Adventures in moving

Note to house buyers: DO NOT TRUST PEOPLE'S WORD. GET EVERYTHING IN WRITING! We are not moved. We own a house that we cannot get a key to. We closed escrow on Friday last week. The sellers were supposed to be out of the house. They are no longer living in the house but still have some of their belongings that they "have not had a chance" to move yet. Their realtor relayed to us and to our realtor that they would be out of the house by the close of escrow. We set up all of our plans, including movers on Sat. morning, to move in this past weekend. Long story short:

Movers loading truck
Hubby goes to our new house to get key from sellers
Seller slams door (our door) on his face yelling, "you are NOT getting a key to this house!"
Hubby calls the police out to see where we stand in the matter
The police say according to the contract we cannot enter the property until Sept. 6th
We are now living in an empty house with 2 kids and 2 cats
Joy to the world!
We have 2 storage lockers full of our belongings including all of my sons clothes
Shop at Wal Mart for clothes so son can attend school on Monday
Shop for microwavable food since all of kitchen things are in storage

Having said all of that, I do feel grateful to have a warm, dry place to sleep and shower. We have food to eat and clean water to drink. Unlike so many people hit by this devastating hurricane, we are fortunate enough to have all of these things that we rely on daily. I feels so weird that we are only getting the after effects of the hurricane with lots of calmly falling rain. It doesn't seem fair. Mother nature at it's best.

Much better day

The anxiety has seemed to have lifted extraordinarily well. I am so much better today. Wow. Long story short, hubby and I made up. We were able to talk things out pretty well and I realized that I have been obsessing way too much about things in the past. I need to move on. Let bygones be bygones, as they say. So now we can concentrate on moving. Tomorrow, uhaul truck to move the boxes and other stuff. Sat. to move the furniture. Sun, take a break from moving stuff and do something fun or just lay around all day. I am so looking forward to not living out of boxes anymore. We moved out here in July and have been in transition since then. It will be really nice to finally get settled. Good luck to us! Oh yah, make-up sex is the best!

I am definitely insane(no kidding)

Today has got to be the worst yet in my 32 years of living. I think I am literally going insane. Well , maybe I'm just officially in the next stage of depression. I slept for a total of 1 hour last night and it was not a restful sleep. Strange thoughts creeping in about hubby reading my blog and I can't remember now if it turned out good or bad. I got up to get shower except hubby got in there first and he took THE longest shower ever. I think he was really enjoying his shower if you know what I mean. Let me tell you, there were some strange sounds coming out the bathroom. I don't need this right now. I was going to come up with some witty comment to slap him with when he got out but decided I did not want to start off his/our morning on the wrong foot. Still no word about him reading my letter. Although I can't blame him, we do have two kids to get ready and one of them starts school at the insane hour of 7:30a.m. Whoever thoughts that 7&8th graders could function their brain at the hour is insane themselves. Anyways, hubby takes our oldest off to school. I can't eat any breakfast because my stomach is doing flip flops like you would not believe. Then, Jesse, says to me, "I don't want to go to school. I hate not having even one friend at all. That's why I wish we hadn't moved." Then for the next hour she stalls big time with getting dressed and eating breakfast. While she's upstairs I break down crying because I feel so guilty about the whole school issue. I can totally put myself in her place and see how hard it is to start at a school where she doesn't know a soul. I'm feeling that way about myself too, but from an adult's point of view. That's something else. Last night as we're filling out the school info papers, we realized we have noone except for our realtor(who is a really nice grandmotherly type) to put down as an emergency contact. So now I have to ask her today if we can use her for that and I feel really lame even doing it. Anyways, back to my morning. Jesse comes downstairs from getting dressed. She sees me with a kleenex in one hand and red puffy eyes and says," you must've been crying." I WAS trying to hide it from her. She has enough going on right now to not have to think about having a second parent with depression. To shorten up the story a bit, I drop her off at school, go sign yet one more paper at the realtor's office, come home and collapse on the couch. Immediately go into a crying fit, for what, I don't know. My stomach is in knots. I feel like I can't breathe or take in a deep breathe. Basically, my chest feels like there's a stack of books sitting on it. I don't think I'm having a full blown panic attack. I feel like I am on the verge of a full blown attack only the feeling doesn't go away. It is there 24/7(even during those few fitly minutes of sleep). What is freaking wrong with me. I have felt nervous and anxious before but this tops them all. I don't know how I am going to function with packing the rest of our stuff in the next two days, moving over the weekend, and then begin to unpack in our new, lovely house. This really sucks. I am supposed to be happy right now. We are doing exactly what we've been planning out for the past year. It's like when people have post partum depression(which I beleive I had a mild case of ). You feel so guilty for feeling the way you do at a time when you are supposed to be euphoric. I really don't want to take meds. We don't need 2 people in the house on that nasty stuff. That's why I started taking the St. John's Wort to see if it would help improve my mood. Then I started feeling the overly anxious and nervous feelings 24/7. So I stopped taking that today. Who knows what is doing this to me. I just want someone to make it stop, right now!

