David and Goliath

Today I asked David if he would help me give a talk at church. I asked if he would tell the story of David and Goliath, he started up with me and then ran back to his seat, but then as i continued my talk he started telling the story from his seat, he did a great job! So proud of my boy! So happy he could share his knowledge of the scriptures at church. He is awesome!

Conversations with my children

For the last few years I have been posting different conversations I have had with my kids on my Facebook page, recently some of my friends have been mentioning that I need to make a book out of it. So, with the intent of collecting them in an easy to organize place I am putting them here.

Trauma

So, lately, I have been thinking about trauma. I have started seeing a counselor due to an emotional breakdown I had recently due to being overly stressed. I have only had one meeting with her so far, so I haven't really gotten much done. But it has caused me to think about things. I went through in my mind all the different traumas I went through since getting married and I really thought them over and I realized that I never really allowed myself to grieve over them. Often I powered my way through them and then bottled up my emotions because they were too difficult to deal with at the time and never really allowed myself to take them out, air them out and deal with them. I just bottled them up and shoved them down deeper and deeper. But this last year with everything that happened it was just too much too fast, too many things flying at me to bottle them all up and keep them all down without going a little crazy.

So I started thinking about trauma and about other traumas I have had in life. I was talking with my mom today and she asked about trauma I had as a child, and I couldn't really think of any. Then later I was thinking about coping mechanisms and things that I do to help keep myself sane, and how many of them seem to be an escape to other people. So then I thought to myself, well what did I do when I lived with my parents? Well, I ran off into the woods and spent some time alone with nature. Well, I just told Mom that I couldn't remember trauma from my childhood, so what was I running from? Bullying, that is what I was running from. The stress of being bullied. I was bullied from preschool till my senior year in high school. But I talked about it with my parents. I had a good friend who went through it with me and who was my confidant. I was able to process it because I worked through it, I developed strategies against it. Did it leave me scarred? Sure, but I grew stronger from it.

But you can't run away from cancer, you can't run away from fertility issues, or heart surgery, or your own autistic children. And all of those things are also often taboo subjects. They make people feel uncomfortable, they make people feel uneasy. They are often difficult to understand if you haven't experienced it yourself.

I was 19 when Kevin was diagnosed with cancer, I was still basically a child, and yet...widowhood stared me in the face. I didn't know how to deal with trauma like that. I didn't know how to handle it. So I took my cues from Kevin. And he was amazing. He didn't flinch, he was cheerful, and ready and was just so tough through all of it. And I, I was falling apart inside but didn't think I could show it.

I found my old poem book, one that I made before he was diagnosed and started writing poems in. It contains the poetry I wrote while he went through cancer. I read through it tonight, wow. I moved myself to tears. What I wrote then, oh I feel the same thing now. I expressed then things that I still feel about current traumas. Current frustrations. Here is one I wrote:

Life kills me from the inside this time
I saw it coming years ago.
Have you seen my play?
This time I have learned
the part far too well.
Backstage my smile does not stay.
How can I hold up again?
Alone, I sit and watch my heart die.
I can feel it ripping me apart.
Thinking of us I cry,
but not where it is seen.
Life hurts so much
I don't know if I can endure
Yet for you, I must.
Help me to survive this,
I don't know how long I can last.

The stress, the fear, the pain, when it is your life you can't really run from that. So I found escape methods. I found ways to ease the pain, found ways of ignoring it until it went away. I got good at not feeling things, especially if I didn't want to feel them. No wonder lately I feel numb. I often think of my life and I don't feel a lot. My body has all these things it keeps doing that are screaming to anyone who knows how to read the signs that I am under overwhelming stress, but my outward disposition is such that people can't tell. People don't know because my mask is too good. What I think is part of the issue is that I have tried to share my sorrow, my pain with others. I have tried to process it so many times. And yet, it is not a comfortable topic. It is not something that people want to hear about. So they shut you up, and they get you to move on, and things never get processed. And so here I am. Scarred, and yet falling apart still, from the inside, and there is not enough tape to hold me together anymore.

Because

So, because I know no one is really currently reading this I can put down my thoughts on stuff and not really worry about it. Life is stressful at times. And to be honest I have trained myself from the beginning of marriage to put a happy face on the trials in life. But sometimes things drag you down and you just want to...well get away from all of it. Sometimes you wish that life would stop sucking so much. It is hard to have people give me advice on what to do with my kids when they really have no idea. It is hard to deal with the stress of autism and intense medical issues with Kevin and then the times when he is jobless and not go a little crazy. It is hard trying to not let the stress get the best of me. My fingers are getting chewed raw, they are peeling and painful and I wish they would stop hurting but I keep chewing on them, without even thinking about it I keep chewing on them. All too often I feel heartbroken, overstressed and tired and often I feel like no one knows and if they do know they don't really care. I have been holding tears in for so long, it gets hard to let them go sometimes.

