Abandonment isn't Always Physical

One thing a person with borderline personality disorder struggles with is the fear of abandonment. A person will at times resort to a number of ways to prevent that abandonment including extreme people pleasing behaviors. But abandonment isn't always physical. The person doesn't have to leave to be abandoning his/her partner. The abandonment can be purely emotional. That can make it much harder to endure. Because here, the person is still there physically but isn't there to connect with you emotionally. You're stuck, feeling rejected and unsure how to change things. What's worse is that trying to change things by talking to the person who is abandoning you can lead to invalidation. When the person doesn't see that he/she is disconnected or worse, sees that they are but blames you for it, what can you do?

Relationships are like gardens. 

You can plant the seeds or put the seedlings into the ground but the responsibility doesn't end there. You have to continue to nurture your garden. You have to water it, you have the prune the dead leaves, kill bugs. You don't just leave your garden wanting for water or nurture. If you do, it will likely die. Sure you can kind of keep it alive by watering it just before it totally dies off, you can probably do that for a long time but the garden will never fully thrive, it will never reach it's full potential of beauty without being nurtured and watered and taken care of.

That has been the state of my garden for a long time. I've hung in there, nearly dead, desperate for that bit of water and when I get it, I drink it up greedily and I'm able to continue on for a little longer. And yet, it's not enough anymore. A life worth living is not being a garden in a constant near state of death. Being abandoned by a gardener who only waters me when he wants to see my flowers does not make my garden beautiful and vibrant. I can not rely on him to give me what I need.

I've spent many years trying to please people. 

Growing up, it was my parents. I worked hard to get good grades only they weren't celebrated. I often did what they wanted even when it wasn't what I wanted. It did nothing. It didn't make them love me any more and in the end, when I finally did start to break away, it lead to tragedy. Not that I'm at all responsible for that tragedy but their need for control (control I was trying to take back for myself and away from them) did lead to their own impulsive and destructive choices.

And my reaction to that was to make sure that didn't happen again. Don't make waves. Don't make anyone mad. Conform. And I did that and slowly, I lost myself. And like it was with my parents, it wasn't enough. It never is. And now, as I'm finding myself again, the rejection worsens. The divide grows deeper and the garden is left longer and longer without care and water.

But I know better now. 

I'm not 23 anymore. I have learned that my happiness is important and while others may abandon me, I'm still here for me. The only person I need approval from is me because this is MY life. It is up to ME to make my life a life worth living, to decide what values I will live by. I can't live for others anymore. It doesn't make anyone love me more or want to be with me more because it's not real. Holding back who I really am from others keeps me from living life fully. I can no longer let my fears of abandonment keep me from living a life worth living.

Seeking Serenity

After my last post (and that bit of a breakdown there), I've been doing a bit of thinking and I've made some decisions that I've been needing to make for some time. I would love to hear from my readers on this subject. Tell me what helps you clear your mind when it's jumbled up with emotions. How do you reach that place of Wise Mind?

May I have the SERENITY...

Even though I'm an atheist, I have a fondness for The Serenity Prayer. It's simple and what is requested is something we all can use. While I don't seek for a higher power to grant that serenity to me, I still seek it for it is something I need.

To ACCEPT the things I cannot change...

This is includes the people I cannot change as well. Some things are just outside of my control. I can only change myself. I can certainly hope that those whose behaviors are destructive will change but at some point, I have to do something about it when their behavior has an affect on my life.

The COURAGE to change the things I can...

This one is going to be hard. I've come to a decision about things that I will need to change in order to make my life a life worth living. They were be changes that will not be happily accepted by others. However, I cannot continue to sit in the situation I am in. A quote I saw today by Paulo Coelho says this:

“You drown not by falling into a river, but by staying submerged in it.”

Staying in the situation I am in is drowning. I was preparing for things to be more difficult next year as I finish my last semester and prepare to work. This is insane. Things have not changed and things will not change unless I change them.

And the WISDOM to know the difference.

It's taken me a long time to come to this point. It's easy to get confused on what we can/cannot change. It's easy to think that if you change, others will change as well. That doesn't always happen though. Sometimes, the people we start on the path with no longer can stay with us. We move on, they don't. I've struggled with accepting that and with making the changes I've needed to change. Staying is easy though frustrating. But staying is not helping me create that life worth living. I have changed. My values and goals have changed. I know what I want in my life. Unfortunately, those values and goals are not the same and I will no longer continue to live my life for someone else.