Onto a somewhat new subject. During part of my hubby's darkest point of depression, he was suicidal. He wrote down all of the thoughts he was having at that time, while he was experiencing them. He would also go through scenarios through his head of ways that our family might end up turning out. Such as: me and one of the kids dies and he is left to deal w/ and sort out the mess, he commits suicide and tries to make it look like an accident to spare the kids the guilt but I still know that it was suicide and have to live with that fact, etc. etc.

So my thought for the day ( which is just a thought, not going to carry through on this one) is that wouldn't he be suprised if I was the one that commited suicide and left him to deal with the aftermath. Wouldn't that be a mighty big suprise to him? No, I would never do that. Not to my kids, not to my parents and siblings, not to my hubby. But isn't it an insanely delicious thought? O.K. I warned you. I am definitely going insane.

roxanne

Addicted to the blog

My hubby was right. This blogging thing really is good therapy. I can absolutely not sleep right now, 1:37 a.m. and I already am thinking I might just stay up til the kids have to get ready for school. Hubby read my letter and he did not say one word to me about it all evening. We were busy filling out the many papers for the kid's schools, so he had an excuse for a while. Once that was done I thought we would be able to talk it out. Zip, zilch, nada. I tried to go to bed. Just layed there thinking of all the reasons why he didn't respond to my questions. Here's the wonderful letter I wrote:

Me again.  I must be an idiot.  I can't even bring up
important subjects with you.  Oh well, one more thing
to keep working on.  How am I supposed to approach you
with a subject that I feel like I'm obsessing over.  I
do not want you to go into any kind of downward
anything because I'm telling you my feelings.  Please
try not to take this the wrong way.  I can not stop
thinking about how you are attracted to "intelligent"
women.  I find that a really good thing in a person.
Especially since so many men find it hard to do.  My
problem is (and probably has always been) that I have
do not feel intelligent enough for you to be
completely and utterly attracted to me.  That is
probably partly why I have always had a problem with
Lisa.  She is the opitomy of everything that you
find attractive in a woman and I'm sorry but you
cannot deny this fact.  I always felt it from you
whenever you would talk about her in a conversation.
How can I live with everytime we have any real
conversations about anything important, feeling like a
complete and utter idiot.  I know I'm not, but I don't
match up to your expectations.  That's what I feel at
least.   I realize that every couple does not match up
perfectly.  I just constantly feel like I'm inadequate
for you.  I feel like you would be happier with
someone who could stimulate your brain more.  Maybe
I'm not supposed to fill that void for you.  Maybe I'm
here to bring you back to reality every so often.  I
realize that you enjoy having other people to talk
about deep things with.  That's great.  But it still
makes me wonder that if intelligence is such an
important attribute in your list of things that make
you attracted to someone, do I fit into that category
somewhere?  Am I reading too much into this or have I
hit the nail right on the head?  I keep thinking that
I have had WAY too much time on my hands lately to
think about stuff.  But maybe these are things that I
have allowed myself to put on the back burner.  You
might think that this is all coming from my recent
discovery of things.  It is mostly not.  Most of these
feelings and intuitions about how you really feel and
think have always been there for me.  Please let me
know if I am obsessing about this or not.  Are you not
as attracted to me(and I don't mean physically) as you
should be?  Please don't tell me yes just because you
think that's what I want to hear or need to hear.  I
need the truth even if it hurts.  I think hearing a
lie and knowing it's a lie would be worse than
anything. Little comments that you make, get me
wondering if you are trying to throw hints my way.
Like when I recently told you about Shelly and Abe
getting a divorce and how it kind of suprised me.
They seem like people who would do whatever they could
to work through problems/issues.  Then you commented
that isn't it better if people realize they don't like
each other anymore, isn't it better to split than to
stay with someone you don't really like anymore?  Is
this you thinking about us, or just merely thinking
about people in general?  Yes, I have had my times
when I did not like you, but it was when the
depression was taking over your former self.  I did
not have thoughts of "I need to get away from him" but
instead I was thinking that I needed to help you get
back to being the person that I fell in love with.  I
feel that that's what marriage is about.  Working
through the problems that life sends your way.  Some
people say that they "have grown apart" or "are not
the same people they were when they got married".
People may change and mature as they get older, but I
don't think you can change so much that you are no
longer any resemblance to your former self.  An
illness, such as depression, is just that.  An illness
that makes you think and act differently and hopefully
something that you can get past or learn to keep under
control.  Just like with any other illness, I would
not leave you.  If you got cancer, I would be there by
your side helping you fight it the whole way.  Same
thing here. Am I rambling?  I don't know.  I guess my
point is, I will be here through anything you throw my
way(except for a few things like physical abuse of me
or the kids, but you know that).  I know that you have
let me know the same, but I just keep  wondering if I
am everything that you feel you want and need out of a
partner. God, I sound pitiful.   

