I am going to memorize this verse. I am definitely crushed in spirit but I must try and hold fast to my faith. God will not abandon me even though it feels as if He has.
Category: depression
Not again
Every time I get a glimmer of hope and begin to believe that things in my life are finally beginning to turn around, I am reminded to stop hoping. I had a complete breakdown yesterday because yet again someone decided I wasn’t right for the job.
I’ve stopped asking God what he is trying to teach me because I don’t care anymore. I won’t survive another rejection. The best I can do at this moment is to make it to the next moment. Nothing more, nothing less. I spent time writing my mission statement but let’s face it without a job, there is no money. And we all know money is needed for rent and food. I won’t even discuss car payment or health care.
I’m tired. My daughters want me to get better. I understand they love me. I just don’t have it in me to try anymore. The best I can offer is one day and only one day at a time.
We DIDN’T fall in love with the abuse, we were seduced into this abusive relationship and manipulated into a role by a fraud and a highly disordered and sadistic Narcissist with an agenda!
From my Book: From Charm to Harm and Everything else in Between with a Narcissist. So the truth or the crash course to understanding our role. The Narcissist attacks or infects their targets/victims by infiltrating their healthy mind or psyche and also penetrating their defenses through a vast array of manipulation techniques […]
Traumatization from this abuse. — After Narcissistic Abuse
From my Book – From Charm to Harm and Everything else in Between with a Narcissist! @ Amazon.com Trauma can be caused by a wide variety of events, but there are common denominators. There is frequently a violation of the person’s familiar ideas (belief system) about the real world and of […]
via Traumatization from this abuse. — After Narcissistic Abuse
In the Minutia
The above photo is a moth. Now when I find a moth in my apartment, my cat hunts it down until it is caught. I never think about the possibility the moth may be beautiful because I don’t look at it under a microscope seeking the intricate details. As I continue this journey, this transition I have come to understand while I have faith in God, because He didn’t answer yes to my prayer for the big picture of life, I haven’t been able to see Him at work in the minute details of my life.
I spent so many years believing God would come to my aid and save my marriage, heal my husband that when He didn’t, I lost hope. I don’t know if my faith was weaker than I believed it to be or if the sadness of heartbreak of the situation blinded me to the point I couldn’t see God in the midst of the heartache. With some time for retrospection, I know it’s the second. I was hammered so hard, I lost my ability to see God at work in the midst of losing the life I loved.
My children are patient with me. They understand all which was lost. They realized long before I did, their dad wasn’t really a father. He was nothing more than a sperm donor. He has no conscience, no heart, no ability to feel empathy. His world is his own and he turns his back on those of us who love him, because it is easier to pretend he has a perfect life. Sadly it is a perfectly false life, created by Satan to make him feel better. While I may have suffered, cried, been in the depths of depression, I have managed with the love of my children to see slowly learn God in the midst of this mess.
I can’t say I see God everyday. I don’t always seem Him in the minutia. Most days I have to give 110% to see Him working in my life. But day by day, with the prayers of family, friends and my blog friends, each day gets better. It might be two steps forward, one step back, but it is still progress.
What drives your choices?
Over these past few months, my counselor and I have discussed the choices I made in the past. He assures me I made the best choices for survival at the time. While that may be true, I have wondered what was behind the choices I made beside just surviving. And I had a personal revelation. Most, if not all, of my poor choices were driven out of a fear of rejection.
My life, prior to now, was not a journey driven by a confident woman. The driving force of my life was the fear of rejection and humiliation. My life was in a constant state of unbalance. Every time the person I was trying to please changed his/her mind, I had to rush to make sure my decision still made them happy. If it didn’t, then I needed to quickly make a change. By allowing my fear to drive my choices, I never built a strong sense of who I am and what makes me happy. I didn’t speak up. I kept my hurt feelings to myself out of fear of upsetting the other person. I pretended their words didn’t hurt my feelings. I raced around like mad when relatives were coming to visit and the stayed in a state of apprehension and fear. Why? Because I was eaten up with worry, I would be a disappointment. The ironic thing is I always felt as though I was a disappointment. Even if everything went smoothly and everyone was happy, I still felt like a failure because I always believed I could have done better or it was just a matter of time people would see the “real” me, the failure.
It is not always easy to be honest. It is not always easy to make a decision which goes against the tide (or family or friends or children). A person needs inner strength not to waver when a decision is questioned. So much of my life would be different if I had not been driven by the fear of rejection. I battle the fear of rejection and being alone every day. I take on the role of scapegoat. Pointing the finger of blame at myself calms my fear of someone else doing it and humiliating me. It gives me a sense of control when I assume everything is my fault. Sadly it doesn’t provide much opportunity for joy and peace in my life.
