Bi-Polar Stronghold

I can't decide if I should scream my head off, or cry. Maybe both?

One of my nephews attempted suicide and he is the eldest son of the brother I hate right down to my marrow.

My dad is the one who told me about this - then asked me if I "knew of anyone in the family who is bipolar?"

What.
The.
Fuck.

Seriously?!

Am I being punk'd here?!

"Well, Dad, YES I do know someone. ME."

Holy hell! I almost choked on the words because I couldn't believe that, still, after all these years, he refuses to believe (or acknowledge) I have mental health issues.

"They want to know what medication you are taking," my dad replied.

"Who's "they"?"

"Brandon's doctors."

I called my brother (who I hate the most) to tell him the names of the meds I take and, of course, he was SHOCKED that I, too, am bipolar and that I, too, have attempted suicide.

Where the fuck have these people been?!

I told my brother, "For all the people who think I'm just 'crazy' - well I'm not. I'm bipolar and it's a bitch of a cycle to be on."

I could hear the wind rustle his hair as what I said flew right over his head.

Rainfalls

I surprised my dad yesterday afternoon when I strolled into the infusion center carrying a piece of pie. I cashed in some personal time, for yesterday and today, in order to see my dad as much as I can before they leave for Florida. He is waiting for his doctor to give him the go ahead so they can get away from the snow and cold. They are hoping to leave on Sunday.

My dad started to cry when he told me how depressed he feels and that he is hoping by finishing out the winter in the Florida sunshine will boost his mood.

Seeing my dad cry is gut wrenching, at best, and when the tears in his eyes overflowed down his cheeks I wanted to cry right along with him.

Identity

As I was doing laundry tonight I realized that every bit of my identity is gone. All of the things that made me "me" have either been taken away from me or simply disappeared.

Everything about me, everything inside of me, everything I thought I knew - poof - gone.

There is nothing to reach for, hold close, or desire.  Nothing to look forward to, anticipate or dream about.

At long last, I have become what I always knew I was - NOT GOOD ENOUGH.

'nuf said.

Crushing Me

"My depression had grown on me as that vine had conquered the oak; it had been a sucking thing that had wrapped itself around me, ugly and more alive than I. It had had a life of its own that bit by bit asphyxiated all of my life out of me.

At the worst stage of major depression, I had moods that I knew were not my moods: they belonged to the depression, as surely as the leaves on that tree’s high branches belonged to the vine.

When I tried to think clearly about this, I felt that my mind was immured, that it couldn’t expand in any direction. I knew that the sun was rising and setting, but little of its light reached me.

I felt myself sagging under what was much stronger than I; first I could not use my ankles, and then I could not control my knees, and then my waist began to break under the strain, and then my shoulders turned in, and in the end I was compacted and fetal, depleted by this thing that was crushing me without holding me."

Andrew Solomon, The Noonday Demon: An Atlas of Depression

Another F*cked Up May

It feels as though I am in a constant state of turbulent emotions. For example, my birthday and Mother's Day were four days apart this year and I know, with absolute certainty, that my boys will NOT be calling to wish me a "Happy Birthday" nor will they be calling to wish me a "Happy Mother's Day".

First of all my kids have no idea when my birthday actually is, even though I'm on FB, where Connor and Matthew can plainly see it. Secondly, when Connor was in preschool/elementary school all his handmade gifts went to stepmom, and that set a precedent that still stands to this day. Not once - NOT ONCE - in 22 years have I received acknowledgement of any kind from Connor. Nada. Zero.  I couldn't even get his dad to automatically order school pictures for me (I would reimburse him when they were delivered), so I have no school pictures of Connor. No senior pictures. Nothing.

Matthew and Hunter, on the other hand, during the years they lived with me, I received their art projects for Mother's Day. Once Matthew moved to his dad's, at age 5, all that stopped. Hunter stopped when he moved to his dad's house.

Am I bitter? No. Hurt? You betcha. I played by the fucking rules where my kids were concerned by never speaking ill of their dads. (Although I had a LOT to say about Connor's and Hunter's dad. I still do.)

So, my birthday, followed four days later with Mother's Day, followed four days later with the 17th anniversary of the beginning of the HCA and I have a gun loaded, safety off, cocked and resting snugly underneath my chin.

All of the above doesn't even take into consideration how close I came to losing my dad at the end of March.

Calming Down

The craziness that has been my life for so long seems to be finally calming down.

