Thread: Frustrated
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Old Aug 11, 2013, 10:48 PM
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holdingonhope holdingonhope is offline
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Member Since: Jul 2013
Location: Indiana
Posts: 53
Most days I am not even sure I can handle it. The last two days have been very hard but the victory is we had almost 2 weeks of almost all good days. It's progress. It's always one step forward and 2 or 3 steps back but we do keep stepping forward and that's what matters. This time pain was the trigger. He finally got back to work and we ran out of his back pain pills. We have no money to refill them. He still went to work but I can only imagine how difficult it would be to roof a house with intense back pain. Our problems seem to be overwhelming us. My family loves to say up that creek without a paddle..well...we are in that creek with no paddle and drowning. The stress on him is enormous so I was expecting this weekend to be bad..and it was horrible.

People these days seem to think relationships are supposed to be always those rainbows and butterflies which is a hysterical misconception. Luckily I was raised with parents who didn't have a perfect relationship but it was a solid working one. My father was much like K only without the BP. He is a very hard man and while I was growing up he had a very bad temper. I used to think my mother was weak and beaten down by him but now I understand her. She wasn't beaten down she just understood him in a way children can't understand their parents. She was the softness he didn't have. The light to his darkness...his calm in the storm. She was his anchor.

This past father's day I gave him a card that thanked him for all the lessons he tried to teach me and I apologized that I didn't understand at the time the values he was trying to instill in us. I only heard his harsh tone...I didn't understand what he was really trying to do the only way he knew how. I rebelled against him exactly like my oldest daughter rebels against K. She also thinks I'm weak and beaten down by him. Funny how life comes full circle. I hated my father as a child and even up until the last few years...so I married a man just like him. Irony. But their relationship at least gave me some understanding for my own. I just wish I was calm like my mother instead of hot tempered like my father...ya..that would have been slightly more helpful but my mother often says she couldn't handle what I do. My father was never violent and while he was cold he was rarely verbally abusive like K often is. Maybe my father's temperament is what I need to handle him. I don't know.

K does struggle with absolutely everything. He is most definitely not inherently a good person. It's a constant battle for him to be as "good" as he is. He wants so badly to take care of his family but work is hard to find for a convicted felon with multiple not so nice felonies to credit his name. The suspended license doesn't help either. But he keeps trying no matter how discouraged he gets. I have a good job but it doesn't cover our bills. As a man this is very hard for him to take.

I found a saying online once that was very profound to me. It said, "When another person makes you suffer it is because he suffers deeply within himself and his suffering is spilling over. He does not need condemnation or punishment. He needs help. That is the message he is sending." Now obviously this is not true of everyone but it is of my husband. I see it all over his face. This angry vengeful man is saying everything to get me to leave; to hurt me as badly as he is hurting. He wants to hurt me before I hurt him. The hurt boy inside is begging me not to go. My mom thinks I'm crazy but when he gets like that I just want to hug him. To pull him into my arms and tell him it will be ok. That I'll never leave him; he'll never be alone again. He can go to bed spitting fire he's so mad but in his sleep he never fails to curl around me and hold onto me for dear life. I am the softness he doesn't have. The light to his darkness...his calm in the storm. I am his anchor.

I watch my daughter drool over all those "bad boys" on tv. I am sorry to say she has her mother's taste in men. My mother has always said I was born to love the unlovable...maybe she is too. Every girl at some point wants to be the girl in the movie that that bad boy falls for. Treats her like a princess while at the same time burning the rest of the world to the ground. This isn't the movies. They aren't men who's mothers didn't hug them enough and all they need is a pretty girl to set them straight and make them sweethearts. It's like taking a pit bull trained to fight and kill and thinking a dog bone will turn it into lassie. People worry K isn't good for her. I do. I want her to understand that in real life those men are sometimes just plain evil and nothing will ever change them and the others are so damaged they have no idea how to love anyone. A rare few might be turned into lassie but doubtful. K is no lassie; he is irrevocably broken and damaged. No amount of hugs in the world will ever make him ok...none.

I have no illusions that even medication will change how he is completely. I do know without a doubt he has bipolar but that won't fix his memories. No medication can undo damage like that. How do you give a man back his heart? How do you convince him to put all that anger, rage, and pain down and heal when he can't even bring himself to open the door that hides it all? He's afraid of it.

He has Demon tatted down the back of one arm and Child tatted down the back of the other. People read it and see all the depictions of hell and demons that cover his upper body and think it's just another bada** who wanted a really cool picture to show off. If they only knew how significant each piece of artwork was. How defining those words are down his arms. I can't image the horror they would come away with. It chills even me. How do you break through a lifetime of that mindset? I'm not even sure I know where to start.

He can't understand why I'm with him. He sometimes looks at me like a novelty in a freak show. Tells me all the time the world would be a better place without him and that he can't understand what there is about him that I could possibly love or even tolerate. I try to tell him why but he always walks away from me. He thinks I don't see the tears starting as he turns away. How do you heal that when it is so deeply ingrained that they can't even conceive of anyone actually wanting them?

I know I'm rambling tonight. My heart is just hurting. A little from his hurtful words but mostly it hurts for him. Because with all my book knowledge and all my training and experience...I can't put back together the one who matters most. And that hurts most of all.

Thanks for "listening" guys.
__________________
When the world says, "Give up". Hope whispers, "Try one more time".

You were given this life because you are strong enough to live it.

Wife of Husband with Ultradian Bipolar 2 Disorder & OCD (currently unmedicated)

Me: Survivor of Domestic Abuse and currently Fighting Depression

Medication: Bupropion HCL 300 mg

Our journey has just begun.
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