It will take time. It will not happen right away. But I have decided that I cannot live my life this way anymore. I have to change my situation. I can no longer stay submerged in the river.

I'd love to hear from you. Have you found yourself "drowning"? What did you do to get yourself out of that submerged state? What things have you had to accept instead of change?

This is How You Drown

It starts small, a minor annoyance here, some frustration there. It's not worth it to even mention but it sits there simmering because you know you can't really talk to the person who is causing those frustrations, not when you know you'll only be invalidated.

There's the loneliness too, a lack of real social contact. You're busy though and not much of an extrovert anyway but it hurts to be excluded. Again, you can't really say anything though. What's the point, first of all? And really, you're probably making too big of a deal out of it anyway.

But it grows. You push it aside by being busy. The semester is hard and you're just barely keeping your head above water there. So you really focus on it, especially as the semester gets closer and closer to the end. You might just pass that class, maybe even get a grade above a C. You just have to keep on going a few more weeks.

In the meantime, everything else goes to heck because no one helps. Everyone expects you to do it all. Sometimes you try to in a spurt of motivation (or maybe procrastination because dang it, that one class is REALLY hard and you just don't want to deal with it right this second) but it never gets fully caught up. The tension increases but you struggle on. Sometimes you want to ugly cry but you don't. Conceal it, don't feel it. Don't let it show. You just hold it all in as best as you can. Sometimes little fights will happen but nothing big. There are problems but they aren't dealt with because you just don't have the time. Just a few more weeks to go and then I can deal with everything, you think. I just need to get through this semester.

The semester ends. You did well and made the President's List for the third semester in a row. Now it's time to get to work. You're going to tackle everything you're behind on, get everyone on a schedule. You're now home full time for the next four months. You have plans to write, blog, clean, eat better, maybe even exercise.

It's not so easy to transition to that summer vacation mindset. You're feeling unmotivated and tired all the time. You end up having to pay the rent because your husband didn't have the money for it. What?! Where did it all go?! You're frustrated and angry but determined that this too will be conquered over the summer months.

Then crisis hits. The electricity goes off because the bill (now over $1000) isn't paid. It's more than a month after April and even though there was an arrangement made, your husband didn't follow through. "I didn't think they would turn it off!" he exclaims. You have nowhere to turn. He tells you not to call your sister and when you call the coaching phone, no one responds. The electricity situation is remedied but the power won't be back on until the next morning. You shut down. No one sees it as an emergency. Perhaps it's not really but there's nothing to really distract you from it either. No power means no light, no power to charge devices, no wi-fi. You're angry with your husband because he was SO irresponsible but he won't even allow you to say anything without him turning your anger issues back at you. Besides, to him it's a big, fun, adventure like camping. He goes out and gets subs for you and the kids and you take two Xanax so you don't feel anything anymore. Conceal it, don't feel it, don't let it show.

Your sister is having her own crisis so can't help when you do finally call her. What can she or anyone do anyway? She calls the next day when you post that the power might not be back on before 3:30, more than 24 hours after it was turned off. She reassured you about the food (which would have helped the night before), then came by to take you somewhere for coffee and breakfast since you can't make coffee without electricity. At least the girls are at school and can get both breakfast and dinner.

The electricity thing gets resolved but the response from the therapist when you see him is not helpful. To be honest, you're hurt and you feel rejected when you're told that there shouldn't be more than a session a month at this point. The idea is to find NON therapy support. Yeah, lots of luck with that. That's not something that's worked well in the past.

You're back to where you were before though. Problems aren't resolved. Money is being spent on dinners out because you're not home due to babysitting. Never mind that it was a Friday and Friday is usually pizza night. Money is also being spent on a party that's planned by your 10 year old daughter. Not that a party is a bad thing but it was something thrown together with no thought to the money situation at all. Meanwhile, 20% comes out of each check for the tithes and your husband plans to pay for the two girls to attend Bible camp over the summer even though they're very likely to be eligible for financial assistance. After all, you're already receiving food stamps and the county very quickly paid off most of that $1000+ electric bill with energy assistance.