The debilitating female health issues that have been plaguing me for the past 9 months are almost completely taken care of, the grueling, time consuming, intense four months of National Ski Patrol (NSP), Outdoor Emergency Care (OEC) classes and final exams are over and, let's not forget, the future of my marriage was finally decided by the other half. Although I disagree with his decision from the bottom of my heart, I also know that there is nothing I can do to change his mind.

I've written several posts about Henry and how I have always believed he was the 'Love of My Life' and my 'Soul Mate', and I will forever stand by those. All of the billions of moments we declared "forever" to each other and that we were "in love for the last time in our lives" (the latter from the movie "Murphy's Romance"), I now have to live with the gut-wrenching reality that it's over.

My mind cannot even begin to wrap around the idea of Henry walking out of my life because that has never been my mindset. It has never even been a fleeting thought. I cannot remember there never being an "us". HenryAndCarrie. CarrieAndHenry. Never one without the other and we loved being that way.

My brain has always been my worst enemy because of it being Bipolar. Replaying all the wonderful memories that I have of Henry and me has made it absolutely unbearable. Taking it to the nth degree of excruciating is the fact that Henry holds so many memories of mine that I lost/never registered because of Electro-Convulsive Therapy.

When he leaves, he takes my memories with him...

Coming Undone

My life is so far out of balance it's all I can do to prevent myself from going completely under. I'm stretched thin with the commitments I've made -- yet that's not how it started out.

Back in December, when the Ski Patrol Director called me and asked me if I was still interested in becoming part of the ski patrol, I didn't hesitate to say yes. With the exception of my marriage being in complete turmoil and my job, I had nothing else going on. Then my health issue multiplied exponentially, Hunter had to be placed in a psychiatric hospital and my marriage continued to suck.

Then the snowboarding season ended and I had a few months of downtime from the ski patrol before starting the Outdoor Emergency Care portion in April.

Now, between attending classes two nights a week, self-study the rest of the week, visiting Hunter because he's still in the hospital, working at a job I love, watching my health continue to deteriorate, and trying to give CPR to my marriage, I am stick-a-fork-in-me-done.

Perfect example: last week were mid-terms. We had a written exam and four scenarios we had to pass in order for the instructors to know we are not complete idiots. (Apparently 90% of our class failed.) The scenarios included a deep laceration of a forearm, a man needing CPR/AED surrounded by live electrical wires, a broken wrist and a dislocated shoulder. In order to pass the scenarios, the instructors have a checklist of things that need to be done and said -- most of it in a specific order.

(The mid-term does not count toward our "grade", it was just a sanity check.)

I failed all of them, except one. I also failed the written portion of the exam. I feel like a big idiot. So many pieces of the scenarios we had to participate in are things I do everyday at my job.

----------> Bang Head Here <----------

I am thisclose to quitting this class and taking it again next year. Except if I do that, I have to wait another year for the coveted red parka.

Ugh!

My adrenalin and nervousness, if measured, would have been pretty close to the moon. No wonder I failed.

4 Months

Closing in on it anyway. There is so much to write and so many emotions to share that I am overwhelmed just thinking about how to put them down on a web page.

Hunter is still inpatient at a psychiatric facility and it's been, as this post is titled, almost 4 months. It's been a long road full of frustration, tears and one very painful "Oh-My-God" when I learned Hunter tried to hang himself with a belt he borrowed from his roommate.

I can't even go in to the range of emotions I felt when I heard that, nor explain to you how it felt to see the obvious signs of his desperation on his neck.

I'm still unsure where my marriage stands.

My job is going very well. I still LOVE what I do and the people I care for. I wouldn't trade it/them for anything.

I am currently taking classes to be an OEC (Outdoor Emergency Care) Technician for one of the local Ski Patrols. We are almost at the half-way point, which means mid-terms are coming up VERY soon. I have already passed my "Professional Rescuer" course for CPR/Airway Adjunct/AED. It was grueling.

This is all I have for now.

Hello, Again

Hunter has been in the hospital 40-something days now. In a way the days have flown by. Mostly though they have dragged slower than molasses. He continues to exhibit the violent, aggressive behavior that landed him there in the first place. There have been slight med changes over the past number of weeks, yet ~ and still ~ there is no magic potion to cast the demons from his brain.

I miss him so much I cannot breathe. He's my buddy, my shadow, my boy. I somehow fooled myself into believing that with him I had a chance to be a mother in ways I could not be with Matthew or Connor. It seems I have failed Hunter too. I feel as though I have lost all my boys.

