It is a monster you cannot outrun...

For the last year I have been battling depression. And I have been managing okay. Until this summer hit. And it got worse.

The world got dark. I lost control of myself. And I shut down. I didn't want the world to know my struggles. But now I am ready to shine light on what depression is like. I think it is necessary to know if you don't deal with it and if you do. If you are not depressed it will help you understand and if you are it will help you know that you are not alone.

What is depression? Why do people become suicidal? Why do they give up hope?

Depression is not a feeling, it is having no feeling at all. It is being so empty that you cannot find energy to do anything. It is watching your world go black, panicking because you don't know how to find the light again. It is not taking pictures of yourself for 3 months straight because you can see the death behind your eyes and it makes you feel like a monster. Someone else is living inside your body, someone who is slowing killing you minute by minute.

It is eating fast food every single day because you know you have to eat but you have no desire to cook. When you do manage to cook, the dishes sit in the sink for weeks because there is no way that you can muster the strength to wash them. It is not getting out of bed for weeks straight because you don't want to move at all. It is not wanting to go out and do anything because the house is safe and it takes no extra effort.

It is literally hating every part of yourself because you think that there is a problem with you. How dare you be sad, how dare you be struggling, how dare you feel this way. You hate that you are the way that you are and you have nothing left to change it. You cannot breathe in without realizing that you are drowning.

It is like standing on the edge of a cliff and praying that a gust of wind doesn't push you over. It is losing control of your ability to rationally think.

You feel like a burden to everyone, so you don't talk about it. You are buried 8 feet deep and dying minute by minute but the world still moves forward without you. That makes you loathe yourself in a way that I cannot describe. Depression causes you to close off from people because you don't have the energy to explain it and they probably wouldn't know what to say. There is so many scary thoughts running through your head, will someone truly stick around if they knew what you were thinking? Thoughts like, "I could run my car into that tree and die. I could use this knife and slit my wrist. I have a headache, maybe I will take the whole bottle of pills instead of two."

Why am I still here if I contribute nothing to the world? Why should I still be alive if all I bring is pain and darkness? Everything you touches seems to turn black under your touch. You are the angel of death it seems, killing every little piece of joy around.

Depression causes you to need your spouse. And not be able to give them much in return. It is constant mood swings and instant irritation at the littlest things. You can't do their laundry or smile when they walk in the door.

You feel as if you are causing all the problems. All the fights, all the stress, all the burden you put on them. You are causing them so much grief and sorrow... And you can't fix it. And that turns into deep seeded anger towards yourself.

So you hurt yourself because you hate yourself to much. Your anger bubbles over and suddenly there is a knife at your skin and you have no control over how much blood you draw. You lay in bed digging a hole in the skin on your arm with your fingernails, all while your spouse is laying right next to you in bed. It is hiding that for days because there is so much shame that you feel, you know they will blame themselves and it isn't their fault.

None of this is anyone's fault. Except your own. Or so you feel.

You start anti-depressants, only to have the world spin completely out of control. Every demon that you have comes out screaming and there is nothing you can do. There is no feeling quite like not being in control. Anxiety brought on by depression is horrible. You already want to die, so when you feel like you are dying, you just want it to be over with. It is terrifying knowing that you have lost any sense of reason. And who knows what you will do to yourself next time it happens.

The wrong medication is hell on earth. It throws you even further down a rabbit hole than you want to even know. It makes your depression so bad you can barely cope... I lost my mind.

And the whole time, my husband is doing everything he can to understand and help... But there isn't much he can do. That is discouraging to you both. It comes with many nights of uncontrollable actions, and panic attacks, and sobbing so hard you cannot breathe with no way to stop or calm yourself down.

It is when you go to dinner with your husband's new friend and his wife and you can't explain that you are not drinking with them because you are afraid the alcohol will react to your meds and you will lose control again. It is that awkward conversation of....Hi, I am prone to random psychotic breaks right now, it is nice to meet you, I might lose my mind in a few minutes or an hour. There is a reason why I rarely left the house... You don't want others to experience that.

I read on a Humans of New York picture about a girl describing her miscarriage and what she said describes how I feel completely...

.....I don't want to talk about it but I want everyone to understand.....

You don't want anyone to know what is going on... But you want them to understand. You need them to understand. But you cannot form the words to make them grasp what you are struggling with.

I am doing better. I switched medication and I finally feel like I am recovering. I am smiling again. I am taking pictures again. I am getting out of my house. I am cooking and cleaning again. I am doing okay.

But okay is still rocky. Okay is still scary. I might be more stable, but it doesn't mean that I am off the cliff yet. I am still hanging on though. Some days are worse than others. But every day is a victory if I make it to the end alive. I have what it takes now to reach out when I need to. I can pick up the phone and call someone now. I have a wonderful friend who I can go stay at her house if needed in the middle of the night... I have help. But I only have help because I reached out.

If depression is a monster that you cannot outrun either, please reach out. Please talk to someone. Get help. Don't let it get this bad before you ask for a hand to hold. You are not weak. You are not a burden. You are not the problem.

Depression is a fight that most people fight alone... Let's find our voice and scream if we must for help.

I have a disease...

These have been some of the hardest months of my life.

I didn't think that life would be better once I got married. I wasn't underneath some naive impression that the second I had a ring on my finger my life would suddenly turn into this fairytale. I knew it would be so hard to leave my family, my life, and everything I held dear behind to follow the man I loved on his journey in life. I knew that I would struggle to make friends and recreate a life.

But I didn't expect the painful sex and the Navy screwing us into financial strain. I didn't expect the sorrow of hearing my baby sister bawling on the phone to me that she missed me. I didn't expect that when I married the man of my dreams that all my nightmares would come crawling out from under my bed to haunt me. I didn't expect the endless tears and the countless times that he would have to hold me while I couldn't breathe through the sobbing from my soul.

But what I didn't expect the most was the despair, the demons that I thought I put to rest coming up from the grave to drag me back down with them. I didn't expect to feel the darkness creep in my window every morning and chain me to the bed and hold me hostage. I didn't expect day after day of sleeping for 14 hours straight just to avoid the anguish of my heart.