So that's the whole drawn out sob story.  I really don't
know what to think at this point.  Did he not respond
because he doesn't want to tell me the truth and deal
with the fallout of that?  Did he not want to get into
it tonight and get an actual night of sleep?  Or am I
obsessing about something that does not really need
to addressed.  Why do I feel like I'm going insane
right now?  Somebody shoot me cuz I don't think I
have the courage to do it myself.  I cannot stop
crying throughout the day.  I know that I am in some
what of a depressed state of mind right now.  I started
taking some of hubby's St. John's Wort the past two days
to help with my mood.  I don't know if it will work or
not.  I feel extremely anxious all day long.  I tried
to go shopping after I dropped the kid's off at school
this morning to cheer myself up a bit.  I ended up just
having to come home because I felt like I was going to
start bawling right in the middle of the department
store.  That would have been a lovely scene, now wouldn't
it? 

More on the issue of hubby and his bf and online friends
feeling the need to use $20 college words(as he likes to
call them) left and right.  I don't understand the need to
throw these words around at each other like it's some kind
of contest to see who is smarter than the other.  Or maybe
it's just to prove to each other how much smarter they
are than the rest of us.  Just go on Jeopardy already,
would you?  That's the other thing.  He can actually sit
and watch Jeopardy and answer the majority of the
questions before the contestants do.  I say who needs
all of that useless info, it doesn't help you in real
life.  Unless you're a professor or something and trying
to teach it(err...cram it down the throats of) all of
your students.  O.K. where was I going with this?  Oh
yah, hubby needs to stop trying so hard to be smart.
He's smart, I know it, he knows it.  So there.  I
really need to get some sleep but have no idea how
to with all of these idiotic thoughts running through
my head.  So long to you all, have a good night's rest
and I'll see ya in the daylight hours!
o.k., now I know I am insane.

roxanne (you don't have to turn out the red light)

Today is a new day(sort of)