I hate this fucking disease called bipolar! I cannot express just how much I do. I hate that because of it I had to even make the choice to let Matthew and Connor go. The demons I live with over that decision haunt me constantly and on such a deep level that at times I want to scream "do over!". Yet, the time has past. I lost all of it. Every single nanosecond. I missed so many firsts...I was excluded from their lives. Purposely or accidentally is anybody's guess.

I hate this fucking disease because now one of my children has to live with the same darkness clouding his mind that I do.

I am a horrible mother and a bad wife. I want to lie down in a hole and exhale my very last breath...

No Beds

Hunter is sound asleep on a gurney, approximately three feet from where I sit. We've been in this room inside the emergency department of a large metropolitan hospital since around 6 p.m. last night. Almost twelve hours...tick...tock...

Henry and I brought Hunter here last night because it is something the court had ordered us to do; a psychiatric evaluation. I dragged my feet. I couldn't (still can't) bear having him in a psychiatric hospital again. I thought those days were behind us. Wrong.

It is so hard to believe this sleeping young man, who, snoring softly, and looking so peaceful, has so much venom inside him that he wants to kill people. If you ask him he'll tell you as much and add the names of the people on his list. He went so far as to one night pull a knife out of the kitchen drawer to kill his stepbrother with.

Dear God, please help this man-looking-child survive his lifetime.

Happy New Year?

I wish that ~ more than anything ~ this year will be a happy year. So far it's not looking very good.

I have been loathing sitting down and adding a new entry to my blog. Until a few moments ago, literally, I couldn't put my finger on the reason why. It finally occurred to me that I am afraid of the tears.

I am not scared of the tears themselves, rather I am terrified of the emotions that are bottled up behind them. The emotions are raw, potent and deep and what bubbles to the surface now and again rock me to my core.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Hunter ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

Today we went to court with Hunter regarding his assault and battery charges. In addition to a woman from Child Protective Services following us, Hunter now has a Probation Officer. In exchange for a guilty plea (which we planned all along because Hunter admits what he did), of the three cases pending, totaling six people assaulted, two of the cases (five people) were dismissed. The remaining case/charge is against his teacher.

How did CPS become involved you ask? Well, right before Christmas Hunter pulled a knife on his stepbrother with every intent on killing him. (Henry intervened.) I was asleep at the time of the incident and woke up the next morning to find a very large knife laying on a table near my side of the bed.

I was furious.

When I woke Hunter for school the next morning I bombarded him with questions and statements. "What were you thinking?!", "Do you have any idea what will happen to you if you kill somebody?!" On and on I went.

Up until that moment Hunter had never seen me so livid and I think at first it surprised him. I pushed (verbally) too far and Hunter became frustrated. When he becomes frustrated he gets angry, when he gets angry he becomes violent. When he walked away from me and descended the stairs to the first floor bathroom, I was right on his heels.

As I moved to grab his arm, a quick succession of punches were sent in my direction, landing in various places on my body. I fought back. That is until Hunter grabbed and tangled his one hand in my very long hair. Our bodies were so close together that the only body part of his exposed to me was an arm, so I bit him. HARD. By this time my stepson, Jake, had intervened and had Hunter pinned up against the bathroom mirror and Hunter let go of my hair.

When I retreated upstairs I heard Jake talking to Hunter and Hunter calmed down enough to finish preparing for school. Shortly after, and still shaking, I left for work and Hunter left for school.

Later that afternoon I received a call from the school nurse, someone who has known Hunter and our family since he was in kindergarten. She started off by saying she and the staff at his former elementary school and current junior high school were behind Henry and me 100%. She said everyone knows we are great parents and that we are totally involved with helping Hunter and that it hasn't been an easy road.

Then came the "but"...the teacher noticed the bite mark on his arm and they were required to report it to either CPS or the police and which one did I want them to turn to? I told her to call CPS because the police would defer us to them and it would just eliminate the monkey-in-the-middle.

So that's how CPS became involved in our lives. Although I don't *dislike* the CPS worker, she does have a tendency to annoy me greatly with her idiosyncrasies.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Relationships ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

The stress of all things Hunter are more than enough for me. Unfortunately, on top of that, my relationship with my husband hasn't been what it used to be, although very recently, it has slightly improved.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Health ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

My health is still not the best and more issues have arisen that, in addition to their own set of symptoms, only exacerbate the tiredness and fatigue I already feel from the diseases we already knew about.