Depression.

I expected you to come knocking.

But I didn't expect you to take over my home and turn it into a dungeon.

Depression is the hardest thing for me to talk about. Why? Because I feel weak. And I hate weakness in myself. People can destroy you with your weakness.
The mask of happiness is easier to wear than the truth of my heart. Why? Because I can't handle the judgement that I feel from every eye who sees who is hiding underneath happy me.

This is not a pretty post. This is not a post about hope and love and Jesus. This is a post where I am going to share the darkness of my soul. Why? Because I am tired of hiding. And I am ready to find help.

They always tell you that the first way to start your recovery from something is to admit you have a problem.

Well here I am, admitting that I have a problem.

I have struggled with depression since I was 12 years old. It hit me at a young age... I can remember the first signs of despair. I can remember the dark poems that I never showed anyone, the drawings of the broken, bleeding hearts... I remember when a boy told me he liked me and it was the first boy to ever like me back and for a moment I felt bliss. And then two weeks later he crushed my heart... And I remember a friend having to force me to take a knife out of my room. I remember how everyone in my life kept dying or leaving me. I remember never feeling like it was okay to cry. I remember the nights crying and sobbing in my room, praying that no one would hear me because I thought that no one would understand or that I would be punished for feeling that way. I remember never fitting in anywhere. Always feeling alone and left out of everything, two steps behind everyone I wanted to be friends with. I remember hating church and everyone in it.

I remember finding a place of refuge and crying Friday after Friday on the floor during youth group worship, praying that God would help me just get through another day. I remember standing in a circle with the discipleship group praying and for the first time in my life crying in front of complete strangers. I remember my youth pastor Joel literally holding me up from falling on the ground because something in me broke and I couldn't stand under the weight of what I had been carrying on my shoulders for too many years.

My life went up from there for a few years. Made some good friends, found people I could trust. I remember falling for a boy. And I remember the abusive relationship that followed. The separation from all my friends and family because he wasn't ever getting enough attention. The suffocation that came from not being able to talk to any other man without wrath and anger and car doors slamming in my face and getting abandoned place after place by myself and being ignored for hours and hours and hours because I did something that made him angry and the screaming of "What the hell is wrong with you?" for laughing at his sister's boyfriend's jokes...

When I finally got out of that relationship, I swore I would silence my voice again. I would never break myself down for someone else.

And then I met the next boy who promised he loved me for more than sex. I remember the nights watching the sunset on top of parking garages and driving through floods to get to rock climbing places. I remember my first kiss with him. I remember feeling romanced and cherished and like something in the world was about me for once... And then the forcing himself on me came and the truth that all he wanted me for was sex. I remember hearing that I was his conquest and he told everyone so.

I remember that my grandmother died a month after that ended. And the pure hatred I felt towards God. Why He took her away instead of my POS grandfather who walked out of my life 6 years before, I still never understood. She was the one grandparent who was a constant presence in my life, even though she had no obligation to stay. I remember the screaming at the top of my lungs and pounding the steering wheel, so angry and hurt and lost I had nowhere to turn, considering time after time just running my car into something and calling it quits.

I went from boy to boy to boy... Looking for something. Trying to fill the void in my body where my heart used to be. And one right after another they all broke my heart. They all wanted sex and pieces of my heart that weren't even in one solid piece to give them. I remember not feeling anything after one by one they left. I remember the betrayal as they used me as a conquest each and every time and when I wouldn't put out, they stomped me in the gutter, ashamed they couldn't get what they wanted.

I hated men. Every single one of them.

And then I remember counseling. And finally getting back on my feet. I remember feeling like for once I had a grip on my depression. I had a place to work through my problems and my frustrations, openly without fear that it would get shared with anyone else. I could express my thoughts of suicide without feeling like I would be locked up in an institution or grounded for life, or scolded for being so selfish.

I had a handle on my depression.

And then in walked my knight in shining armor. With his no fear of my demons and understanding of the void in my heart. He wanted to know me... And was in love with me after only writing letters to each other for one summer. He told me he loved me...before I was even ready to say it back.

He talked with me for hours, knowing what I was feeling before I could even put it into words. My every up and down were recorded in his mind and each time he had the perfect thing to say to heal my broken soul. He was my gift from God... And after trying to push him away, afraid that he would see my baggage and run, I finally closed the door that I left open to leave at any moment. And we sat there and he pulled out each heartache from my baggage, each piece of pain, and he quietly, lovingly, ran his hand over each piece and then hung it in his closet. He carried my burdens and took my weight. Many nights were spent in tears as he healed what I thought could never be healed.

And so when he asked me to be his wife, I was so beyond the clouds happy. I could finally share more than my heart's closet with him. I could share a home.

And then the happiest day of my life comes and it is clouded with heart wrenching goodbyes as I said goodbye to my family and my life that I had built. I was leaving my foundation behind, and I suddenly had no where to stand.

And I remember getting here and crying on our lanai for hours asking myself why I moved here, why I did this, why did I think I was strong enough...

And then sex was painful and I hated God again. And I hated my husband for not feeling my pain. And I hated myself for failing him and failing our marriage. I hated that I would do everything "right" and save myself for marriage only to be punished.

And then they started creeping up again.

All the nightmares, all the demons, all the baggage, every piece that was healed was broken again.

One thing right after another, piece by piece I was undone. Because marriage threw everything in one room and I could no longer run from anything.

And then the separation. Each and every time he went away... For every month we had we only got to spend a few weeks, sometimes only a few days together...

And each and every day I felt myself fall deeper and deeper into a hole.

And I fought like hell to get out. And some days I did. Some days I felt hope returning to my soul. And then the next wave of desperation would engulf me and I couldn't breathe again...

And this time, no one was here to pull me up to breathe. Your husband can't help you when he is under the ocean (literally).

And I realized that my life has a pattern. An up and down cycle of depression and happiness... A roller coaster.