Well, I just got done righting a long emotional letter to hubby. Started bawling halfway through it but I kept on trudging through. Why can I not approach him with such emotional subjects without having to write him a letter first. I feel like such an idiot. It's like we're back in high school passing notes back and forth to each other. Except now there are kids and a marriage to consider. This is not the prom anymore, people! How do married people stay in touch with each other 100% of the time without letting stuff get built up until you feel like you're going to explode? I don't think that it's possible. Anyhoo, I got a lot of things off of my chest and hopefully we can have long, heartfelt talk after he's done reading. Or maybe I'll melt down into a big pile of crying mush and not get anywhere again. Positive thoughts, right? My main issue with him right now, comes from one of the things I read in his blogger. Again, I was reading something that he did not intend me to, but I did and now we have issues to work out from some of the things I read. To start out, he is highly intelligent. Not the kind of intelligence that is scary, but a lot higher than average. He was at the top of his senior class(and most likely all the way through school). So one thing he wrote pertained to the fact that he is attracted to "intelligent" women. I have always felt like I am not good enough for him in that sense. I have always felt like I do not stimulate him intellectually. The reason I have such a problem with this somewhat new discovery, is that his "best friend" is also highly intelligent. Remember, they were competing in a friendly way to see who would end up #1 at the end of senior year. Some specific comments that he made about her stated that she is the opitomy of what he finds attractive in a woman. So how is this supposed to make me feel? Pretty inadequate I tell you. I have been on the brink of crying for the last week or so. I started crying while driving to the store today. I couldn't wait to get home just so I could have a big, fat, hairy crying fit in privacy. So that's when I decided to write him a letter letting him know how it made me feel. I went into detail asking him specifically if I am actually attractive to him or if he simply accepts me for who I am. I cannot change who I am, but he cannot also change the type of person who he is attracted to. He has told me over and over again how much he loves me and is dedicated to me and the kids. How can I believe this if I am always in the back of my head thinking that what he really wants is someone to stimulate his mind. I know I am not an idiot, but I am not able to get into the type of deep conversations, using $20 college words, that he really enjoys having. I also realize that no couple can be everything to each other. He has found it enjoyable and really helpful to "talk" with friends he has met through blogging. Mostly these are other depressives who help to support each other through their ups and downs. I have told him that I am really happy for him that he has found a support group of people who he can really relate to and know what he's going through because they've been there themselves. He says he wishes that I was able to talk things out with him more. How am I supposed to do that when he is pushing, pushing, pushing me away? He pushed me away, yet wants me to support him and be there for him when he is ready to accept help. That's what living with a depressed person is like. Trying to figure out the extremely thin line between giving help and staying out of their space so they can "heal". Am I supposed to let him wallow in self pity sleeping his life away when he's at his extremely down moments? Or am I supposed to drag him back into reality and make him realize there IS something to live for. A loving and supporting family. These are all things that he realizes and feels guilty about putting me and the kids through. Thank goodness that he does realize and is working extremely hard to overcome. Well, I must be off to pick up the kiddos from their first day of school. It should be an interesting afternoon hearing about their first day at a school where they don't know a soul. I really hope it went well. I do not want this move to turn the wrong way at this point. Over and out.

