Tag: depression

June Blog Challenge #22: Time Travel

“The Doctor has come into your life and has given you a gift. You have been offered a do over. You are allowed to redo one moment of your life.

What moment would you do over? Why?”

I have thought long and hard about this because in reality, though there have been really bad decisions I have made in my life, there is little that I would do over. I have my husband, my children and my grandchildren in my life. Even the most horrible things that have happened to me and finding the strength to overcome them has made me who I am. And I am finally getting to the point where I may actually like who this person is now and how much stronger I hope to become.

The only thing that I can think of that I would change is a letter that I wrote and sent to my first ex-husband. He was my first real boyfriend, the first person to love me for who I was. Problems and all. I met him my senior year of high school. We worked at Burger Chef together. He was the nicest, sweetest person. He could make me laugh and smile. I loved his laugh and his smile. I loved the walks we would take on summer nights and the conversations we would have. He listened to my poetry and I listened to his. In all of my pain and trying to regain my sense of self I had forgotten about all of that. I had forgotten about the man who loved me and the man I had fallen in love with. Not sending this letter would not change anything except for the hurt I caused him. The person who loved me and wanted to stay with me no matter what until I tore him apart and threw him away because I hated and despised myself so much that I could not fathom, could not believe that anyone could love me as much as he said he loved me. I just couldn’t believe it.

I did terrible things during our marriage. Terrible and unforgivable as far as I was concerned. My problems with sexual addiction and depression were at their all time worst during that time. Memories and flash backs to the abuse, the rapes, molestations and incessant criticisms of my mother, father, grandmother, stepmother were replaying constantly in my head. “You are lucky he wants you.” “You have to marry him, you have to stay with him because no one will ever love you or want you.” “I have never been proud of you, you have done nothing to be proud of.” “You deserved everything that happened to you, you are a tramp.” All of this and more constantly playing in my head. I began to see his not sticking up for me against my family as a betrayal and proof that he agreed with everything they said.

How could he not agree with them with everything that was going on? That I was doing? How could anyone want me after all of that? I pushed and pushed until I pushed him right out the door. I was so sure I was destroying him, killing him by not making him leave. Being married to me would destroy him. I am not saying he was perfect. There were things that happened on his part that made the situation worse and reasons that I could not reconcile with him at a later point, but they were healthier reasons then why I initially left. But, the letter I wrote telling him that I never loved him; that he was a great guy and I thanked him for basically giving me the time of day and for marrying me in spite of everything, that letter was so wrong.

As I have gotten better and allowed myself to remember some parts of my past at that time I came to realize how much he had loved me. And that I had loved him. I realized that no matter what I thought I was doing and that I thought the letter might actually help him deal with his emotions it was the most selfish and hurtful thing I have ever done to someone. I had deluded myself into believing that I hadn’t loved him because it made it easier to deal with what I had done. How can you really love someone and do the things you did? I now know that you can love someone like that and because of mental illness and pain do horrible things. And because you love them it makes everything worse. To the point that you have to make yourself believe that you are worthless, unlovable and unable to love.

I was unable to love. I was so terrified of allowing someone inside of my heart fully that I could never allow it. Not for many years. Not until my third husband and with that marriage I learned that I could really love someone, have them tear my heart out and stomp all over it…Karma is a bitch you know….and I could survive. I learned that I can allow myself to love someone completely and it wouldn’t kill me; the husband I have now.

From what my daughter has said, her father had difficulty letting go of me emotionally and of course the current wife didn’t take too kindly to that. She was abusive to my daughter for years because of it. Supposedly things are much better between her father, her stepmother and her. I hope so. Though I don’t know if I can forgive either of them for what they did to her. What would I say to him now? What would I write in a letter?

Dear…

I want you to know how sorry I am. How much I want your forgiveness for what I did to you back then. For the terrible letter that I wrote to you saying that I never loved you. How could I have done that to you? You were the first man to ever treat me kindly and with respect. You loved me with all your heart. You once told me that the first time you thought you could love me was our first date and it was raining hard. Your car stalled because of a huge puddle and I had to get out and help you push it out of the road, wearing white pants no less. What girl does that? We laughed about it. As I have healed and allowed myself to think about the past and that horrible period of my life I have allowed myself to remember. Really remember emotions and feelings. I have talked with my husband about writing this letter and he knows that this letter is about healing and forgiveness, not about disrupting your life or wanting you back. 

There are different kinds of love. And I have a love for you as someone who gave of himself. Trusted and loved someone enough that you were willing to marry them and be with them no matter what. You were my friend first and that is the love I remember best. Summer walks, fireflies in fields of grass and trees. Poetry under the stars. Your playing guitar. You always did play well. Introducing me to Willie Nelson’s Stardust. You were and are a great person. You deserved then and deserve now the best. I just want you to know this; I did love you.

Love and blessings,

Pavanne

 

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I was going to delete my blog Because I can….

I have not been writing enough for myself lately. No posts, just answering comments, giving my thoughts to what other people are saying. It allows me a voice, but it isn’t the same as writing for myself and telling my own stories. I have been very down on myself as of late. I have not been positive and I have not been doing what I need to do in order to become more positive. My blog is “Because I can” for a reason. A reason that I was allowing myself to forget. I was forgetting that I can. 

I read this story tonight and it has inspired me to continue with trying to write, to blog and learn. 

http://aishakhan0208.wordpress.com/2014/06/14/i-am-a-woman-who-survived

I am going to write a mission statement of sorts to myself. it is a reaffirmation and statement of what I believe. It is what I will continue to live by. No matter what anyone says.

