still have panic attacks to this day when I don’t hear from her, or I left on a bad note. I’m constantly worried that I will fidn her again, but this time, it will be too late. This would be the first appearance of my panic attacks.

What a horrible life so far for my mother, right? Oh just wait, there is more…but that’s for another day, another post.

Thanks for reading, until next time.

Junney

Stay at Home Mom Status

Let’s take a break from the sad horrible stories of the past and focus a little more on the future.

I spent the evening at dinner with my husband, our two girls,  and my husbands family. I was sat across the table from my mother in law, who held my 6 month old for the majority of the evening. We were talking about how stressed out I was from the day we had at home, and how I needed a couple glasses of wine. She then continues to lecture me on how “one day when I’m in my 50’s I will look back and miss those crazy days.”

Today there was a post on facebook from another stay at home friend:

And someone commented on the post that she would “miss these days soon.”

Someone please explain to  me why this is something that is acceptable to say to a parent who had a stressful day at work? Just because we might complain that we’re tired, or stressed from the day doesn’t mean that we don’t love our children.

For some reason it is acceptable for my husband to go to work all day, and sometimes come home and complain that he’s had a busy week, or that works been stressful lately, he’s tired, etc. and he seems to get sympathy from everyone. No one says anything like, “don’t worry, it will get better,” or “one of these days you’ll look back and miss this time.”

I just want to make it very clear that I LOVE my job. I NEVER thought that I would want to be a stay at home mom. I didn’t even know that I wanted to have children. And then I had my first born and went back to work part time. I left a little while later and never looked back. I LOVE spending every day all day long with both of my girls.

Stay at home mom is one of the hardest jobs in the world. You NEVER get time off. If you do, you feel bad that your husband is home with the kids and he works all day so you end up staying home with everyone. On top of it being one of the hardest jobs? We are constantly being watched by everyone at all times.

Some days we have a stressful, tiring day as well, but for some reason when ever I say something negative about the day, or how tired I am, I am always left with a response such as “it will get better soon,” or  some version of “you will miss this time some day.”

Um. What? How about hey, you’ve had a stressful day, well you deserve to complain a little and have a glass of wine or two at dinner. Yeah, I f*ing know that I will miss this time when my children are little and sweet. I get it. But this is my job. It gets stressful, it gets tiring, and it’s downright hard sometimes, just like my husbands job has all of that. Why is it so different?

And no, technically we don’t have “a boss” to stand over us and watch our every move. We have thousands of boss’s watching us very closely and judging our every move.

 

Blow #2

I’ve never known if I officially new the whole story or not, as my mom tends to only give bits and pieces at a time.

It started one Saturday morning, I know it was Saturday because my older brother and I were downstairs in our split level house watching cartoons. My mom was on the main floor of the house lying down on the couch in the front room. She was complaining that her back was extremely painful.

Her and my Dad had finally made the decision to have a neighbor come over and watch us while they went to the hospital to get her checked out. As she was getting into the car in the garage one of her legs when numb. She couldn’t feel anything, or move her leg at all. By the time they got to the hospital her other leg had gone completely numb as well.

The doctors couldn’t figure out what was causing this to happen right away, my Mom says all she remembers is them poking her with needles to see if she could feel anything. She spent a long time in the hospital, several weeks.

The diagnosis was not good. She had a disc in her back rupture. This happens all the time.

 

However, my Mom had a special case. When her disk ruptured it ruptured in such a way that it severed part of her spinal cord. The prognosis? Living the rest of her life confined to a wheelchair because she is paralyzed from the waste down. She had to go through A LOT of physical therapy as well as mental therapy.

I remember watching her from my bedroom trying to walk with a walker, or arm crutches. I remember her giving up almost immediately and crying in her chair. Then she would spend the rest of the day in bed. I was so upset that she just gave up like that. I knew that she could do it if only she put the work in. But, alas, it was not in the cards for her.

She seemed to get better as the years went on. We had to move to a home that didn’t have any stairs at all. She depended on the neighbors help a lot when my Dad was a work and she had the baby, my little brother, only 1 year old.

She learned how to drive and even got a “chair topper” that goes on the top of her car and lifts her wheelchair into it to store it on top of the car while she’s driving. She got hand controls in the car so she would  press the gas and the brake pedal with her hands.

She became more and more independent as time went on. But she spent a lot of time sleeping, and a lot of time in bed.

Blow #1

…continued from yesterday.

Then, tragedy struck.

My Mom’s Dad had shot and killed her Mom and then killed himself.

There are several different stories from the different siblings as to why my Grandpa finally got to the breaking point and did this. Some say that she was having an affair with a man in prison and he was to be released soon. Others say it was because she was getting her GED and he was afraid that she would leave him. My Aunt was the one that found them lying in the kitchen floor, I seem to remember someone saying something about the dishwasher being open as if she was in the middle of emptying the dishwasher.

Since we were all so young all we were told was that they just died together at the same time. I always imagined it as them lying on the floor in the kitchen holding hands.Instead my Aunt has this horrible bloody murder suicide picture in her head that she probably can’t get out of her head. She attempted suicide a few years ago.

The First Day of the Rest of My Life

Hello! My name is Joy and I am an adult child of a Borderline Mother. I am 31 years old, married to the best man in the world, and have the two most AMAZING daughters in the whole world. I have a Bachelor’s degree in Interdisciplinary Studies in Social Sciences – Human Resources and Society, with a cognate in Sociology from Michigan State University. I have a mother and a father who are divorced. My Dad lives about 4 hours away with his new wife. My mother lives 20 minutes away. I have two brothers, one two years older, and one 4 years younger. I am currently a stay at home mom, and I love it!

My main focus for this blog is to keep track of things on my journey to find my true self.

I was raised by my mother and father, my father is a recovering alcoholic, who also battles depression. My mother hasn’t been officially diagnosed (that I know of), but has most of the traits of Borderline Personality Disorder.

Growing up I assumed we lived the normal family life. We would go on road trips, and sing songs together, have dinner every night at the kitchen table at the same time, go to concerts, and fun activities together. It wasn’t until after I had my first daughter, and started going to a therapist that I felt comfortable with, at the age of 28, that I was made aware of the fact that I did not live a normal childhood and nothing about my life was normal.

Let’s start at the beginning….

My parents met when they were in high school together. They grew up in the same small town in Ohio their whole lives. They weren’t friends during high school, they didn’t start dating until after high school. My mom tells me stories of how she was the wallflower and he was the football jock. My dad was raised by both of his parents, he has 2 brothers and 1 sister. My mom was raised by both of her parents as well, she has 2 sisters, 1 brother, and 1 cousin whom her parents adopted (more on that later).

My dad graduated college and my parents were married. My dad went through AA and has been living a sober life ever since. They had my brother in 1982, followed by me in 1984, and my brother in 1988.

Sounds pretty normal so far right? To Be Continued…