This is an illness that I did not ask for...

Healing.

For the last year of my life I have been living in a shell of myself. I have been living under demons and darkness that I cannot begin to describe to you. It has been my own personal version of hell. And I am surprised that I am still here honestly. I am surprised that I am still alive and living to tell you my tale.

I grew up in a very traditional Christian church. Sinning is bad, God hates sins, you must repent or you won't go to heaven, make sure you pray for God to forgive you every night in case you die in your sleep. I learned that all my problems had to be solved by praying and reading the Bible. If I was sad, I must not be in God's Word enough, here is a scripture that will fix how you are feeling. Are you anxious? Well you must have more faith in God, because the Bible says that is wrong.

No one ever told me these things out loud, but the messages were clear. "I am going through a really rough time." "Oh well then let me pray with you." Pray, cry a little, pretend to feel better cause God instantly made you happy again, go about pretending that was the magic prayer that healed everything.

Don't get me wrong, I love God and I love praying. But it is not a vending machine of Happy Meals that put a smile on your face and make everything peachy keen again.

When I hit my depression, I literally didn't talk to anyone about it. Because they would think that I wasn't trusting God enough. That I wasn't praying and reading my Bible or having a "good enough" relationship with Christ.

If someone in the church has cancer, do we simply pray and expect that to be the end of it? Do we think that the struggle will instantly be over once a prayer is said and a verse is shared? No! We pray for peace of mind and healing for them and when that prayer is over we offer support and help and love. We bring food and help clean and try to be helpful in that person's life. We encourage them to see a doctor and get treatment and stay by their side when that treatment kicks their butt.

So why is it different with mental illness?

Why do we treat this differently? Is it because you can't see my side effects? Is it because you think that it can be solved with a little bit of Jesus and some holy water?

Don't get me wrong, a little bit of Jesus goes a LONG way!!

But you wouldn't shame someone for having cancer... So why do you shame them for depression, anxiety disorders, bi-polar, etc.??

This is an illness. And I did not ask for it.

And trust me, I have BEGGED God time and time again to take this away from me. Do you think that I want to feel this way? Do you think that I want to wrestled this on a daily basis?

In the same way that I would never ask for cancer I would never ask for depression or anxiety.

They are an illness.

And I have started referring to them as such.

My illness.

My illness.

Illness.

Depression is an illness.

It is just as real as a broken bone and no less your fault or completely up to you to fix.

You didn't ask for it. You can't stop it.

Yes, you can pray about it. No, that won't necessarily fix it.

This might be the thorn in your side that you will have to carry the rest of your life.

You may ask God to take it away every single day until you die.

And He might, but He might not.

It is genetic. It is triggered by things outside of yourself. You did not cause it. You cannot magically fix it. It cannot be ignored.

If you are on medication and a Christian, there is a huge blanket of shame over you. A HUGE blanket of shame.

One that I am peeking my head out from underneath.

I am trying to be open.

Yes, I have a mental illness.

I have been diagnosed with Severe Depression and was put on Prozac to help me cope. This triggered my anxiety into hyperactive mode causing me to also have a standing prescription for Xanax.

These are illnesses. They are not something that I caused. They are not something that I asked for. They are simply a fact in my life. It is no different than me saying that I have cancer, or a broken bone, or am diabetic.

I have come to terms with the fact that I will be dealing with this for the rest of my life. I will be fighting the battle against my mental illness for a long while.

And this is nothing to be ashamed of.

I have not let down God. I have not disappointed Him. I have not sinned by taking medication. I have not fallen from grace because I chose to get help more than praying and reading my Bible.

God made my brain.

He knows that it can be flawed.

He knows that something is not right in the cellular structure.

He has given science the knowledge to help me survive.

This is an illness. I did not ask for it. I wish I did not have it.

But it is just an illness. It does not define me.

It is not my fault.

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.