~ * ~ * ~ * ~ Activities ~ * ~ * ~ * ~

One thing I am fighting hard for is to stay active and not let the tiredness and fatigue cause me to sleep my life away.

I recently began training for the National Ski Patrol ~ even though I'm a snowboarder ~ at one of our local ski areas. Currently it's on-hill training, twice a week, (plus one duty shift a week) and it totally wears me out. Yet I LOVE the exhilarated feeling I get when I'm learning a new skill and I finally accomplish it, or I'm just free-styling wide-open down the hill.

Being outside ~ and in the cool air ~ is a bonus!

I am still viciously determined that 2010 be a much better year than 2009.

Only time will tell...

Life

Henry does most of the talking. He is so frustratingly articulate and freakishly analytical that I am completely defenseless and find myself frequently in the position of just listening. It's totally unproductive, but I don't know what else to do.

To give you an idea of what I'm up against, his favorite subject is (and always has been) physics. He qualified for MENSA and turned them down. He's also an Electrical Engineer. Matching wits with him is like bringing a straw/spitballs to an AK47 fight! LOL!

I am grateful to Henry for having always been not only constantly employed, but also for having a substantial salary. He has pretty much always sucked at chores, but he takes care of other things that more than make up for it. He sometimes works long hours, he frequently travels to work on jobs ~ sometimes for very long stretches, sometimes very far away and putting himself in danger.

A few years ago he flew for work to Germany, spending a little time in France and Italy, too. The travel status changed to high-risk, the American Consulates were saying "leave foreign countries NOW". His mom and I were begging him to get the next flight out before he was stuck there. Although he refused to fly home right away he didn't get "stuck". His mom and I could have choked him for putting us through that! LOL!

I've never doubted Henry's honesty or integrity.

Henry and I have been together for almost 11 years. Married 7 years last June. In all the years we've been together I have been, or at least it seems like, a constant patient in the health care system. Life with me has not been easy because of it. Our life with Hunter has not been easy either. Especially when we were trying to have him diagnosed. Especially the period of time I was in and out of psychiatric hospitals. Especially when Hunter and I were in different psychiatric hospitals on the opposite sides of town. Especially when I went through Electro-Convulsive Therapy and lost six months of my "life" (memories ~ present at the time and a lot of past).

Henry, it seems to me, is always "rescuing" me from something. I feel like a perpetual damsel in distress. Part of my problem with him, for a while now, is that he doesn't see me as a woman; as his lover, confidante and wife. I feel as though he is always waiting for the next catastrophe to happen so he can swoop in and rescue me again.

Intimacy used to be overflowing in our marriage. Not just sexual, but emotional, too. There was a time when I honestly and truly believed there was no way to tell where he ended and I began. I used to tell him that without him, I didn't make sense.

Our intimacy is gone. We barely speak to each other. If we touch, it's purely by accident.

I can't continue to live life like this.

Random Thoughts

It seems I always think of things to write about when I am not anywhere near my laptop to actually write it down.

For instance today, at work, I was drawing up a flu vaccine when I started thinking about where I've been and where I am now. Kind of abstract, for the most part. As today progressed I zeroed in on more specific things.

Allow me to finish the following sentence:

"I never thought that..."

• ...that I would go back to school and I would finally be living a dream of working in health care.
• ...depression would wrap its chains around me so tightly and drag me so far into the darkness that I would survive more than one suicide attempt.
• ...that I would ever, in a zillion years, bury one of my children.
• ...I would have 11 Electro Convulsive Therapies. Nor did it occur to me the vastness of my memory loss because of them.
• ...my marriage would ever feel less than completely secure and that the turmoil currently surrounding it could be the end of it.
• ...I would be creating my own chaos. Again.
• ...my health, not my mental health, my physical health, would become so problematic and wrought with drama.
• ...Connor would still be so far away.
• ...my niece, Dayna, and I would become so close that I consider her one of my best friends, and like the daughter I never had, and have a daughter of her own that I feel like a grandmother to.

I look at where I've been and I look at where I am now and it boggles my mind that I'm still standing. I have these moments ~ a lot lately, it seems ~ where I feel like an outsider peering into my own life and the only reaction I can muster is to shake my head in disbelief. It's *that* mind-boggling.

Right now it's close to 1:30 a.m. and although I am tired as tired can be, I don't want to go to sleep. I have this overwhelming feeling that if I take time to sleep I might miss something important. Yeah, it sounds silly, but it's how I've been feeling for a very long time now. (The saying "you can sleep when you're dead" just popped into my head.)