And this roller coaster has been going down for so long that I can't remember the last time that it went up.
This darkness is so aphotic, growing darker and darker each moment, past the point where the sun can reach. This is the place where the grimmest creatures lurk in the shadows, threatening your life every moment.

At the end of this month I will have seen my husband for 15 days out of three months. 90 days of keeping the house running, and keeping the bills paid, and keeping myself together....for only 15 days of being with my husband.

And the darkness is deeper than ever. Because there is no one to pull me out. I am drowning day by day. And I have reached the end of my rope.

You see for someone who has been battling this for 9 years, the end of my rope is an alarming place to be. When I have nothing left, I am beyond the point of survival.

Because you see, some days the only thought that keeps me going and breathing is, "You can't let him come home to a dead wife. You can't let him come home to a dead wife. He will never recover. You can't let him come home to a dead wife."

And that is the point where I know, it is time for help. It is time to get on medication. It is time to take this seriously.

This is not something that I can control anymore.

You see I always felt that depression meant there was something wrong with me, something that I was screwing up or not doing right. I thought it was my fault, that I should just snap out of it.

Sometimes snapping out of it doesn't work. Some times prayer isn't enough. Some times prayer isn't enough because the voices in your head are so loud that you can't hear anything other than, "You are worthless, you can't handle this, who do you think you are, no one cares, no one would know if you were gone."

And this is the point where I am reaching out to get help. And this time it is going to be in the form of a pill.

And I am ashamed of that some times. Ashamed that my life has reached the point that I cannot cope. I am ashamed to look in the mirror, knowing the hollowness that I see there.

But some times depression is more than an emotion. Some times it is a disease.

And I have been battling it for so long, I know it is not an emotion.

I have a disease.

Not a weakness.

My depression is not a weakness.

I am not a weak person.

I am not pathetic for not being able to handle this.

It is not something that I can control.

And I am going to accept that and get help.

And maybe someday I can believe the last 7 sentences that I wrote.

And maybe someday soon I can feel this Hawaii sun and be thankful that I was brave enough and strong enough to admit that I have a problem that I cannot fix.

When your heart hurts too much...

This life is freaking hard. Literally so hard that I have no idea how I manage to make it out of bed every day. I have no idea how I manage to keep going and put one foot in front of the other. I don't know how I keep going.

I think that the Navy is making my abandonment issues go into hyper drive.

"Here is your husband back, you can have him for about a week. Then you can have him for a few days here and there within the next few months. Oh yeah, we know that we took him from you for a few months before this. Sorry you have to give him up, no choice."

I get security back and then swoop, the Navy sends a submarine to take my husband away again. Thank you Navy.

This is like the military on steroids. I could honestly handle him being gone 6 months in a war zone and then home for a year and back out again. It would be much easier than this constant being in and out and then having a deployment come on top of that... Literally my husband will be home a total of three months in 14 months. And that three months is spread out in a few days here and a week here, few more days here.

IT SUCKS!!

And I still have 1400 and something days left. Yes, I am counting. I am counting the days until we are "Navy free."

Which feels very unpatriotic of me and I feel like a horrible wife for being excited for that. It is an unspoken rule in the military community that the wives just support their husband's service. That they are 100% behind them whether they reenlist or not... And I can't be that wife. And I feel like a failure for saying that.

But the feeling when my husband leaves me, is not like anything I have ever felt.

It is an ice cold iron blanket that settles in over my heart and threatens to creep up and strangle me. It is a sadness that is so dark I just stay in bed all day binge watching Netflix trying to numb it. I literally exhaust all the friends I have here because I am so lonely and I just don't want to be alone anymore.

Last weekend my sadness turned into seething rage. I was so mad I could not contain it. I was so mad at everything and everyone and I couldn't stop it. I lost my lid to my frustration and it was like a volcano.... I covered everyone in my path with scorching lava.

I couldn't get over it, I couldn't move on from it. It just sat there, angry and pushing people off cliffs.

And then this verse came to my head...

"Cast your burden on the Lord and He will sustain you; He will never permit the righteous to be moved."

Total mind shift... It was like the light had been turned on.

The Lord will sustain me. I have burdens, I have a heavy heart, but the Lord will sustain me. He isn't going to let me be moved. Some versions say that you will not be shaken. Nothing will shake me if the Lord is sustaining me. I don't have to deal with these problems on my own. I can throw them at Someone who knows how to handle them.

I just get this image in my head of throwing trash and broken pieces at God and He catches them all. He then takes them and turns His back to me so I can't see while He works on them. When He turns back around, all He has in His hands to give back to me are peace and hope and strength.

So here I am, trying to throw my burdens to God, because I need Him.

#HonorTheFallen

So yesterday I got back from a month vacation back to my home state and then to California and back again to my home state. And it was really hard to leave again. So I might be a bit more emotional than normal but I had to share this with you to help the civilian world understand. So here it goes...

Today I opened my Facebook and I am just scrolling through people posting videos of cute dogs, pictures of their babies and statuses about the heat.... And I come across this picture.

This sailor died this morning after being shot in Chattanooga, TN. He was shot in the stomach, arm, and back. He was 24 and married.

4 years older than my husband.

He was on land.

You see for a sailor's wife, we only worry when they are out to sea. We don't have to worry about when they are on land. They are safe in our minds.

Now I don't know all the details of the shooting, I really cannot handle reading through the reports right now. But this I do know, one of the Marines was texting his girlfriend about visiting....

I have been there. I have been the girlfriend on the other end of the phone making plans to see my now husband. I have been in her shoes... Except now, he is dead. I can almost feel her devastation as if it were my own.

"That could have been Cody. That could have happened to me."

Everyone can relate to this shooting in some way or another. If you have a husband, boyfriend, son, or even just a friend, you can put yourself in this situation. "What if I lost someone I loved? What if I was the one mourning on the other end?"

But there is one reason why this is hitting me so hard...

This man was wearing my husband's uniform.

He is wearing dress whites.

Cody got married in his dress whites.

It becomes very real when you see a picture of a man who could very well be your husband.

