HOLIDAYS

The holidays are filled with joy. Except when that joy has been replaced with pain, physical loneliness, and emotional distress. All the befores have changed, you can’t do any of it the same as you feel that pain. Stockings, gifts, family! Your heart desperately trying to beat the same. They bring emotional distress, and I have had to let myself grieve. Like walking through a fog. That fog hasn’t lifted. I always just wanted to be together; that was the gift I wished it wasn’t hard, I wasn’t trying to be challenging what I wanted couldn’t be bought or wrapped. 

Some say I was hard to buy for or complicated, but it was really this simple gift I desired the most. As long as we were together! Things are different because of someone else’s choices, and now that gift I always wished for will never be the same. What was taken can never be returned? 

Giving yourself permission to grieve and not come off looking crazy. But recovering from such a devastating blow takes time. No matter how much I try and rush it. Maybe somethings you never bounce back from? I have learned to identify my triggers, and the holidays are one of them. Depression, isolation, and hopeless. I want to find an island come October and not come back till the end of February because every store, every commercial all of it feels heavy. So I run from the triggers I get far away from it. 

Christ’s love can help with the pain of it if you allow him to make you stronger and give you hope. I hold onto the hope my future holidays will be filled with joy and gratitude for what He has brought me through. This sweet little gift 

will always remind me of that. 

So many times I have wanted to end this story, I wanted to not just run from it. I have been told this isn’t the end of my story. Satan is powerful also, and I fight daily battles with how he wants me to end the story. 

I have been told that it’s not uncommon for intense feelings of sadness to last years, three, four, five, or six. 

Yes, the grieving process is different for everyone, but that there will be an end. 

I have had to remind myself that he knows the end, he sees the pain and the suffering. He paid the price for all of it. He wants the end to be so much better than what you imagined. He wants it to be all of that and more. He is there, I know he knows how you feel and wants to give you all the joy and comfort.

Remember he is the reason for the season his love is endless and he knows the end.

The Message

 I remember feeling completely numb, and I remember thinking this can't real; this isn’t happening to me. It didn’t make sense, we were happy, what happened? A question I asked myself every morning I had woken up since that argument. I felt like someone was holding onto my heart and squeezing it. Like I was living an awful moment from the past. I was in a bad dream. No, this was more than that; this was a nightmare that brought all the past trauma back! The body remembers, and it knew this feeling it had been here before. Our love story might not have been perfect after what I thought we had overcome, but it was ours, and it withstood an emotionally devastating storm that most might not come back from, but we had. We had just celebrated 20 years of marriage 25 years together in a big way ten-day vacation. It was perfect, magical, fabulous, and full of adventure. Scuba diving, beaches, cruising the ABC islands. Bliss, and full of hope and excitement for the future.
I had no idea the storm that was already occurring, the secrets that I didn't know. I was in no way prepared for it to all come crashing down. I was not ready for the truths I was going to learn about my life. I would have argued with anyone had they said we weren’t completely happy! Because I was perfectly happy about life and my future.
Then it happened the shift. The item removed. That was the moment I should have questioned more, and I didn’t. I will forever wonder, had I pushed harder than would it have made a difference? Then a few other moments that felt off than the big moment in December when everything inside me was screaming... YOU REMEMBER THIS FEELING.
I instead convinced myself I was depressed, and my hormones are off, I was gaining weight despite going to the gym daily and staying very active.
I blamed all my insecurities and issues. My instinct was screaming at me, and my mind was telling it to shut up, saying, it's you.
You are making a mountain out of a molehill, and so the internal battle had begun I had no idea the argument that was waiting for me that cold day in January.
I had been battling with myself for 41 long days at this point. I had said three days before this I need help I am going to get help. I need counseling, and when we get home, I am making arrangements because I can’t keep feeling crazy. It had all taken a toll on me the not eating the not sleeping the worrying I was exhausted. I had felt defeated. I was always the strong one, and I was so ashamed that I was struggling. Monday arrived, and I called the Ins and started looking for options. I had no idea that night, a Facebook message would come across with the words that would change it all. Words nobody would want to read, words that came from a stranger and had sat unopened for weeks.  I would have never seen this message had someone asking about a flag, not asked me to check my other folder.
There it was the message that would leave me speechless a word that would trigger what I now know to be my first panic attack. It all went black. I sat on the floor because it all went black. I remember lying there on my back alone on the floor, willing my lungs to breath. Scared of what was happening, I could not catch my breath. Had I just read this?