The lack of motivation doesn't improve and on top of it, you become sick with a cold. It doesn't take long for another crisis to come up though this time, it's something entirely trivial. Still, those emotions have nowhere to go anymore. It's been building and building and finally it erupts like Mt. St. Helens.

You're drowning and no one can see you are drowning. Worse, they're drowning you in the process.

The Challenge of Summer Vacation

Another school year is done for me. The girls have another couple of weeks and then they'll be off school as well. It's been a difficult two weeks for me. The last few weeks of school, there was a lot to do and my focus was all on that. I had tests to study for and take, assignments to complete, papers to write, classes to attend. There was something going on nearly every day. I was either on campus or at home working on assignments. Then it all abruptly ends and trying to go from school mode to non-school mode is really hard for me. I find myself adrift, not sure what to do or where to start. The apartment is a disaster but absolutely overwhelming. My sleep schedule is trying to adjust because even though I have no classes, I still have to get the girls up in the morning for school. After they leave though, it's very tempting to just go back to sleep for a couple of hours...or four...

I'm trying to find things to do, ways to improve myself. I want to get back into blogging more and maybe, finally, work on some writing. It's hard though. I'm finding motivation difficult. Things have come up this month that have been especially challenging for me and I have not dealt with them well. I suspect there may be a bit of depression going on there under the surface. The spring months, for some reason, have never been easy for me and for whatever reason, this time of year I do tend to struggle more with depression.

I need to start from the beginning, create goals and write them down. What do I want to accomplish in the next 3-4 months. This will likely be my last "summer vacation". Next year, I graduate from my programs and will hopefully be getting a job after that so if there are things I want to accomplish, THIS is the time to do it because once I'm back in school, I probably won't have the time to really focus on those things.

What do I want out of my life? Though I have things I want to focus on over the summer, ultimately, I really want to start having some life goals of my own. It's been easy to sort of drift about and live day to day but that only goes so far. Creating a life worth living for me requires life goals. What do I want that life to look like?

What do you do when you're feeling unmotivated and stuck? How do you get yourself unstuck and going again?

Are the Ten Commandments the Best Way to Determine One's Morality and Ethics?

This was an article I had published in the local newspaper for the monthly Freethinker's Perspective. Sadly, the paper has decided to end the monthly column. Still, I'm grateful for the chance to step a little outside of my comfort zone and get something published for people to read.

It may look like another of David Letterman’s top 10 lists but the Ten Commandments are no laughing matter. It is seen as THE foundation upon which morality is based and there are numerous places in the United States where the commandments are highly displayed, even here in the city of La Crosse. But should the Ten Commandments be the yardstick upon which we judge the morality of others? I don’t believe so. I think there are a number of flaws with the commandments and as a result, we should all strive to look at a new set of commandments, one that fits in with today’s diverse society.

First of all, one of the big problems is that the Ten Commandments is a list of “Thou Shalt Nots”. In my experience as a parent, telling a kid not to do something is nowhere near as effective as telling that child to do something instead. Most parenting books these days will tell you that as well. We also saw how well this worked in Genesis.

Next, let’s look at the first few commandments that specifically look at worshiping God. While understandable in the process of setting up a very homogenous nation of the ancient world, that’s not the case today. Not only is the US rather diverse religion-wise, but the rest of the world is as well. Therefore, these 3 or 4 commandments (different religions have variations on the numbering of the commandments themselves) strike an ‘us against them’ chord which is completely at odds with having a peaceful world. In fact, many of these Ten Commandment monuments went up during a time of great discord: The Cold War, a time where the United was strongly against anyone who might at all agree with the ideas of communism even going so far as to say that atheists were a threat. This was not a time of peace. It was a time when differences were considered a threat. And one of those differences had to do with which god one worshipped or did not worship.

Honor thy Mother and thy Father. Why the focus on them? Why not honor those who are older and wiser? Why not honor those in authority? Was mother and father chosen for a particular reason? Was God’s own failure in Genesis to get his children to honor Him by not eating from the tree of knowledge the reason behind this particular commandment?