When you can easily replace his face with your husband's because you have seen that uniform time and time again...

I have sewed his new ranks on that uniform, I have taken that uniform to the dry cleaner's.

I know that uniform.

But I know it on my husband.

This man was a second-class.

Cody is a second class.

This sailor was an E5, the same rank that my husband just got a few months ago that we celebrated for.

We just celebrated Cody receiving second class.

I could have been the mourning wife.

I know what I married into.

I know that I married into the worry and the possibility of being a widow at a very young age.

I know all that.

But he is in the Navy...

So you assume that he is safer than those in combat situations.

There are rarely pictures that circle the internet of sailors who have died.

And then one day...

You realize that it could have been you in that wife's shoes.

You realize that your pretty world could be taken down in one second by a mad man.

You realize that your husband could die.

And that day could be today.

Or tomorrow.

Or in a couple years when we are on shore duty and he is no longer going out to sea.

You never feel like it is going to happen to you, until it does.

So please share this picture, honor the fallen, honor the marines who lost their lives as well...

But every time you like this picture or see it on Facebook, or read about it in a news article, please remember that he has a wife at home.

A wife who is now a widow.

Who wishes that she would have kissed him one more time that morning.

Who is praying that he knew she loved him.

Who is beating herself up for all the dumb fights she ever picked and wishing that she could take back every harsh word ever said.

She is dying inside, knowing she will never have one more day with him.

There will be no "after the Navy" life for them.

There will be no retirement, no growing old, no civilian job, no normal life.

And also...

Remember that this is enraging servicemen all over the country right now.

Remember that we all feel this personally as if it was our own men who had died.

Remember that they are messing with the wrong country.

Rally behind your military. Please. Lift their spirits. Buy their meals. Thank them for their service. Please. Because I know how discouraging it can get and I also know how one kind act from a stranger can make you remember why you are fighting for this country.

Please honor this fallen man and the other 4 marines who died along with him.

Because the fact that it could have been this picture circling the news right now is more difficult than I can put into words for you.

I chose pain over my husband...

If I had to pick a theme of my life it would be pain.

The theme of my life is pain. 

Always pain.

That is how I deal with life and circumstances, I hurt.

No matter what happens in my life, it makes me sad.

I just get sad.

I am sensitive. 

That is just a fact... 

I turn all negative emotion into sadness.

Because I can control sadness.

I know how sadness feels. 

I know the in's and the out's of sorrow.

 I know how to be sad, how to handle being sad, how to not show I am sad.

I know sad.

Sad is my best friend. 

She is my coping mechanism. 

She is safety. 

I know Sad and she knows me.

But it used to be a battle I fought.

Depression has always been a fight that I have been in.

It has been something that I have been struggling against for years.

But that is the point.

It used to be a fight.

I used to be battling against it.

Not letting it win.

Not getting in bed with it and letting it control me.

Somewhere down the line, I stopped fighting.

I got tired.

I got sad.

I like being in control.

I like being in control of my emotions.

I like being able to have a grip on my heart.

I don't like feeling something that I can't control.

And I can control pain.

So that is all I chose to feel.

All the emotion that I could be feeling, and I choose sadness.

Because sadness already hurts, so you can't possibly get hurt anymore.

And if you do get hurt, it is just more of the same thing, no crash from happy down to pain.

Just pain to more pain.

I chose pain over my husband.

In a recent email I sent him, I explained it this way...

I started thinking why I am sad, and I came to realize that I don't allow happy moments into my life.

I dwell on the sadness because it is familiar, it is comfortable. 

Happiness brings pain in past experience and I can't allow that to happen. 

I have to control the pain that I feel. 

And if I am always feeling pain then I am in control.

But I have so many reasons to be happy... 

I have a wonderful life with you. 

We struggle and we get back up. 

You do everything you can to make me happy. 

You are the most wonderful man to ever love me. 

You never hurt me and are always trying to protect me. 

You are my rock, always there for me. 

And I still choose my pain. 

But not anymore.

I feel like I have definitely put a huge burden on you... 

I asked you to be my happiness while I kept going back to my sadness. 

I asked you to hold me together while I ripped myself apart. 

I stopped fighting for happiness. 

I stopped fighting for the sun to shine. 

I stopped appreciating every single little thing that you do for me.

I am sorry for choosing sadness. 

I am sorry because I feel like I have been fighting this battle of depression for so long that I forgot to
fight. 

I got tired and sadness overcame me. 

But that isn't who I am.

I am not the woman who sits back and lets bad circumstances and crappy feelings to keep her down. 

I am not the kind of woman who backs down from a fight and leaves the rink before I have knocked the opponent out. 

I am sorry for forgetting that.

You see I chose pain over my husband.

He would try to make me happy, try to mend my broken heart...

And I would still run back to pain.

Pain was my love affair.

I chose pain over my husband.

I chose to feel everything in pain.

I chose to never heal, I only chose to break apart.

And then be upset when my husband couldn't keep me together anymore.

I would be happy with my husband.

He would make the happiest woman in the world.

Yet, I still run back to my pain.

I never let my happiness with my husband last.

And so let me tell you this...

Stop having love affairs with your feelings and your emotions.

Stop heading back to how you always feel.

If you struggle with anger, shame, sadness... Anything that damages you...

Take it to your heavenly Father and leave it there.

Anything other than love, trust, hope, faith, anything that tears your down instead of build you up...

Stop.

Stop running back to lay in bed with your sorrow.

Stop running into the arms of your emotions.

Because your spouse will feel it.

Your spouse deserves to be chosen over your past.

The love of your life deserves to be the most important thing to you.

It isn't an easy recovery.

It is a battle that you will probably fight the rest of your life.

But fight you must.

And if you must sit down for a while, please let your spouse fight the battle for you.

But please, please, get back up, pick up your sword and fight like hell for what you hold dear.

Choose your love.

Run to your God.

Let your spouse love you.

Choose happiness.

And never, ever give up.

Get knocked down.

Get sad.

Get messed up.

Get bruised and broken.

But get back up.

Always get back up.