Time

It is strange to watch time go by. Years which passed so slowly as a child now pass so quickly. You sleep, then wake then sleep again. Days pass, weeks pass, months pass and soon another year is gone. Childhood seems like it was yesterday, just a few years ago. But in reality, I left it over 18 years ago. 18 years, I left childhood an entire childhood ago. How did time pass so quickly when childhood seemed to go so slowly. Those early years, which seemed so important at the time, and now they are gone. My son turns 7 in just a few days and I wonder where the time has gone. My daughter is now 5, and I wonder how she got so old so fast. Their first years were so full of worry, and now they are both out of the super worry stage. Now on to the next stage of life. Sometimes I look back on a day and think, well that was a failed day, I guess I will make it up tomorrow. But life is made up of days that become years. I need to focus on the days more so that the years don't become wasted.

Coping

Today I thought about coping. I finally found a good song to cry to. I have been needing a good long cry lately. I went this entire year crying very little and having much to cry about. Sometimes it feels like I must be strong to make it through the tough times. And sometimes I think that ends up being holding it all in while I put up a strong front. It has been a rough year, I gave myself time to cry once during the whole heart surgery for Kevin thing. I didn't cry over the flood, didn't give myself time to mourn my Grandpa, just held it all in. Didn't express the stress from Kevin having such a long stretch of unemployment this year, just let it all build up. Developed new coping methods. Found blessings in the trials, and developed permanent new nervous habits. Almost ceaselessly bouncing my legs and I chew on my fingers until they bleed. I keep myself distracted with games and other things to keep from thinking about everything because thinking about it all causes me to feel overwhelmed.

I realized that I have not had a good solid weird friend since Grayslake, so basically 2010. And I haven't had a good friend that I can completely let my guards down with since Utah. At least not outside my family. And this year I learned a hard lesson there too. I realized that sometimes I overshare things and because of stupid decisions on my part with sharing info on my Grandpa on Facebook now my family hardly trusts me with stuff. Or if they do they give me the disclaimer of, now don't put this on facebook. As if I really needed to be told that.

Though I really do look for the blessings, I have no one to vent to. I have no one to release my worries and fears to. And so it builds, and I just need to release, I just need to let things go sometimes. Tonight I have wept, and it is good. Tonight I have let things out for the first time in a long time. Here's hoping that next year isn't quite so full of trials. Here's to hoping for some stability. In the meantime the tears fall and I let my worries fall with them.

2017

Each year around this time my Father in law like each of his children to give a synopsis of their family's year. So I have been thinking over our year and what our synopsis would be.
January: Open heart triple bypass surgery for Kevin during which he died once, and had his heart stopped for the surgery.
February: Recovery/Basement flooded almost 2 feet
March: Recovery and the beginning of job hunting for Kevin
May: Kevin starts new contract job
July: After over 18 years of battling with terminal cancer my Grandfather passed away
August: Kevin's contract ends
September: David begins to have violent tantrums at school
November: Kevin starts a new contract job
December: Starting the process to get ABA therapy for David

Overall it has been a year full of trials, and yet one of my ways of getting through trials is to look for the blessings.
January: Once again Kevin cheated death. The doctors told us that if he had waited one more month he would probably have died of a heart attack. We saw so many miracles happen in that hospital. And I still have my best friend and husband to spend each day with.
February/March: Kevin recovered quickly enough to be able to start looking for work. Though our basement flooded we saw an outpouring of love and support from people. We had so many people help us clean up the ruined things.
May: We were so blessed that Kevin found a good job for over the summer.
July: Though it was sad to lose my Grandpa it is good to know that he is now at peace and no longer in pain.
August: We got to have Kevin at home for a bit while he looked for a new job
September: We were able to explore new ways of working with David to see if they would help, many of those ways making it easier to talk with David
November: Though the new contract is only three months long it is already causing Kevin to stretch and grow. When he is done with this contract it will give his resume a huge boost.
December: We are hopeful that ABA therapy will help David develop the skills he needs to be able to self-regulate his own emotions.

Overall it has been a year of so many blessings and miracles. It really is wonderful to see God's hand in our lives and to see how he really does bless us individually. He knows each of us and is willing to bless us if we turn to him. I am so thankful for all the blessings I have received this year.

I can do all things through Christ which strengtheneth me. (Phillippians 4:13)