Thou shalt not kill. Why isn’t this the first commandment?! This to me should be the most important commandment of all in any society! Not only that, let’s expand that to include respect for the earth and for other living things in order to leave our planet better than we found it. As a species with the ability to change and affect our environment greatly, this should be one of our highest responsibilities.

Thou shalt not commit adultery. I remember asking about this one when learning about the Ten Commandments in Catholic school and my mother quickly saying that that was a grown up thing and not to worry about it. While cheating can cause great pain in a relationship and a family unit, it’s something that, as a moral benchmark, has become largely ignored. Not to mention, the burden of the commandment itself was usually placed on the female which was horribly unfair.

Finally, we have stealing, lying, and coveting. While there are laws for the first two, there’s enough of it going on inside the letter of the law that has me thinking that many people don’t consider them commandments to go by anymore, especially during election season. And coveting I have never understood. Why is it bad to covet? Even God Himself talks about being a jealous god. If humans are made in His image, then jealousy and therefore coveting would be natural human traits. I can understand where it would be bad if the coveting lead to stealing, adultery, or murder. But beyond that, coveting is almost needed. It’s how the economy thrives! Maybe God was thinking of Cain and Abel when He came up with this one?

People say that morality comes from God (which is apparently why atheists can’t be moral) but I have a hard time going along with commandments which focus primarily on worshipping a jealous deity and others that people find easy to get around anyway, especially when their god tells them it’s okay to as He does many times in the Bible. I believe in order to have a better world and to get along better as humans, we need new commandments, or at the very least some amendments, commandments people of all beliefs can agree on and follow for the betterment of humankind.

When religious beliefs (or lack thereof) cause massive familial strife.

Over a month ago I had an article posted in the local paper. It was an opinion piece, written for the monthly Freethinker's Perspective. With a limit of only 800 words, naturally I could not be long-winded and explanatory on some of the points I made. It was an article on the 10 commandments and whether those commandments should be used as a basis for morality. In other words, should a person's morality be based on whether or not he/she followed all 10 commandments.

In the US, there are monuments placed in areas that are supposed to be secular. The government is not supposed to endorse a specific religion. However, many of these monuments were placed during the Cold War, a time where anyone who was an atheist was seen as a threat because atheists were communists and communists were evil. That thought has still prevailed along with another thought: those who are Muslim are also evil because of the events that took place on September 11, 2001.

So, right off the bat, with the first commandment, we have established an us vs them mentality. And then when you look at the commandment for the Sabbath (by the way, WHICH Sabbath are we even talking about here?) when you have the majority of Christians following a Sunday Sabbath, a number of Christians as well as Jews following a Saturday Sabbath, the division occurs even more. The 10 commandments in the US excludes quite a few people and the commandments themselves are not entirely clear. And that was my point for the article, to look at some of these commandments and to say, NO, this is not a good way to judge how moral someone is.

The article was received pretty well online though there were a couple of snarky comments regarding my weight and my hair (unfortunately had to submit a head shot for it which in and of itself went well beyond my comfort zone because I'm not overly photogenic) and how that should kill my credibility for writing that kind of a piece but there was no actual criticism on the article itself. No one could rationally discuss any issues with the actual article.

The president of the freethinker's group I'm in suggested I consider seeing if the Freedom From Religion Foundation would be interested in publishing it in their monthly column. Sure, why not? And they accepted it so it's going to be published for other freethinkers and atheists to see. Cool! And my younger sister was totally impressed and shared the news and the article. I hadn't really shared it on my page because I have a lot of Christian friends and figured some might take offense and really, I tend to not post a lot regarding my beliefs because I have people of different beliefs as friends on my page.

However, I made the mistake of mentioning it to my one older sister in Chicago. And she wanted to see the article. So I shared it on her husband's page which was the biggest mistake EVER. On the 21st, she calls my younger sister at 4 IN THE MORNING ranting and raving about how I was going to go to hell and how they needed to have an intervention for me because I was being brainwashed by my freethinker friends.