Love,

Mrs. K

How to live a life from hell...

Literally, I have no freaking clue how anyone ever survived this lifestyle before me. I have no idea how women for centuries have survived seeing their precious men go off to war, with no promise of their return. And I also don't understand how most of them did it without any communication whatsoever. I can't comprehend how we as women have survived through war after war... Not only are we left alone to survive on our own, we are also left trying to put our men back together once they have returned. I cannot wrap my mind around it.

Because this is a life from hell. A life filled of bitter pain and anger. A life of fear and anxiety. A life of loneliness and frustration. A life that you live by yourself while your love is ripped away from you.

How do you survive this life? How do you get up every day, how do you cook and clean and manage the finances and fix the toilets and the cars and the light bulbs? How do you do both your man's job and your own?

How do you manage the sorrow in your soul? How do you learn to cope with the anxiety attacks, and the health problems, and the depression that is lurking at your door just waiting for one moment of weakness so he can devour you? How do you fight to keep your head above the water when you have been fighting the waves together and now you must swim alone?

This is a life straight from hell. Literally. I am a very vindictive person...but even still, this is not a life that I would wish on my worst enemies. How has anyone ever survived this life?

You take one week to mope around. One week to eat crap food and leave your candy wrappers on the floor. You leave your laundry laying around the floor and your bed is constantly unmade, if you even managed to get out of it. You shower only when you need to go to the store because you ran out of wine. You watch 8 seasons of a tv show because you have nothing better to do. And then it all changes. You wake up one morning and you realize that you are a badass. You are a super hero in the flesh and blood. You are a mad woman for even falling in love with your man...and an even more mad woman for marrying him. But you realize that you were born to be a mad woman. Because only mad woman could get through this life. No sane person could ever survive the life that you are being called to live.

You realize that you will survive this. You learn how to fix a toilet and change your own oil. You adapt to them being here and then being gone.

You also have to learn to give yourself grace for that week that you couldn't handle it. That goes for anyone in any situation in life. Give yourself grace. Don't feel guilty for the time that you took trying to pull yourself together.

So how do you survive this life from hell?

You get up and give it more hell than it gives you.

Dancing with my eyes closed...

My life since the last time that I wrote:

- Doctor’s appointment.

                - She said nothing was wrong with me and that I should just be patient with the pain, it’ll get better

- Anger and frustration about news from doctor (will go into this in another post)

- Loving husband assuring me that we will find answers

- Trip back to see family

- 21^st birthday

- Seeing my husband only 5 days out of a whole month

- Coming back to my beautiful home to find it all cleaned, my bed made, laundry done, sink empty, and two beautiful dresses laid out for me that my darling husband had bought for me

- Expectation for sorrow and chaos upon getting home and being without my family again.

That is obviously the short version of my life at the moment but you get the gist! I was expecting to wake up so depressed this morning, just like when I first moved here. And yet I woke up this morning to beautiful sounds coming in my window that reminded me of my time in Haiti. A peace that I cannot describe to you overwhelmed and covered my soul. “And the peace of God which surpasses all understanding will guard your hearts and minds in Christ Jesus.” (Phil. 4:7)

I got up and made myself breakfast and coffee and took it out onto our lanai and sat and read through Philippians again. I was soaking in everything that I was reading and truly feeling like God was speaking to me again. I felt Him for the first time in months and I can’t tell you how much I had missed His voice and His peace. I picked up a book that I had started reading a while ago called Do You Think I’m Beautiful? It speaks to women about the questions deep inside their souls, do you find me desirable, is my beauty worth finding out, do you want to know me deeply? Yet one thing stood out to me very deeply this morning.

Does God look on me in my messy, lonely, struggling, doubting, scared, angry, hateful state and find me desirable? Can the God of the universe want to know me deeply even in the state that I am in? A quote from the book stood out to me…

“’The King is enthralled by your beauty.’ (Ps. 45:11)

The God who slung the stars across the heavens…the same God who shaped the mountains and valets with the palm of His hand…the God whose very breath gives life…that God, the King has always been taken with you.

You have been noticed,

He thinks you’re beautiful,

the glass slipper fits,

The music is playing,

and He’s asking you to dance.”

God has made my life into a dance floor… He has set struggles before me, obstacles have been put in my way. He has played music that I don’t like, He has asked me to dance at a tempo I am not comfortable with. But He is not concerned with how well I can dance, how I can execute the moves, how good I am at keeping up to the beat…

All God cares about is whether or not I dance with Him. Will I take His hand and allow Him to dance with me? Will I forget about everyone watching and simply let Him lead?

Life is messy, and my life is even messier.

Marriage is hard, mine seems to be getting shot at all the time. Not only am I trying to adjust to being married, we are military and that makes marriage even more difficult. And to top it all off, having sexual struggles has made our lives that much more difficult… Our dance is a mess…

But God has asked me to dance with Him. Not to dance alone. He knows all the moves, He knows how to keep up with the tempo…

I am reminded of my senior prom… It was held at the Brown Palace Hotel in downtown Denver. We were taught all the dances from the era of the Titanic. I remember struggling through trying to keep up with the beat and remember all the moves and not trip on my dress that was way too long… It was difficult for me to keep up… At one point in the night the instructor who was teaching us told all the women to close their eyes and let their partner lead. I felt so sure that I was going to trip and look like a baboon! I am sure the fear was so evident on my face. My friend who had taken me to prom just assured me that he would catch me if I tripped and I apologized if I stepped on his toes in advance and shut my eyes.

That was the best dance of the night.

I didn’t trip once, we were right in line with the tempo, our waltz was perfect… I had let go and let someone else lead and it was better than when I was all focused in my head.

God reminded me of that dance this morning…

And asked me to dance with Him the same way…

Close my eyes and focus on just His leading. Focus on Him instead of the dance itself.

Dancing is better with your eyes closed.

So will I accept this dance that He has called me to? Will I let him lead as the dance gets hard and life starts to pull at me? Will I keep my eyes closed and my heart focused on His leading?