Deep thoughts

I just read through the comments to my last blog. Those of you who are actually interested in reading my blog and giving me feedback on what I write, thank you. The rest who are just trying to sell me stuff and talk me into going to their website, knock it off! I get enough advertising thrown in my face as it is. I don't need it in my personal space thank you very much. O.K. back to the important stuff. The weekend is over, this next week should be quite fun. We (I mostly) will be packing the rest of our stuff up while the kids go off to their new schools hopefully to make some new freinds and discover that they love their teachers. My daughter, Jesse, is happy that she finally has a male teacher this year. My son, Bobby, is starting junior high. It should be a whole new experience for him but I think he's ready to move on from "little kids" school. He'll have his own locker, get to take showers after p.e.(we all know how much fun that is at 12&13 years old), and hopefully avoid all the rambunctious girls who are developing at a MUCH faster rate than the boys. Not necessarily emotionally but definitely physically. I will now have time to do something for myself during school hours(after we move of course) if I so choose to. That hasn't happened for quite a while. I am not back to working yet, as I was waiting for the kids to go back to school and moving and all. Hubby says to take as much time as I need before I start up my business again. I feel guilty though because he is really the one that needs a break from working. Yes, I can use some time to myself, try to get things straightened around in my head, but I feel if I have too much time to think, then I start obsessing about things. That is how I ended up searching through private stuff on our computer and finding some very hurtful things that my hubby had written in his depressive state of mind. I told him I partly understood that he wasn't in the right frame of mind when he wrote those things, but the feelings he had were still partly real. Even if the feelings are distorted, they were still there to begin with. I don't know. Maybe I just put too much thought into things that I wasn't supposed to see. I found some things( one letter in particular) that he had written but never sent, to his best friend. This friend has been a source a MAJOR discontent for me. He continues to tell me that she is "just a friend" always has been, always will. A year ago, when he was in a really, really bad state(suicidal thoughts, wanting to run away from us, etc.) we had a really long discussion about things. I finally, after three years of stewing about it, told him how much it had bothered me that he had her come visit from out of town and spend the night at our house. Mind you, I didn't think anything ever happened, still don't, our 2 kids were home, but it really bothered me that he had no idea how much it really bothered me. No, I don't expect him to read minds, but come on, why would someone who's married not think it would bother their spouse to have a "best friend" of the opposite sex spend the night while the spouse is halfway across the country at a family reunion? So, having that out of the bag, he cannot accept the fact that I do not want him to go visit her ( and possibly spend the night at her place the save on a motel room). This was a year ago when he was in his really bad state of mind. He said it would really help him to see her in person rather than just talking through email and IM ing her. I already had a problem with that (at the time, not now) because I felt that he should be confiding in me, his wife of 14 years, and letting me help him with his depression. I know I can't be everything to him and he needs outside opinions and advice from people who have been there before. I understand that now. He uses his blog as therapy. He has met other people who have strangely similar stories to tell of depressive ups and downs and how it affects the rest of their lives. I don't want to take that away from him. What I still have a problem with is his best friend. I found a letter that he wrote to her (and never sent). He says it was an exercise that he was doing to get his thoughts out of his brain and onto paper(computer screen). Nevertheless, I still cannot get over the feelings that he poured out, about how he had had thoughts of running away from me and the kids and that he wanted to run to her. How he had never gotten over her from high school days. She had let him down easy when he let her know his feelings about her. He still has this fantasy about he and she somehow ending up together someday. How am I supposed to take that when I'm being told she's just a "friend" and I'll always think of her as a friend. She always pissed me off in high school by the way. We were all in the band together. Rather, my hubby was in the band, she and I were in the flag and auxillary. She always had this higher than mighty attitude. She and my hubby were always sort of in a friendly way competing to see who would be the number 1 rated of the senior class. I don't remember who won. I could give a crap who it was. Being really smart does not make you any more capable of a person in the real world of dealing with people. Turns out she has had many emotional problems too, dealing with suicidal thoughts etc. and that's why he has confided in her. I had no idea he was going to see a therapist and on anti-depressants until a couple of months later. She was the one that convinced him he should go see someone about the depression. Thanks for confiding in me. I sleep in the same freaking bed as you, but no, I'm not good enough to talk to about major issues like wanting to kill yourself. I'm told by him that it's typical of depressives to push loved ones away while at the same time complaining that noone is there to help them. How am I supposed to know what to do? Do you want to be left alone to write things out on the computer, sleep half the day away, or should I hold you and comfort you and tell you how much you're needed by me and the kids. I have tried all of the these. It is very tricky trying to stay on top of what mood I'm dealing with and how I'm supposed to react. Luckily we are talking more now. After I discovered that letter this last week(ironically on our 14th wedding anniv.) we had a very long talk, few crying fits, and more talking. He let me know that in no way was this letter anything that he ever intended on sending. It was an exercize to get irrational thoughts out of his head. He said that it is very difficult when he is in the deep, dark strangling hands of depression, to try to sort out the irrational thoughts from the real ones. I do understand this, but still don't know if I can live with it. Of course I will have to learn to live with it if I want my own sanity to remain intact. It is not easy though. The other thing I need to work on is not reading his blog anymore. I discovered the address for it about two weeks ago, read through all the archives in stages while he was at work, and finally broke down one night crying (partly from guilt, partly from thinking about some of the stuff I had read) and confessed to him that I had been reading through it. He had wanted to keep it from me as to not have my feelings hurt. That didn't work did it? He said he did not blame me nor is mad at me for wanting to read it, but wished I had asked him to take me on a guided tour. I told him I just became obsessed once I found it, with wanting to read everything and feel like I always have just a "guided tour" of his feelings and what he's is going through. I know it was wrong. I know it was an invasion of his privacy. So why do I not feel that guilty about it? Maybe I'm evil. No idea. Anyways, one more round of stuff behind us.....onto the next! This is partly why I started this blog. Mostly to get my thoughts out of my head. Partly to see if anyone like me who is living with someone going through these issues can give me any support or ideas on how they deal with it on a daily basis. I feel lucky that he has been pretty stable for the past few months. I don't know how with everything that has been going on with us, but thank goodness for that. I must sign off before I bore myself or anyone reading this to death. So long, I will return soon.