If only it had ended there...but it didn't. Two days later, my BIL posts my article on my page and included this note:

Did you not know, that these 10 commandments, occurs almost completely the same, in the Qur'an(Muslim), in Buddhism, In Hinduism, in Confusiousism etc? In all the world's religions, for TRUTH IS TRUTH. Though in this day and age, it's easy to pick on Christianity. I fear you only wrote this, from your failure with your husband. Who as u said, won't even read it. Why throw God under the bus? Did u consider everyone else you'd offend writing this? Maybe before you write these opinions, you should know what your talking about, by actually researching the subject.

This was taken word for word so spelling and grammar is not corrected. And I would have been fine with discussing with them what specifically they had issues with. Well, one of the problems seemed to stem from what I wrote on the commandment of honoring thy mother and father. I merely asked why the focus was on that specifically and to me, it seems to be very broad in scope. But these are the same people who went off on me, saying I was not honoring my parents because I testified against them in their trial, the trial they both had for committing MURDER which is also a commandment but apparently not as important as honoring your mother and father because I guess, honoring your earthly parents correlate to how you honor your non-earthly parent(s).

And it wouldn't even be that bad if it hadn't escalated to them attacking me for having my sister send presents for my kids (which I never obligated her to send and one year even told her NOT to send anything because John was sick of how much stuff the girls had) and how I am a liar and a gold digger. So again, no rational discussion on what they specifically disagreed with in the article but rather guilt trips and attacks (not just to me either but to my younger sister as well).

This is a trigger for me. I do still suffer from some post traumatic stress from the murder and one of those ways is that it has taken me a really really long time to feel comfortable with actually doing things for ME and not for other people. I am a massive people pleaser and in the years following the murder, I stopped doing a lot of things for myself and did what everyone wanted me to do. This included religious beliefs. This included a lot of the things I have done as a parent that I have not fully agreed with but did because I wanted to keep the peace. I lived my life for everyone else because stepping outside of that would be wrong. People would become angry with me, and consequences would happen, sometimes bad ones.

The day before my BIL's murder, my mother had a fight with him over the phone and she called me ranting and raving. I didn't take her side. I tried to be neutral, pointed out both of them were wrong. She started making threats about wanting him dead, I told her to knock it off. She abruptly ended out business relationship, wanted to come over and pick up stuff for the business and a computer she and my dad were getting and she let my dog out the front door by the street then called me and told her to get her before she got hit. And I relied on her for transportation. And then when she and my dad came over for the stuff the next morning, my father shot and killed my BIL.

SO...this is not something I deal with well but I worked to be calm and rational and tried to say hey you don't have to send stuff if you don't want to, I'm not making anyone send anything. And when it just kept going, I said enough. I will not discuss it anymore; I stand by what I wrote and I'm not changing my mind. I am not going to change my religious beliefs just because someone wants me to. If I were going to do that, I would be in the Dells right now with my husband and children! But I'm NOT! I am giving him the latitude to teach them his beliefs (though I don't agree with them) and I'm here doing what I enjoy which is going to school and learning what I need to learn for my degree. But I'm the worst person in the world because I don't believe in a god. Oh, and I'm crazy too, I guess.

He deleted it, along with the comments from friends who were defending me but not before he made one more comment that got to my email that basically said my sister will never forgive me for this because I turned against blood.

Fine. Whatever. I still remained friends with them on FB because I didn't quite know what to do though my therapist advised doing a pros and cons on doing a DEAR FAST (DBT terms) and I didn't want to totally cut them off without thinking it through for a little bit. In the meantime, because of the "fight", my sister can't send my younger sister her birthday presents or anything for her or her kids. She's getting punished for not taking their side against me and agreeing with them about my hell-bound soul.

Final straw was a meme he posted that showed how to convert an atheist by having the pilot sky diving holding a sign saying, "I was your pilot." This would then scare the atheist to convert at the last minute before inevitable death because duh, no pilot. Goes off the whole there are no atheists in foxholes argument (which is not whatsoever true). He had gotten this from a page he apparently now likes called Freedom From Atheists Foundation.

I cried. It came after a long day for me where I was feeling lonely, missing my family, feeling left out. It hurt. I do have feelings; if anything, I probably feel TOO much.

I called my younger sister and told her I would be deleting and blocking both BIL and older sister and why. I wanted to warn her because I more or less figured that she will get even more backlash from it. She understood. And it's not like she even needs to be dealing with all of this crap having had emergency gallbladder surgery just a week ago and still dealing with some complications from it. But hey, being RIGHT is more important to some people than considering the feelings of others, ESPECIALLY when it comes to forcefully converting more people for their god.