Change isn’t easy but it is worth the effort. Change has been a bumpy road. Change has challenged in ways I never anticipated. Change is scary. It is the scariest thing I’ve ever faced. There is a reason “misery loves company” is universally understood. While I might be miserable, it is what I know and having you join me in what I know is less frightening than me leaving my miserable comfort zone.
Where are the Resources
I have found resources if you are a woman who has been beaten by your husband and living in a shelter. I have found resources for drug addicts, alcohols, sexual predators, people with anger management issues and resources for those who have been employed and now find themselves unemployed. AARP boasts on national television how they can help you “Re-imagine your Life.” The problem is AARP makes the assumption you have been an employed adult for most of your life and now you want to pursue a passion rather than just a way to pay to the bills and keep a roof over your head.
Where are the resources for women over 50 who stayed home with their children only to be thrown in the trash by their self-centered, egomaniac husbands who believe a younger woman will keep them from aging. (The irony is the younger the woman, the older he actually looks.) I’ve hunted. I’ve searched. I have had no luck. Because I am a college educated woman who chose to give 30 years of her life to her family, I don’t qualify. Everyone makes the assumption a college degree is the answer. They are wrong.
If I hear one more time, “Oh you are so smart and have so much to offer, I think I’ll puck on the spot. Clearly whatever it is I have to offer, no one is hiring. And no service organization wants to help because I don’t fit their “demographic”. So like many other women who gave their life to their family, I will in 8 weeks find myself homeless. I don’t drink. I don’t smoke and I don’t do drugs. I am college educated but it doesn’t matter. It doesn’t matter at all.
A Narcissist is not a fully functioning human being – they are only an emotionless facsimile.
From my Book: From Charm to Harm and Everything else in Between with a Narcissist. Admitting faults, or taking responsibility for their harmful actions would take some degree of empathy of which Narcissists have NONE. It is virtually impossible for the Narcissist to put themselves in other people’s shoes and seeing him/herself as […]
A Black Hole
A black hole is a region of spacetime exhibiting such strong gravitational effects that nothing—including particles and electromagnetic radiation such as light—can escape from inside it.Strange to be heading directly for a black hole. The gravitational force refuses to let me go. The closer I get to it the darker it becomes. I don’t see a way out. I can’t be the only person facing this future. The darkness and emptiness that swallows you completely. I have fought for a long time not to pass through into the darkness. But it can’t be any worse than the dim light I live in now. Who knows maybe it will give me relief not to want joy but be unable to feel it or have it. Maybe it’ll be a relief to let go and not care. I doubt you can be angry in a black hole. Anger comes from the belief you’ve been wronged. So you have the ability to see the contrast between right and wrong. In utter darkness I won’t be able to distinguish it so maybe I won’t be angry.
I taped boxes up today. Trying to get all the packing done well in advance of my departure. God has been silent for so long I wonder if I have already begun to enter the black hole of nothingness.
Take the time to reach out to someone new. Make an effort to make new friends. They needn’t be someone you share your most private thoughts with, but they can feel included and wanted. Because ultimately isn’t that what we all want? To be wanted and needed and loved? Loved unconditionally. Not loved until you do one unknown wrong thing living in anticipation that today is the day you’ll be abandoned. 53 years is a long time to live like that. It’s been 3 years since I was thrown out with the trash. And I’m tired.
Caught in a Trap
I feel exactly as the mouse does in the photo. I am trapped by something I didn’t see. And like the mouse it didn’t kill me, it just caught me and won’t let go. The mouse was alive. You can tell because it’s blurred in the photo.
I feel trapped. I am trapped by the life I chose to lead. I chose to be a stay at home mom and wife. I chose to make my husband and family the center of my life. I chose to believe my ex husband would fulfill his vows of until death do us part. How was I to see he lied at every opportunity?
So now I am faced with something I never thought about. I have worried about getting cancer. I have worried about losing someone I love in a tragic accident (like a dear friend of mine did, I worry about losing my only living parent. I like everyone else worries from time to time. I just never thought I would be facing living in my car at 56, not after giving the best years of my life to my ex-husband.
His promise was in sickness and in health. I stayed when he was caught being a peeping tom. I stayed when he said he used hookers. I stayed when I learned he was addicted to pornography. Why you ask? For a million reasons. I believed him when he said he wouldn’t do it again. (A lie). I believed him when he said he’d get help. (A lie). I promised God I would be a faithful helpmate and not desert him, so I stayed.
It clearly was a mistake. A huge mistake and I can’t find the logic in why God has allowed him to continue living the high life with a big house, a young girlfriend and her kids. While his own daughters struggle to get by and I face living in my car. Everyone assures me God hasn’t deserted me and He has a higher purpose. Well he certainly has left me in the dark because I don’t know what’s going on.
Everyday it is a struggle to get up and it’s a struggle not to end it every night. I fight because I love my daughters. But as I said in an earlier post, I am soul weary.
My life on an unexpected path 