Carey

LOL I've tried to pull myself "out of my feels" (as my teenager would say) while at work this afternoon and started playing the Phantom Soundtrack while my office mates eyes roll Does it GET better than "All I Ask of You"???

Thank you for sharing your journey with us, I'm sending you hugs today.

If you were a member of ywbb and posted to that thread, PLEASE feel free to copy and paste your contribution from there to here. I know so many would benefit.

I've spent the day on the phone. I keep getting transferred and put on hold. Well intentioned people mention applying for assistance. See that's the thing. All of those places look at Gross income. Not that my paycheck is being garnished by two entities and the other two are set up for automatic drafts. Or that $600 of my SS per month got taken from me to go to his daughter in Utah (he never met her, only found out she existed when she was 13. She quit school for over 2 years to have a baby, and is 18. Purposely restarted high school to continue getting benefits) AND .... they are taking back from me what they "overpaid" me. At lunch I sat in my car and just sobbed and then came in and redid makeup and sat back at my desk but I'm on the board more than I'm working. I can't make myself engage. I just feel spent. I've done the "be strong" thing and pushed and pushed and borrowed from Peter to pay Paul or begged this teacher or that teacher to give this or that kid another chance or begged the kids, please deal with sandwiches till Friday and then we can do something different, but I'm out of begging and I wish I was out of crying.

Special and unique devastation needs a special and unique place to go. I'm very grateful for this little corner of the web too.

"I know that words can?t help your very real life problems, but nonetheless , I want to tell you that I at least heard you and offer my virtual shoulder to lean on for a while" ATJ ..... can I crawl in your lap?

Long ago I crocheted ... nothing fancy and I couldn't do it if it wasn't square. I still cant lol. Then I landed in photography and digital scrapbooking which were my passion for so long. My camera has been in the pawn shop and my fingers itch for it ... I look at the light in the mornings and itch to photograph it. But a friend gave me some yarn recently and I was GOING to make a scarf but couldn't remember increasing and stuff like that, so I backpeddled and am working on an afghan. It's nothing but one giant granny square but it's soothing to me in the evenings. I'll take a pic tonight. I miss my craftiness and my creativity. It's a small start but maybe it's a start. It does help my mind shut up when panic attacks start to come to just sit down with the yarn and just concentrate on the stitches for a little while.

I LOVE the pictures. I love your presence here and the presence of the others who are further along than I. I love that this place exists. Im saying this because that's about ALL I love today, but because you are all here and this place is here, I Have that. I still feel like collapsing. But it doesn't feel like there's nothing under me. If that makes any sense?

tears are just flowing :'( This is beautiful.

words are good Annie ... Im clinging to them today

THIS. Oh you have no idea. Some of those stories are why I'm even here to type this right now.

I'm about to snap. I have no idea what that even means or what will happen. All I know is it is NOT possible for me to stand up under all of this anymore. All the screaming and breaking dishes in the world cant fix all that's wrong. Some of this sh*t storm was set in motion before he died. In three years between the two of us we lost three very good jobs. That caused things to pile up, it's a long story but I owe the IRS, the NC Dept of Revenue, the county tax department and a student loan. Amongst a plethora of other things. I was just handed my pay stub. This has been a BAD week and we almost didn't eat were it not for the kindness of a stranger. Friday was supposed to bring relief to that. But no. Student loan had been garnishing my pay. I worked out a deal with them if I paid $5 a month for 5 months they would stop. This is month 6. I've made hundreds of phone calls. The $100 or so for that was deducted yet again. Employer states they never received documentation from Dept of Education. AND. Weeks ago HR here got another notice, this time from the county tax office for $600. Taxes on my house I bought in Feb 2014 that I had been told were included at closing, and I never received a bill or any documentation. Was sent to the old owner. She said they were already garnishing me so they couldn't do it. They called her and said yes we can. But she didn't warn me , I didn't know they were going to and guess what. So there's been two garnishments and a hefty health insurance payment taken out. I make $10/hr so you can kinda guess whats left. checking acct is already negative before it even hits. Meanwhile 16 yo son skips school more than he goes. He is angry and getting in trouble he never has before. Smoking. Doing weed. Drinking (which his dad died from). The sheriff's dept has been at my house twice 6 days. Washer is broken, so is fridge. Can't keep food in it, when we have it. the house that my husband died for me to have and it's only a doublewide...there are holes in the walls from disrespectful teenagers, has plumbing issues.... and Sunday I spent 9 hours in the ER because of my heart condition that I can't keep under control because of copays and medicine costs so I never feel well physically. Which really just lowers your defenses when the rest of it all comes at you full force. I listen to myself and I wonder why Im pouring all of this out. I know I sound whiny but I'm scared and I feel like a failure. I can't do this. I've been putting out fires and putting bandaids over big problems and I just cant anymore. There's not enough of me. My kids are ANGRY at the Lack. And they blame me. And don't hesitate to tell me so. They are 16 and 17 and just say it like it is. I'm a failure. We went from a two story brick house with a full fridge and a freezer in the garage to a doublewide in the middle of nowhere with cows for company. He left us with nothing. He ruined us. And as much as I tell myself and I DO believe alcoholism is a true illness like any other disease I can not seem to reign in the anger. THIS WAS NOT SUPPOSED TO HAPPEN. And there are many many single moms who pull it together just fine why can I not get it together for my kids? It's unraveling and I can't grab all the strings. And I'm not saying I'd commit suicide because I don't believe I have the nerve. Id rather go to sleep and not wake up yes, but I don't have the courage to make it happen. But I'm losing the courage to face each new day of the shit storm either. Teachers and staff calling daily from the school. Well from both of them. Not being able to do my daughter's senior year stuff -- which only happens once. I've just failed. Epically. And I don't know why I'm pouring this here but I just feel like I need a connection to people that can understand maybe part of it, to make me feel still human and not just a shell of nothing :'(