Yes. I probably will fail, there will be times that I open my eyes and trip, there will be moments of frustration about the music…

But I will keep dancing. Because God didn’t ask me to be good at dancing, He just asked me to dance.

Despair in the faithless desert...

Hope. Such a beautiful crushing feeling.

The feeling that everything might just be okay.

Only problem with hope is it is quickly lost.

And the darkness that sets in after hope leaves is darker than ever before.

Despair. Complete despair.

And depression comes like an ever present lion, here to consume your flesh and leave you bare.

As if you did not have enough to deal with, you are now empty driving with no gas in your engine, not sure when you are going to crash into the next river.

I am praying to a silent God. A God that is missing when I need Him most. A God who seems to be oblivious to my cries and agony.

I am alone. At least I feel alone.

And in pain. Awaiting a doctor's visit next week.

One that I am dreading. Not for what they will tell me but for what they won't tell me. You see, if they can tell me what is wrong I will know that it isn't my fault. But if everything is fine, then something is my fault and I am stuck where I am, with no hope.

It has been four months of excruciating pain during sex. And it has gotten so bad that I cannot even try to push through the pain anymore. The one time in the last month or so that we got anywhere, it hurt so bad for days afterwards and now it hurts when we attempt intercourse at all that I cannot bear it. And I am pretty stubborn when it comes to sex even when it hurts.

I just can't anymore and that thought breaks my spirit.

And what is worse is I had hope. I had hope that things would get better. And yet they are getting worse.

And no matter how much I cry out to God, it continues to get worse and worse.

And I lose hope day after day. And a little bit more of me gets broken after each failed attempt.

I did everything right.

I waited until marriage. I followed what God wanted from me.

And yet I am getting punished still.

How could a God who claims to love me still allow me to be in this much pain?

How could He be silent to my cries?

How could He sit by while my heart is broken by something that I cannot control?

Why is He not healing me?

Everyday things get darker in my little lonely world.

I sleep longer to escape having to deal with how I feel and I watch more television so I can drone out the silent screams of emptiness in my heart.

I do anything to forget how empty I am on the inside.

I can feel the despair setting in.

I can feel the shadows of the valley slowly covering me.

And it is crushing me.

With every breath, it just gets harder to breathe.

And this is the worst point in depression. This is the point that I can no longer mask it. I can no longer pretend that it isn't there or that I am doing alright. It is at the point that it has drained all energy that I have in me and I have nothing left.

So I isolate myself. Not hard to do out here. It isn't hard to be alone when you don't have many friends in your life. And when I am with the few friends I have, I keep the topics light and superficial. Even when I talk to people from home I can't help but wear a mask.

Because I am not strong right now and I can't bear for anyone to see that side of me. I cannot bear the thought of people judging me for my bitterness towards God. I cannot bear the well meaning "God is still there and still cares," b.s. that everyone always tries to tell you. Cause it isn't what I need to hear.

I don't need to hear that God loves me. I don't need to hear that this is His plan.

Me being in pain during something He created as holy and beautiful doesn't sound like a very good plan to me. And I am struggling with hating Him for it.

I never thought I would be someone to say that. Say that I hate God.

Tonight as I was shuffling music on my phone, a worship song came on and I went and got my Bible and opened it randomly to a spot. I didn't know what to read and I didn't think I would find anything useful anyways. It was just kind of a last ditch effort to go to bed without crying for once this week.

Psalms 105:4-5

"Search for the Lord and for His strength; continually seek Him. Remember the wonders that He has performed, his miracles, and the rulings He has given."

Then the Psalms goes on to talk about the commitment that God made to Abraham. How God made a covenant to Abraham for generations...

And I thought about Sarah. How must she have felt, knowing that God made a promise of descendants as many as the stars in the sky, and not being able to conceive. The despair and the feeling that she must not be in God's plan. She must have been the problem, the failure... Not being able to give her husband something that was important to him and what God said was their future. The depression that must have followed her every attempt to conceive a child and the disappointment every month when she receive something other than God's master plan.

It drove her to push her husband into the arms of another woman. Imagine the way she must have felt in her heart, the desolation that she must have been experiencing. To completely give up on herself and force her husband to father a child with another woman. Imagine the nights that he was in the tent with Hagar... Feel the way that her heart must have been breaking into a million pieces.

She must have completely hated God, despised Him.

He promised something to her and then withheld it.

For years, and years, and years...

The desert causes women to give up hope on themselves and fall into despair.

When Sarah lost faith, her enemy was born. 

A son that from his first breath on would torment and seek to destroy her family.

Yet even in Sarah's weakness, God still came through with His promise. He was true to His word, despite her despair and poor choices.

It took years. And lost hope. And failure. And sin. And an unwanted child.

But God still showed up in her desert. He still met her even after she had given up hope. He still gave birth to His chosen people through her. He fulfilled His covenant even though it took longer than she thought it should.

Remember the miracles that He has performed in the past. Remember the moments that He brought us out of our despair.

And know that He will do it again. He will fulfill His promises. He will come through.

He will answer us.

And in the silence until then, we must not give birth to our enemy. We must not choose another path because we are tired of waiting for Him. We must not abandon Him, even when we are in despair in the desert.

This season will pass eventually. And until the drought is overcome with the rain, I will not give up.

I may not have hope tonight, but in the morning there is a new day to try again.

Finding hope for sex...

Ouch is never the word that you would normally hear someone use to describe sex.

Sex is not supposed to hurt.

It just isn't.

But it does. A lot. And usually I say more than ouch. I am usually bawling in tears because the pain is so intense and awful.

To which my husband refuses to continue on and then I feel like I am a failure as a wife.

Why am I telling you all this? Because someone wrote a book about her experience with it and it challenged me to open myself up and be honest. And the amount of hope that I found through her book, just by knowing I wasn't alone, was incredible.

We have tried everything.

Hours of foreplay, tons and tons of lube, no condoms, condoms, thin condoms, the list goes on and on.

With no luck. Sometimes I can get to the point that it isn't painful, but usually it is after I push through an enormous amount of pain.