     

A message came through from a friend, and all I could do was a screenshot and sent it. My phone rang, and she said, where did you get that? Facebook was all I could reply; she said you want me to come to get you. Yes! I hung up, and I heard him come in the door with the kids. I walked into the bathroom because I thought I was going to throw up. The text I am outside, and I knew I had to get out I had to go before my face showed every emotion I felt before whatever happened (panic attack) occurs again. I said, going for a ride be right back.
I sat in her car in shock, numb, disbelief, terror. She said, you okay; all I could answer was. No
In my head, I was thinking, is this real?
Can this be true?
NOOOOOOOOOOOO PLEASE DONT LET THIS BE REAL.
I don’t remember much else that happened a text that said the accident occurred and that he was there. A Facebook stalk of her also posting the accident on her page. Who she was her age, and that’s when it hit me. My friend said 23 how do you compete with that!
I looked at her with tears in my eyes and said this couldn’t be true.
He wouldn’t!
He couldn’t!
Would he?
I knew the answer before the words left my mouth. He had before, but he promised never again.
I said, take me home.
She said, are you going to be okay?
No!
I knew I wouldn’t. I walked into the house 45 minutes after I left it. I was feeling worse. I knelt on the stairs, and by knelt I mean fell onto my knees, and I asked the Lord to undo it, I could not survive this again, I can’t I pleaded with him to make it go away, I asked him to let there be a better explanation then what I had already created in my mind. I said please, please, I beg of you don’t make me live this again. I don’t know how long I pleaded with the Lord on the stairs, but it was quite, and I knew I had to know!  I walked up the stairs to our bedroom, and the soft glow of the TV was on. I looked at him asleep in bed. I stood there for a long moment because fear had taken over, and I wasn’t sure I wanted the truth.
I sat on my side of the bed I opened that message I reread it, and I called his name, then I placed my hand on his back and repeated his name, he rolled over, I said we need to talk I handed him my phone.
That message open to him; he read it and tossed my phone on the bed in front of me. The coldness in his response still gives me chills and his reply. Of course, you think it’s true. I looked into his eyes and said, is it?
No, and now he was angry.
I said, hand me your phone, what? I said, give me your phone. He picked up the phone opened it, and I said open Facebook. He did, I said, your friends with her, why?
He said I’m not, I said, but yes, you are, pull up her profile and give me your phone. He did, and at that moment, I was looking at the girl my child’s age. I was scrolling through her page, and there it was her version of the accident. I said I already messaged, sending her this exact screenshot and asking what truth there was. Her side of the story. I said I also looked for this Jodi person; the profile is fake. Whoever it was didn’t want to be known, they created an account to message me.
I would receive a reply from both of these individuals via facebook.
This moment is time will haunt me as it started a chain reaction of a year of truths I would find out about my life that I knew nothing about.
2018,2019 have been the hardest years I have had to face.  I have no doubt the lord is closest to the brokenhearted. He has never left my side even when I have yelled, ignored, questioned his plan, and cursed his name. He has been the one constant. I know he is there in all my weakest moments. I have witnessed small miracles, I have seen his hand in so many things, I have felt him carry me when all I can do is breath, I know that he has given me so much and so many people. It was through those people that I have survived. It has been both a humiliating and humbling experience. Why write, you ask? Why tell your story? I don't know honestly. In the beginning, I thought It was for me to help me heal, I still believe that to an extent, but I know there is a bigger purpose, the Lord has made sure I am aware of that. If I have learned anything is that I can only trust his plan as my own was shattered into a million pieces, so I can't believe in it anymore.

I struggle every day with this. Because both is hard and the battle of listening to both. Because the devil knocks and I listen! 

Gratitude & Grief

I was shattered into a million pieces. I am a bit groundless, looking desperately for the rug that had been pulled from beneath my happy normal life, only to find that someone has taken the floor too.

  

                                         

After we experience a loss, we tend to focus on what we no longer have. As a result we focus our energy on the negative, or what is missing in our life, rather than on the positive, or all of those wonderful things we still have. Yet gratitude can be one of the most healing tools we have.

Being grateful for what remains after you have experienced that rug of your life being ripped away, or the whole floor. it can be a powerful way to deal with, and heal, that loss. My thoughts, the ones I have discovered are often experienced by someone who is grieving, sometimes turned to darker questions like, 

“How can I go on?” 

“How did this happen?”

“WHY?”

Grief also brought up a feeling of emptiness, depression, and hopelessness.

I knew Thanksgiving was going to be hard, I knew the reason I had been triggered and struggling I knew it was Thanksgiving day. 