Seriously, with Christians like these, who needs Satan? And worse, they can't even SEE the hypocrisy of their actions.

It's nice having a little time to myself.

John and the girls are off in Wisconsin Dells this week for the yearly Feast of Tabernacles event. Since I'm in my 4th week of school, I stayed behind and to be honest, I find it to be a nice 8 day vacation from the normal life of heavy responsibilities as a parent. That may sound mean but as an introvert, it's the recharging I desperately need and it gives me time to take care of myself, something I don't always have time to do when I'm taking care of three other people (yes, sometimes the husband needs as much care as the two girls!).

Today was a good example of this. For the last two years I have had an IUD. I do not want anymore children but going to a Catholic hospital does not make it easy to have a tubal done, especially when the one doctor who is able to at the other hospital has concerns about my size. An IUD was a good second choice and seemed to work fine until my period decided to go MIA for a week. There had been a report following the car accident we had over a year and a half ago that said my IUD was malpositioned (I had a CT done following the accident due to abdominal pain and other things). I brought it up with the OB who had me go in for an ultrasound which found the IUD not being where it was supposed to be.

So it came out and I had another one put in because at my age (along with a family history of blood clotting issues), I'm running out of options for birth control and I have no desire to just rely on the old "pull and prey" method. That's how I got Isabelle (my husband likes to call it the "meant to be" method). And while I'm quite happy with my second born, I fully feel that two is enough and I'm in nowhere near the physical or mental shape for another child, especially now that both girls are in school and I'm in school as well. While the procedure was pretty straightforward, I have been experiencing a little pain and cramping and it was nice to just be able to come home and rest and not have to worry about taking care of anyone else. It can be kind of tiring sometimes to constantly be on duty. And while I love my girls and miss them very much, I won't deny that it's nice to have a little time to myself to regroup and recharge.

The more things change, the more they stay the same...

Finally summer ended and the girls started school September 1. John is grudgingly accepting it but there were definitely some bumps along the way. The school open house was the end of August and he was horrified to discover that Isabelle's teacher had visible tattoos. There was a picnic at a local park for parents and students new to the school and in K and first grades. Natalie, Isabelle, and I all found people to talk to. John just sat off on his own. Then later, he complained about the teacher's tattoos again because she was also at the picnic. The girls are going to a small charter school. It takes up one hallway in the building of another elementary school. And so far, they love it. There have been some challenges, yes. Mainly, those have consisted of all three of us getting used to the early mornings but their first week of school went off without too many issues which made it easy to be ready for my first week of school which started a week later.

However, there is still a lot of difficulties with John as he continues to be unhappy with the choices I am making in trying to make my life (in DBT terms), "a life worth living". He's unhappy with these choices because they go against HIS personal belief system in what a woman with a husband and children should be doing. I say HIS personal belief system because not everyone in his church does the same thing. There are women in his church who are married with kids and work and have their children in public school. But he expects me to stay at home, homeschool, and take care of everything in the household so that he can sleep as he needs to and go to work (and do extra things HE wants to do like go to school and sell Usbourne books).

I am becoming more than frustrated with him about this. It hurts that he says this and feels this way about me. More and more I find myself wondering what he ever saw in me in the first place that led him to wanting to marry me. I have even asked him that and he won't even give me an answer. I am not unfamiliar with this kind of a marriage. I saw this with my own parents. My father was extremely (and still is) conservative who felt that women should stay at home and have children and not have other people raise them. He wasn't against sending us to school (thank goodness because neither one of them could have homeschooled) but he always put down my mother's pursuit for her degree, calling it just a hobby. They seemed like two very opposite people and I know us kids always wondered why they even stayed together.

Because I see our marriage mirroring my parents' more and more, I'm trying to work as hard as I can to be in a place where I don't have to rely on my husband (or really ANYONE) anymore. I'm in school; I'm working my way to a degree in a field I should be able to get a job in. I'm working with DVR. Next step is for me to get my driver's license. I know having that will make many things easier and will lessen that dependency even more. Because I know there will be a point where we will reach a fork in the road and one of us will go one way and the other will simply choose not to follow. In the meantime, I just have to keep taking it day by day and focus on the goal.