And sometimes I can't push through the pain.

And I know it breaks my husband heart.

If I wasn't so stubborn we would always stop and never have sex.

I am so tired of hearing, babe we can stop, it really is okay, I can't hurt you like this, we don't have to do this, let's stop, we are stopping.

That is generally the order that his words go in and if we get to the point that he says, we are stopping, I am usually in so much pain it is difficult to breathe.

I hate it.

I don't hate sex. I don't resent my husband or fear having it, I don't avoid having sex. I am generally the one pushing for it. Because I want it to stop hurting and I figured that having more sex would eventually help it stop hurting.

The main reason I hate stopping is because of how I feel afterwards.

I have completely failed, as a wife, as a partner, as a lover. I have failed. My body has failed. I am failing my husband. And that is what I hate. I hate feeling like I am failing him.

There is something wrong with me. And unfortunately things take a while in military life and in Hawaii, so I haven't been able to see a doctor yet. It is the most frustrating experience of my life.

Mostly because I have been hiding my struggle. I have been hiding what I am going through because sex is an uncomfortable topic. It is all flowers and cupcakes when it is great, easy to talk about. But when it is bad and painful, a certain amount of shame comes into the mix.

I shouldn't be having this problem. No one else is having this problem. There is something wrong with me as a wife. Maybe I am not doing it right. Maybe I am the problem.

Another thing that I am tired of hearing is, "Try more foreplay."

Oh yeah because we haven't been trying that already. Duh! Don't you think that would be the first thing that we would try?

The problem with telling women to try more foreplay is the fact that it puts so much pressure on them. Pressure on their bodies that they have to get to a certain point before they can enjoy sex. So they spend the whole time in foreplay forcing themselves to feel aroused forcing their bodies to react in a certain way, instead of just enjoying themselves.

Funny thing I have learned, it doesn't always matter how much foreplay you have. Sure sometimes it matters but at times I can be more aroused from simple little quick things than I can from an hour of kissing and touching. Foreplay is not generally the answer for excruciating sexual pain in my experience.

And funny story, doesn't matter how aroused I am, it still freaking hurts like a freight train.

I was starting to get really discouraged. There is only so much of feeling like this that a woman can take before her self-esteem in her sexuality is down the drain and you are left with nothing more than sorrow in your heart and a deep sense of sadness and frustration.

And it doesn't matter what your husband does, it won't change how you feel. I have the most patient sensitive man, who is more than willing to lay down his desires so that I am not in pain. He is always encouraging and gentle in words and action. There is nothing that he says or does that could make this any easier on me as a woman. I have heard the words, you are not failing me, you are not a failure, and I do not need sex to feel happy and satisfied with this marriage, more times than I care to admit. But that doesn't stop how I feel.

I was under no impression that sex was gonna be super awesome right away. I had no preconceived motion in my head that we were going to have mind-blowing sex in the first few months. I was more than prepared for it to be a little painful the first couple times.

But I was not prepared for sex that made it hard to breathe from pain. Sex that left me in tears more times than not. No one talks about their struggles with sex so you assume that no one has them.

Well, one book changed everything for me.

Unveiled Wife is the name of the book and it will be a book I suggest to every married and about to get married couple I know. It will be a requirement for all my girlfriends to read before they get married.

Why?

Because she is open and honest. Because she puts her struggle on paper. I found that the frustration and feelings of failing were completely normal. She understood where I was at in this moment of my life.

And she gave me hope. I read the book in 4 hours and I will probably be reading it again starting tomorrow. And I will probably read it out loud to my husband.

She talks about how they were never able to have successful sex in their marriage for 3 years. How they were headed towards divorce and how God changed everything for them, He gave them a fresh start.

Thank God that she wrote that book. Because I can stop our cycle before it gets to years of the same thing. Months into our marriage we can try to turn things around.

She suggested cutting parabens out of the products that you use. She had been using a face wash for years that had parabens in it and after doing research found that it can add unwanted and unneeded estrogen into the body. After she went paraben free, she no longer had painful sex after about 3 months.

Just reading her journey, her pain, her struggle, for her to then share her success...

It gave me hope. Hope that this won't last forever. Hope that this isn't my fault, hope that we can overcome this.

It gave me courage to share my struggle. Share my heartache. Open my heart and soul instead of hiding away. Because maybe someone else will get hope from what I did, hope from knowing that they are not alone in this struggle.

Love forever,

Mrs. Kiki

The dreaded dishes and the deep, blue sea...

This sight is a miracle.

My sink is usually full of dishes.

Not like hmm, I could do these if I wanted to...

No its a full where you have to do them because you are hungry and there is no dishes left in your house in which to pour your cereal into.

Not even Tupperware is clean for my delicious milk and crunchy goodness to be eaten from.

Why?

Because the deep, blue sea stole my husband for a few days.

I don't always understand this other lover in my husband's life that consumes his time and energy.

I don't always understand why she must steal him away from me.

I don't ever know the purpose of him visiting her.

And I sometimes get a little sad.

Okay, you can tell he has been gone too long because my delusional brain is turning the ocean into a lover and a human being...

Which it is not but it feels like a second lover because it steals him away from me.

And if he was home he would be shaking his head and rolling his eyes at me and in his adorable, loving voice he would be saying I was ridiculous.

But the ocean takes him and leaves me with a sink full of dishes.

I literally hate dishes.

I would rather scrub your poop out of my toilet than do my dishes.

I hate them.

I hate the slimy food left over on them that I have to touch.

I hate that I have to scrub and scrub and scrub pans to get meals off of them.

I hate that I feel like I can never get them clean enough.

I hate that I usually have to wash my glasses twice because they are a weird shape that loves to not clean well.

And I really hate when I leave them long enough that they start smelling.

And that takes less than 30 minutes on this island.

I hate them.

But I can usually keep up with them when my husband is home because I get motivated to do them by needing a clean kitchen to cook in.

But when he isn't home, I don't cook either.

Cooking for one person is dumb. It is pointless. And you have SO much left over food that you have to eat...

And I don't like left overs.