My thoughts surf all over the place. All the time. As much as I try to, I cannot shut my brain off and I wake up feeling like I fought an army all by myself.

On the other hand, there are many nights that I want to go to sleep and absolutely never wake up. Thoughts of suicide are always rambling around in my brain, even though I don't speak about them. It's that "sleeping when you're dead" thing. I am 100% certain that a dirt nap will stop the whirling-twirling-spinning thoughts in my head once and for all.

Once and for all.

Be Still by Story Side B

the good times and the bad
(some good and some are bad)
I'm still holding on to you
some days I wanna run
and times I come undone
but I still belong to you
thats how I know that

When I feel like caving in
my heart my soul is wearing thin
I just want to give up
nothing seems at all to add up
can you hear me Lord?
my face is down upon the floor
its then you whisper in my ear
be still and know I'm here

I see a side of you my friend
the same struggles that I have
my heart goes out to you
I know its hard to feel alone
and this world's so unforgiving
I've been feeling that way too
but I can tell you

Is that you?
Is this me
It's sometimes hard to believe that
I am not alone
its not just you
and not just me

we all need to believe that
we are not alone.

~ Story Side B ~

China

Ever dig yourself so deeply into a hole that you are certain, beyond the shadow of every doubt, that you cannot possibly dig yourself out?

Welcome to my world.

We Always Love

We quietly disagree, sometimes even agree to disagree.

We get on each other's nerves.

We always love.

Occasionally we may even wonder why.

At times we talk, yet not communicate, other times it's vice versa.

We fight for love.

He doesn't yell. Neither do I.

Yet I've slammed bedroom doors, house doors, car doors.

I've sought refuge and space on our boat.

We pray for love.

I've cried. And cried.

I frustrate him and he frustrates me.

And not cried because I was physically unable to.

We hope for love.

We've lived.

And learned.

We've hurt ourselves and each other.

At times we dislike the other.

Yet we always love.

There was no delineation where one ends and the other begins.

Now we tiptoe over the crack.

And it continues to grow.

Now my back is firmly planted against the wall...

Car Accident

I was on my way home from school on May 6th, minding my own business, paying attention to the heavy, rush-hour traffic when I heard a SQUEAL! CRASH! At the exact same time I looked in my rear view mirror, I heard another CRASH! as my body pitched forward against my seat belt and my head was whipped so hard and fast into space that the force dislodged my sunglasses from my face. (Later, I found my sunglasses and stuffed Scuba Duck up near/under my brake pedal.) In that same instant I realized I was being shoved forward -- headed for the vehicle in front of me -- and slammed on my brakes in an effort to avoid hitting her. No luck.

When my Jeep came to a stop I jumped out of it, and into the center turn lane, and started walking toward the instigator of the whole darn mess waving my arms and shouting "BRAVO! BRAVO!" For extra effect, I started clapping. The driver, clearly NOT amused at my sarcastic theatrics lowered her head and leaned against her steering wheel.

Finally I threw my arms open and up and screamed "WHAT THE F*&^?!?!?!?!?", turned on my heel, started walking back toward my Jeep and encountered the woman who had been driving the vehicle I hit. She was about as happy as I was and was blaming ME for the accident!

I started apologizing profusely, wrapped my arms around her and told her it really wasn't my fault. My hug disarmed her a little and I stepped back to point to the two damaged vehicles sitting behind my damaged Jeep. Her teenage son walked up just as she was explaining he was just recovering from a broken nose and didn't need to break it again. I started apologizing profusely AGAIN and wrapped my arms around HIM, disarming him, too.

I told her we needed to get our vehicles off the road, since they were drivable) and gestured to a party store about 100 feet from where we were standing and told her I was headed there and would call 911. After I called 911 I called Henry.

The car that initiated the chain reaction crash was in bad shape -- the front bumper and hood were crushed back to the windshield. I didn't have an opportunity to see how much damage was done to the rear of the minivan that hit me, but the front bumper and hood were pretty messed up.

Three of the four drivers (including me) were taken via ambulance to the same hospital emergency room. When Henry showed up I told him about my dancing in the middle of the street and he thought I was joking. When I told him I was serious it suddenly occurred to me that that my public display of displeasure was just plain wrong. On so many levels.


Thank you, God, for another day....

Chest Pains

Driving home from school on May 1st, I received a phone call from Henry -- and it was crystal clear from his breathless first words that something was definitely wrong and, even though Henry didn't say it, I knew that I was to blame.