What happened in my life was terrible. There are scars, there is still pain. But, I am not going to list everything that happened to me. I will not continually revisit it without purpose. When I do talk about it, I will be using my experiences to help others to find their strength. To find options and to find a way to get out of the darkness. I want to be able to show others going through similar experiences that they can come out the other side and not just survive, but be happy and survive. What has having those awful things happen to me done for me? It has taught me compassion for another. It has taught me to be non-judgmental. I will not give in to fear. I can be strong and become stronger. 

I will not give in to anger and fear. I have been allowing fear and anger of what is happening in the world, and what some people have said to me to cloud my judgement and my faith. When you  become angry and you give in to fear, it can lead to irrational thought. When you become irrational you cannot see the path. You cannot hear the truth. It blinds you to your faith. Faith leads you from fear and helps you to find the path and allows you to see more than what you think possible. 

I will be compassionate. I would prefer to err on the side of compassion and not have to worry about answering to God as to why I would turn my back on my brothers and sisters. 

I believe in the right of all people to love whom they choose. As long as they are an adult of legal age and consensual.

I believe in allowing the existence of all faiths as long as they do not interfere with the practice of another’s faith or harm another person. I have to admit that I am conflicted with this one as I do not believe that Sharia law is a humane practice and that the violence perpetrated against women in the name of honor (which is not honorable at all) gives me some issues. 

I happen to believe in the premise of the Constitution of the United States and it’s original intention. We have a great country. Even with all our problems. We the people of this country hold so much power in our hands. We can control our own destinies if we would just think, not be so reactionary and really value the freedoms that we have. We can speak, we can write, we can protest-peacefully. There are so many countries where that is not possible. 

I really believe we need a ” Celebrate Humanity Month”. This month will celebrate the diverse nature of humanity. We should have block parties and discussions and make opportunities to mend fences with our neighbors. There needs to be open discussions on race and how to improve relations between all the races that live in this country. Improved education in the schools that really stress the accomplishments of all races in the development of inventions and in the creation of this country. Our country was founded on the blood of the Native Americans, white slavery, black slavery, Asian slavery. There is no getting around that. What we can do is move past it and realize that while it matters how we got here, it matters even more where we are going. And where we end up is up to all of us. 

I believe in the right to bear arms. While it has been said that letting everyone have a gun is tantamount to creating an old west scenario, that is just not the truth. Of course there needs to be education, regulation and punishment for the breaking of the rules. Guns don’t kill people, people kill people. “If they didn’t have a gun, they wouldn’t have killed someone” is an argument I have heard before. People killed each other before there were guns, they will continue to do so with or without them. I prefer to be able to defend myself if someone threatens me or my family. 

I realize as I am typing this, there is so much I believe, so much I want to talk about in my life. Too much to write about now.

I will speak my mind, write my stories and poems, post my photographs. Yes, I am going to do that. 

 

 

 

Beautiful Moments. Life is like that.

I changed the title of this post several times. I was going to write “Just going to keep trying” because it has gone from a few hard days to a few terrible days. It is difficult to stay in the frame of mind that requires staying positive when bouts of depression and pain kick in. All I can say is if you hang in there it will pass and it is starting to pass. And that is what I constantly remind myself. Life is like that. Full of ups and downs, hills and valleys. (Chuckling) I don’t think I have really ever hit the height of a peak in my life, but I am working in that direction. There is so much I want to say and to do. On days that I think that I can’t do “this life” anymore I remind myself of how far I have come and how much I want to do. I look out the window and look at the sun or if there is no sun, I look at the clouds and the rain. I look for one beautiful thing and go on from there.

I was sitting at the table trying to think of something to write the other day and I saw something fluttering from the pine trees in the back. At first I thought they were butterflies or small birds. But, they were seed pods from the trees. They released them in mass. Small, brown seed pods, whirling from the trees and carried on the wind. They flashed colors of gold and brown in the sunlight as they were carried away. I wish I had my camera I would have taken a picture or video. But, it was over as quickly as it started. I am a nature person and love the outdoors and I have never seen that. It was beautiful, graceful, and peaceful. 

Life is like that. Moments of beautiful when you least expect it. 

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Staying positive

It has been a difficult week to stay positive this week. I keep trying to remind myself of positive aspects of my life. When you create a blog called “Because you can..” I feel that you need to try to keep a positive tone. That is one of the primary reasons I created the blog was to help myself to create a positive feel and increase positive thinking in my life. It has helped a great deal. It has just been harder this week because the fibromyalgia and the pain I feel has been so intense. But, I have continued to be active, I have continued to try and watch what I eat. (Except for tonight I have to admit, but back on the wagon tomorrow)I got my husband to actually clean the closet. That was a task that needed done for awhile. I wanted to give away my size 14/16 clothes, but my husband and I talked and he said that I would do it. I can do it. It will take work and it will take effort. Effort I sometimes feel I don’t have to give. A 15 minute walk is better than no walk. That trying to do the whole 2 mile course is just as important as completing it some days. 

I just want people out there who read my blog to know that I understand there are down days and there are days that you don’t want to try or days that you don’t want to try. But, even if it is something as simple as opening the door and taking some deep breaths. That is something. It is because you can. It is because you can reach for that final thread and hold tight with all your might and then keep finding the threads and holding on and weaving them back into a thin rope, then a thicker rope. It can happen. A good thought, a calming thought, a thought of because I can do this will enter your mind and hopefully make you feel better.