Yet, I can't seem to figure out how to not cook for 6 people every time I make food.

Its a seriously problem.

But, the worst thing in the world is my husband coming home to see the house a mess and the sink full of dishes.

Mind you, he could care less because he is a dude that doesn't really understand why the bathroom needs to be cleaned every other week.

But I personally feel like a failure as a wife.

That is what I am, a housewife.

So dirty house = bad wife.

In my mind alone though.

No one else judges how good of a wife I am by how dirty my sink is.

Mostly because there is really no one here to see my sink...

And if they want to judge me they can leave.

But seriously, my worth as a wife does not come from an empty sink or a clean toilet.

I could never clean, or cook, or do laundry and I would still make my husband extremely happy.

Why?

Because those things don't matter to him.

What matters to him is the fact that I am still here when he comes home. That I didn't leave or cheat on him while he was gone. It matters to him that I am here with open arms and a big kiss (and lots of a little more...if you know what I mean ;) ). It matters most to him when I can make him laugh and smile...

My worth as his wife is simply that I am his wife and that I stay his wife.

That I love him despite this annoying body of water that steals him away from me.

That I stay by his side and support him no matter what.

And the sooner I understand that, the happier I will be and the more the dishes will probably get done.

Because I will do the dishes out of love not requirement on myself.

I still may hate doing them, but at least I will have some motivation!

Oh and here is a little profound thought that came to my mind the other day that I will probably write about at some point later on...

I was a queen yet never realized it until he loved me like one.

Signing off, Mrs. K!

She will no longer shrink.

You know when you have a circumstance in your life that turns on a light bulb that lights up your entire universe? 

That happened last week.

And let me tell you it was amazing.

The circumstance was not enjoyable, but it caused a lot of thought and for that I am grateful.

My entire life has been made of me chasing after people, trying to smash myself into the box that they wanted me to fit in. Apologizing for things that weren't really anything that I needed to apologize for. Changing because I thought that I could keep people if I changed who I was to be what they wanted.

And guess what? The people I changed for, always left.

I chased after them and their approval. I fought myself into a corner because someone wanted me to be a triangle. I rolled myself into a tiny ball because someone wanted something round. I changed and I lost myself.

And those people never stayed.

They always left.

And then I was left in a ball on the floor not sure what shape I should be in because I based who I was on what they wanted.

And one reason I was so excited to move away was because I couldn't wait to be exactly who I was without having to answer to anyone why I wasn't the way they thought I should be. I was excited to make new friends who were going to love me for me and all of me.

You see, it is super hard to smash a hurricane into a corner and you can't roll a tornado into a ball. So all the time I was leaving out parts of who I was to make someone happy.

And I could finally be a hurricane and a tornado and people could love me for being those things.

But that didn't end up happening. People still wanted me to fit into a circle. They still wanted me to be this perfect version of what they wanted in a friend. I found myself again being pushed into a box. "Don't be this. If you are this we can't be friends. I won't allow you to be kind of a person. Pull yourself together. Your feelings are irrelevant. Stop feeling that way. Stop acting that way. Be this way or don't be in my life."

Colorado Kiki would have apologized and made excuses for why she was that way and how she was working on being a better person. She would have begged and fought to be friends. She would have apologized for who she was without thinking twice about what part of herself she was leaving behind to be what that person wanted.

But Hawaii Kiki....Oh man she is much different.

You want to know why? Because she married a man who forces her to feel everything. He pushes her to be every single part of who she is and gets mad when she apologizes for something that isn't her fault. Hawaii Kiki is told constantly that how she feels is important to her husband. He embraces the hurricane and loves when he gets caught in the tornado. The chaos in her soul intrigues him and increases his love for her.

And thus Kiki has blossomed...

And now you can see flowers in her tornado and there is a garden growing in her hurricane.

And she does not apologize for who she is.

She will apologize if she hurts you by accident.

She will apologize fiercely if she does something that causes pain to that person.

But she no longer apologizes for who she is.

Because she likes who she is.

Kiki is a mess. Chaos and storm. She is beautiful and she knows it. She has a huge mouth that will say how she feels without filter. She is a person that lets everything get into her heart. She feels with every part of her being. She has bad days. She misses her husband when he is only gone for an hour. She complains about people that get on her nerves. She will jump to conclusions about people and will be super judgmental. But she is more than willing to give second chances to people. Once you have her loyalty you will have it no matter what. She will stand up fiercely for those that she loves. Watch out if you hurt her family or her husband. Nothing makes her more uncontrollably mad than people hurt those she cares about. When she is mad, she is mad with every inch of her being. Watch out if you try to hurt my husband...because she might just slit your throat in the middle of the night. She is a lioness that is on the prowl and she will not let anything get into her pack. She is overly passionate and loves and feels every single thing to the very core of her being.

And most importantly:

She is going to be unapologetic with who she is. 

You take her how she is or you move on.

She will not mourn people leaving because they didn't like her fierce spirit.

She will no longer shy away from being every single part of her with all the passion that she wants.

She will be who she is.

And she will always be striving for a better version of herself.

But NEVER a watered down or inferior version.

She is a huge person and people will either grow their hands to hold her or will let her go.

She will no longer shrink.

Late night sub humor...

Well hello there. It is 11pm on Valentine's Day and guess what I am doing?

I am on Pinterest.

Pinning hilarious jokes.

And I am literally dying laughing at them.

But funny thing is...

Only submariners or other submariner wives would understand the humor.

Which makes it even funnier to me!!

Being a submariner's wife is like having a bunch of inside jokes. That are probably really dirty. Or really bad. Or have something to do with blowing up some country.

I am going to share my humor with you because I am bored and some of you might get a laugh.

And my personal favorite because it reminds me of my husband...

So anyways, thank you for putting up with my crazy submarine humor for the night.

This is what my Valentine's Day will consist of for the next few years. Maybe I will make it my own tradition. Post funny things about my husband's job since I can't post funny things about my husband since he isn't actually here to be funny.

But I will paint my own silver lining.

Love forever, Kiki