I have never pretended to know what it's like to be married to a person with a mental illness and I have never entertained the thought that it could be even remotely easy. See, I know what it's like living inside MY head. I know first hand how enormously difficult it is for ME to keep myself on an even keel. I can only imagine what I look like from a different vantage point.

Since the mid to end of February, I have been tango-ing dreadfully with myself over my wildly drastic mood swings and how to keep them on a more level playing field -- and failing miserably. My manic moments are out of this world, but my BZ (BitchZilla) moments are six feet under, and the rapid cycling between the two has put a tremendous amount of stress on Henry because BZ always takes direct aim at him.

Which brings me back to the events leading up to May 1st. Henry, after 9 years of living with intrinsically complicated me and helping to raise my special needs son, finally reached his breaking point. My inability to control, or even tame, the extreme BZ moments over the last few months backed Henry into a corner and, literally, dropped him to his knees. Several of my careless actions in BZ mode pushed Henry to his limit -- causing him to drive himself to the emergency room.

Having tried unsuccessfully several times for Henry to park his Jeep and call 911, I continued talking with him phone as I made my way to the hospital to meet him.

Since that day, Henry and I have spent a great deal of time talking -- and listening -- and trying to figure out which parts of my carelessness have been totally BZ or only partially BZ and mostly Carrie.

The jury is still out...

Boxing Match

I have been beating myself up a lot recently -- for a myriad of things. For Henry winding up in the hospital with severe chest pains, shortness of breath and every other classic symptom of a heart attack. (All of the testing they put him through in 24 hours was inconclusive and he was referred out for a follow-up.)

Within a 13 day period I turned 41, Henry spent the night in the hospital, I was involved in a multi-car accident that has messed up my back, neck and hips (and Jeep) and -- ta-da! -- I broke my nose. Go ahead and laugh. I would be rolling on the floor laughing hysterically if it didn't hurt so damn much!

Numb

I can’t shut my brain off and I can’t keep up. The past few days I have been overwhelmingly restless. I want to be any place I am not currently standing, sitting or lying in. I am sleeping very little and eating even less. I have to make a concerted effort to consume calories and I find no pleasure in it. I weighed myself two weeks ago, for the first time in about two months. I was shocked to learn I had lost 34 pounds. In two months. I know the exact reasons why this has happened: Adderall and angst. The two “A’s”.

Monday my mania was so, well, MANIC, that I re-arranged our basement (sans Adderall). My husband was (quietly) not amused, but he let me go at it. (The basement is pretty much his domain.) Last night, I plowed through more clutter in the dining room and Henry kept a safe distance. Unfortunately, my decreased need for sleep kept him up last night, too. I think I finally dozed off around 4 AM today.

For the past few days I have really been enjoying the convertible feature of my Wrangler and I can’t decide if it’s feeding my mania (wind through the hair, freedom thing) or soothing my soul.

Tonight I had my three-month review with Columbia University on how the VNS device is working for me. The questions are pretty standard – how have your moods been, thoughts of suicide, how is your sleep, how are you functioning. At the end she asks me to rate my life satisfaction. After she defined the question, my answer was “fair” because I am constantly unhappy with several aspects of my life because of the guilt that I am letting consume me.

This is where the battle within me rages, and it is almost out of control. I feel like I am the only person in the world with these particular issues. Realistically, I know I’m probably not, but it doesn’t help one iota in trying to cope with it all.

The VNS review kind of tipped the scales a little further for me and I, literally, ran out on my husband. I threw my laptop in my bag, grabbed my purse and, after telling him I was not leaving because of anything he had done, I sprinted to the door. I plugged my iPod in and tuned it to a song I stumbled on yesterday by Meatloaf called “For Crying Out Loud”. (My wonderful hubby is the master of the iPod libraries, too.) I turned the volume up as loud as it would go and pulled out of our driveway.

Initially I just wanted to drive – to feel the sun, listen to this song and go, well, nowhere. It wasn’t long before I found myself pulling into the marina where our boat is located. After stepping aboard, I just stood in the galley shaking my head. While I’m shaking my head I’m thinking “why are you just standing here shaking your head?” I was rooted in that spot for several minutes trying to stop the whirling thoughts in my head and the overpowering emotions that are (still) sitting on my chin. I am terrified that if I start to cry I will lose control. The emotions are THAT devastatingly deep.

So, for now, I will pack up my stuff, close up the boat, and drive.