This is something I actually am starting to dip into, having NOT been exposed to it growing up. I LOVE LOVE LOVE the movie version of Phantom (the one with Gerard Butler). I've watched it hundreds of times. Same with Les Mis and I've seen Into The Woods movie which I LOVED. Living in eastern NC theres not been many broadway opportunities lol. Im reading Wicked now and have listened to the soundtrack but would love to see it. Tell me which ones I NEED to get started with, this is something I've always wanted to explore.

Ah yes Flogging Molly. I had seen P.S. I Love You many many times before he died. He watched it with me and called me cheesy but he liked it too...with a name like Carey you know we have to be irish I binged on that movie and the song a little right after he died. Fairytale of New York is good to. They played that at Jerry's funeral and it's irreverent and funny as hell. Luck of the Irish to ya' all today

OH honey ....... I'm so very sorry. Have you considered perhaps taking a semester off to regroup? I don't have much to offer but Maureen s right .......you have a powerful voice and a gift. And we are listening.

I had been a member of YWBB for a little over a year, but I had been away for many months because I tended to feel EVERYONE’S grief and there was a time I thought it made me feel worse so I stepped away. At a very low time I came back and I read a thread in the special circumstances section titled “Gates of hell”. A story was mentioned that had been heard by a pastor at a funeral. The story went, “He was visiting his daughter in a detoxification center and saw a sign on the wall. He said it wasn’t a nicely printed sign but scrolled into the wall with maybe a nail or file. This is what it said. ‘IT WASN’T SO MUCH THAT GOD OPENED THE GATES OF HEAVEN AND LET ME IN, BUT HE OPENED THE GATES OF HELL AND LET ME OUT.’ “ This rocked me. I actually paused and thought about the struggle that was my husband’s life and how he must have felt at that moment, to know that all of that misery was over. And not only was Chad let out of hell, but so was I and so were my kids. AA and Al-Anon and Dr. Phil all make sure you know that if you are in a relationship with an addict, you are co-dependant. Everything you say do and think tends to revolve around what they DID. The whole 17 years I was married could sometimes feel like a jail sentence. Abject misery and more pain than joy. I used to joke with people about Chad, it’s like that little girl with the curl. When he was good he was very good but when he was bad he was HORRID. People were forever asking me why I didn’t leave. And judging me because I wouldn’t. I still don’t really know why I stayed and stayed and stayed. Because the good days were just glimpses of what I WANTED my life to be. And when he died I mourned the loss of what I had HOPED would be the new life we’d have when he came home from Saudi. Mourning a person is hard, mourning what coulda/shoulda/woulda/mighta been is almost insanity. The hope that things CAN change is heady stuff. Even a tiny glimmer is enough to keep you clawing away. Only after he died did I really understand that telling me over and over things would change and he’d stop and life would be good … those weren’t the lies I always thought he told me. If he could have changed I have to believe in my heart that he would have. He never hid the fact that he had demons. He’d go to church and just stand in the altar and pray and be prayed with, with tears streaming down his face. He’d pick himself up the day after a bad drinking spell and swear that was the last one. He wanted it to be as much as I did. Can we honestly think that alcoholics or addicts WANT that? They enjoy it? Because they don’t. No one wants a different life more than they do. I took everything so personally. Why couldn’t he just love me and the kids enough to just stop. My thinking was so wrong for so long that it was too late to reverse the damage. I’d love to talk to him face to face one last time if for nothing than to let him know that now I DO have at least a better understanding that alcoholism is the fight of a lifetime, often a fight to the death. Many times I think of past years and feel guilt for not standing and fighting WITH him instead of against him. I prayed and prayed for God to “deliver” him from it. Because people had told me that God had just magically healed and delivered them and they never took another drink. I would think, “Why would God do it for you and not Chad?” And I prayed for God to just get me and my kids out. Many times I prayed that. And He answered, didn’t he? I certainly didn’t want those prayers answered that way. But I think of my sweet Chad with the soft heart, flying with the eagles. No more DTs when he tried to be good, no more throwing up in the bathtub, no more stumbling around and being made fun of. No more fear and worry about how he is going to take care of us. No more demons from his childhood and the damage his dad and granddad did (alcoholics also) to him. When confronted with what to put on his headstone, I was at a loss. It is a veteran’s cemetery and you can only choose certain symbols and I just kept thinking none fit him. Until I saw the Eagle. The symbolism of that is a whole other story for another thread, but I’ve always associated him with them. And the song we played at his funeral was Where Eagles Fly by Sammy Hagar. So his stone reads “Fly Free”. And he is. He’s free. And even though I don’t feel it a lot of the time I am too … or I can be, and I know he would want that for me. I've said all of this to say, that initial thread on that board touched me because it opened the gates for responses from so many others on the boards that lost their spouse in ways other than illness, or accidents. I'm ABSOLUTELY NOT making light of those situations. Grief is grief and it's all so very painful. But addiction, suicide, all of those other special circumstances that add layers to grief that so many may not understand, and you may feel alone because you think, “Certainly no one else’s experience is quite as F**KED up as mine was ….. and then the stories started pouring in and while the tears flowed and my heart hurt so much for each of them I also felt I’d found where I belonged. People that would understand without hearing every detail. People that had experienced the special hurt of regrets and what/ifs that torment worse than the loss itself and in that I had just the tiniest bit of healing. The first since he had died. I didn’t want that thread to just disappear and while that one is there on that board for that time, this is our time, WE are here and WE can share our stories for those that will come behind us and need it so much. I’m grateful for the members here, ALL of them, but in that special way especially those who belong to “special circumstances”.