Tired...

I've become so tired of being criticized for every little thing. I'm tired of struggling alone with my mental illness and that struggle NEVER being recognized. If it was cancer I had, I would have all kinds of support. But it's not. My illness is in my head (literally) and just as I was invalidated growing up (which did nothing but WORSEN the mental illness to begin with), I'm constantly invalidated now. Others can become angry, act out, do irrational things and not get called out on it. I do it and I'm crazy, my therapy isn't working, I will NEVER be anything but an angry person prone to violence. I'm SO tired of it. I'm SO tired of the lack of support, of fighting ON MY OWN all the time. The pain is real. It may be inside and people can't see it but there are times it is deep and dark and completely and utterly overwhelming. And all I want to do is run away. I want to withdraw and hide and do everything possible to numb the pain because really, that's all I have. I only have myself to get through it because everyone else just stands there in judgement and tells me I have no right to feel that way.

I'm so tired of having to take care of everyone else when there is no one there to take care of me.

The truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth...just what is that exactly?

"I want the truth!"
"You can't handle the truth!"
Anyone who is at least somewhat familiar with dramatic 1990 movies should recognize these lines from A Few Good Men. I happened to catch it on PBS last night and watched it though I also own the movie, having recently acquired it at a rummage sale about a month ago. It's an interesting movie to watch, the characters trying to get to the core truth of a murder that happened on a military base. At first glance, it seemed like an open and shut deal but the reality was far different and getting to the truth underneath it all would be more difficult.

It was that way, I think, with Irvin's murder 12 years ago. The question that was always asked was "why?" It was asked of my sister, asked of me. The question was asked at each of my parents' trials and we never got that answer, not really. And that has probably been the most difficult thing about the whole event, I think. We never got the truth of what was really behind the events of that day.

After my mother went to prison, I established communication with her. There was this period where she would tell me how it wasn't planned. It was her defense the whole time both during the trial and after. They didn't plan it. If they had planned it, surely they would have done a better job than just appearing at my apartment and shooting him in front of witnesses (very comforting Mom). I finally had to really sit down and write her a letter and tell her point blank that I did not believe her; I would never believe her and if she continued to talk about how the whole thing wasn't planned, I would stop talking to her because it didn't matter to me if they had planned it or not. The results were still the same. A man was dead and I saw my father kill him. The next time she called, she apologized and told me she would never bring it up again and to this day, she hasn't.

Having been in the dialectical behavior therapy program for about two and a half years now, I have come to slowly radically accept the fact that 1. I will never find out the truth and 2. there may very well be no more to it than a case of severe dis-regulation. In other words, this may likely have been no more than a crime of passion, a snap of the mental senses, a severe lapse of judgement leading to an event that affected many lives and ended one.

I don't think it was quite that simple though. There were things leading up to the event to suggest that it would lead to it. And like an inevitable train wreck, all I could do was stand there and watch; I couldn't do anything to stop it. I couldn't do anything to stop it. I warned Irvin my mother was making threats. I called the police the night before, trying to get my apartment keys because my mother was acting crazy. My sister, Irvin, and I were even trying to figure out how to get my mother put into the psychiatric unit. And in the end, all I could do was stand there, frozen, and watch my father shoot my brother-in-law from across my living room.

Can I handle the truth? Is there even any now after 12 years that my parents would even remember? Time messes with our heads, changes memories, puts in justifications and excuses that were not there previously. Is there a truth to be found anymore? It is extremely likely I will never know the why behind it all; I will never know what they were thinking in the hours and minutes before and even after Irvin was killed. And to be honest, I don't know if I really want to know.

My sister still tries to seek it out but from the other side. She has learned things about her first husband that may supposedly justify my parents' actions. What does that even matter? What does it change? He's still dead. My parents are still in prison and they will DIE in prison. I will get a phone call someday informing of me their death and that will be the end. And that day will come far sooner than I will be ready for it.

The carousel never stops turning. Whether I know the truth or not, I must go on and live my life because it is the only life I have to live. What happened, they did. They had the power to stop it and they chose not to. And THAT is the truth.