Survival of the fittest (or not so fit)

I finally got to talk to my sister after more than a month. It was nice to hear her voice. She and her husband may even be coming to visit sometime in the next couple of months. Hopefully by then we will have a spot in our new house to put them up. We are moving into our new house in 1 week. I'm not sure if I'm ready for the upheaval again but here goes! We found a really nice piece of property, 4.5 acres of parklike setting, really nice big oak trees and other varieties that I will have to figure out. We wanted to find a place with enough space for our kids to have room to
"roam". Plus our daughter wants to have a horse or pony, a couple of goats and bunnies. And, oh yeah, let's not forget the dog. So we should stay pretty busy for the next few years at least. Well, off to bed so I can get back to packing boxes tomorrow. Oh joy! I hope hubby stays in his up mood throughout the whole move process. It has been nice to not have him going drastically up and down in his moods. I've have been suprised that all of the stress of moving across the country, starting a new job, disrupting our kid's lives, etc. has not sent him into another down period. Thank goodness his doc upped his meds to the highest dose possible. I think that has made a huge difference. That and the fact that he is finally letting me in instead of pushing me away. We have recently had some pretty intense talks. Mostly started because I ended up finding his blog address and read through all of his entries for the past year or so. I told him I know it was something that he didn't want me to read yet, and I felt somewhat guilty about it(probably not as much as I should have) but I really really needed to find out what was/is going on inside his head. I don't know how else to be there for him and help him through all of the really rough patches. He says he doesn't want to tell me all of his dark thoughts he has during his really down times and doesn't want to scare me away. I said if you haven't scared me away yet, it is not ever gonna happen. We have been through some really rough patches, basically because of his depression. If he can manage to keep it at bay, maybe I will not feel like I am going to go insane half of the time. I think people underestimate or maybe just don't realize the effects of depression on the loved ones who are living with depressives. I am lucky enough to have a hubby that does understand that if effects me and our kids and consciously keeps himself in check to make sure his behaviors are not being projected onto us. It is all so drearily exhausting! I guess I'll survive. Oh yeah, I was headed to bed. Over and out.

So this is it, huh?

Welcome to first official post. I'm not sure what I'm going to write, but here goes. I am starting a blog to sort through some feelings I've been dealing with for quite some time now(years in fact). I am the wife of depressive. As anyone out there who has lived with a depressive person knows, it's the pits. Of course we can't tell them that(at least not on a daily basis) as it will send them into a downward spiral. I'm beginning to hate that term by the way. Downward spiral. On top of living with a depressive husband, we have two wonderful children and a pretty decent lifestyle. I guess part of why I wanted to start a blog is to have somewhere to sort out my feelings and my ups and downs dealing with him. I always thought I was a pretty strong person, although I do have many issues myself. But in the past few years it has been very difficult trying to learn how to deal with his many, MANY ups and downs. He has started on medication over a year ago and went to therapy for quite a while. Then he "fired" his therapist, which I was happy about because I did not think she was right for him. Of course I'm just going off of his interpretations of her. Anyhow, I have had a few depressed periods myself in the years that we have been married. The first one was when our first child was born. I related it the the typical "baby blues". I think it partly was that. It was partly because I was young, 20, and maybe did not feel totally capable at that time. And after talking recentyly with my hubby, discovered that maybe it was partly related to his reaction to having a baby. I think I did notice at the time that he was distant, not sure how to care for a baby(what new parent is no matter what age you are?). I wanted it to be a time for us to relish and enjoy. Yet at times it felt like I was parenting and he was on the outside looking in. I have had a few other times in our relationship that I thought my mild depression was solely because of me, but upon reading a book that he gave me about the effects on people living with depressives and a few deep discussions with hubby, I have come to the realization that it may not just be me. There, I said it, it's not just me to blame for how I feel. By the way, I'm in one of those mildly depressive states right now. We recently moved halfway across the country away from all of my family. This was/is a good move. We made the move for many different reasons which were all positive, but I am still feeling alone and isolated. I am trying to come up with ways to meet people but it is not easy for someone with low self-esteem issues. I have tried over the years REALLY HARD to break my bad habit of waiting for other people to approach me first. My problem is I tell myself I am not worthy of other people's friendship. It's a long sad story that I might get into later. Anyhow, goodbye for now. To anyone interested enough to read this, I am using this to sort through stuff and sorry if it seems like a bunch of rambling on and not getting anywhere...you'll have to live with it.