My husband died on his birthday, and that seems to trigger a lot of people to remember. This past November 23rd was my first sadiversary and it was a doozy. It was also the day my family was celebrating Thanksgiving. It was a Sunday. ( It was Sunday morning when I found out Chad was gone forever) Long story short, I was cooking the turkey to take, and get a phone call that they are eating and where am I? Not only did they forget what the day was, they changed the time for dinner and didn't tell me. So not only was it Chad's birthday and the first anniversary of the day he died but thanksgiving and we got left out. We didn't go. My best friend came over and just laid down with me and held me for hours though. Many on facebook remembered but I think that's because they were reminded it was his birthday. That day just doesn't leave a hole for others like it does for us. I think nonesuch is right, it makes people think of their own, or their loved ones' mortality too much maybe.

so very beautiful ... both of them. I haven't sat down to do that. I think I should.

My best friends 12 year old little girl has terrible anxiety complicated by Aspergers. She was missing a lot of school, come to find out she is scared of riding the bus because some of the kids pick on her. She and I have worked out a deal where if she promises to have her stuff together and ready every day, I'll take her to school. Should have seen her face this morning

I couldn't read and not respond, though I have no words. Top of the list though is I think Ken Doll could become the new widda punching bag. My heart just weeps for you and the trauma that is forever imprinted in your soul from that night. But please take solace in knowing you were Brooks' champion. You fought for him like no one ever would. The strong bond of your love for each other didn't go anywhere that night. It's still there and no one can take it away from you.

I know the feeling. My prior career was medical transcription and I could average upwards of $30/hr. In three years time thanks to Obama my husband and I lost three jobs which is why he ended up in Saudi. But even then he was sending me $3000 a month after he deducted what he needed to live there. SO needless to say , this is a shock to the system. $10/hr makes me feel pitiful. Is working at the ballpark at least a little entertaining?

I will be glad to give it a try. It'll have to be when I'm at home and not here at work but I will. I just feel it had so much value, I hope I can word it well.

None of my children needed them but I work at an ENT office and I've yet to see a child with complications from the anesthesia and like many posters said, the outcome is usually night and day better from constantly battling the infections.

Oh Mrs Tim ... that stings. I too lost my husband's whole family but we were nowhere near that close ... at all. I'm so sorry, maybe they feel like you are going to disconnect from them and start a new life so they are "preparing themselves"? like they feel they've lost Tim and now gonna lose you too? Have you tried just telling them how the situation looks to you? Or am I reading it wrong?

What a beautiful post. I'm 15 months out and still clueless so thank you for giving me the opportunity to know you and benefit from what you share.