Thanksgiving 1996, I thought I found my eternity. I said YES to the one person I wanted in my life and wanted to create a future with. I had no idea that day the future would include abandonment. 

Then I realized it was okay for me to feel gratitude and grief that this day was a reminder of all I wanted in life all I had dreamed and built. It was a reminder of the love I gave freely even if it was ripped away and I was blind to the truth of the lies.  

I had been beating myself up for

Feeling this because I can’t find the joy, it’s been temporary stripped from life but I had so many moments and people to be grateful for. 

Gratitude has the power to help those in grief rise above their loss. That rug that turned into a whole floor. It can provide hope. And, perhaps most important, is that the lord is right there saying this...

It’s better to feel pain, than nothing at all.

Satan comes at you dressed as everything you've ever wanted how else would he convince you to join him?

 Who am I, and what will I become. I wish I had the answer to this question? How I plead with the Lord to show me. 

Recovery, yes, a fancy word they use in therapy. How was I going to recover from the betrayal trauma? I felt horrible, and a bit lost and ashamed because often Satan is right there whispering and I all ears ready to listen and join him. Defeated, that’s what it feels like utter defeat, and I am exhausted. 

                                    

 There was a quote that hung on my 1st therapist wall that said.  "it's better to feel pain than nothing at all." I walked in one day and asked, can I rip that off the wall? Can I throw it at you so you can decide if that’s better than feeling nothing at all? Yes, I have had many of my most utterly deplorable moments in therapy. Yes, that quote had stood out from my 1st visit. I had forgotten all about this day until I re-read it. That month of June 2018 was a blur, and me not sure I would remember any of it had I not written it down. He said you understand that your pain makes you normal, right?  Your body hurts when you're injured, and that's what you are right now. Then he said, will it make you feel better? He stood up, took it off the wall, and handed it to me. He just called my bluff. The anger went away, and the utter sadness was back, and the tears flowed, and I knew it wasn’t going to take any of it away.

My next visit was gone; maybe he was afraid I would actually do it. Nothing sat in its place, so I knew he removed it for me and me alone, because it triggered me, also a fancy word they use in therapy.  Anger would last about three days, all while Satan was close by, and then the pain, sadness, and sorrow would take over again. It was in the anger days that I would listen to all ears to Satan, I wanted to run, hideaway, I wanted to feel nothing at all. So I cried, that’s what I did. WHY? Because I wanted to live in the anger because it gave me relief from the overwhelming sadness. I had prayed a million times for the Lord just to let me be angry. I was convinced that it was so much better than the constant heartache that I was going to die from physically. I couldn't and didn't want to continue to feel that. I was foolish then to think that the Lord knew what I didn’t know that I would spiritually die if I stayed in the anger phase too long, so he let me stay there until it was too dangerous. Even the smallest prayer of- PLEASE let me stay angry, I will die if I have to feel the shattering of my heart. He gave to me because he knew that living in pain was better than feeling nothing at all.  So three days is what I got. Three days at a time, that's was the longest I ever got to stay in the anger, He had stayed close by, He knew when I felt spiritually drained, the sadness would be back, the heartbreak the devastation of what I didn’t know. He gave me exactly what I had asked for in small doses because it was all I could take without taken Satan's hand and him pulling me in to join him. The Lord was there to give me small doses of what I had asked for, but to protect me from what I had no idea would be one of the biggest battles I would face.

                                                     secrets keep us sick,
                and then your just another person alone falling into the darkness. 

                                          

Nightmare

The email sent after weeks of asking and pleading and begging for him to tell me what was going on. I had to go back and look for an old email and this! The past was haunting me. I debated on reading it, I opened it and then I closed it. I found the email I was looking for, and then I scrolled back to it again. I had to remind my heart and my head that I fought for him, us, and our eternal family. I will admit it wasn't easy to reread it. I deleted some very personal lines, but this is the entirety of the email dated February 19th, 2018.
When I reread it, my heart broke all over again.
Why could he not just tell me?
Why didn’t he try and fix it before it blew up our lives?
Why wasn’t this email enough to make him stop something I sensed. It would be seven days later that the message that had been sitting since February 8, unopened, would be discovered.
Answers I will never get.
 A past that haunts me.
The future could have been different if this could have ever been enough.
If I could have been enough.
 I have spent a lot of hours and $ on counseling on that simple phrase.
I was not enough at this moment I was not enough in the days, weeks, and months leading up to the tornado that I still stand-in. It's real, it’s raw, and it hurts like Hell!

Here I sit again while you sleep next to me. I don’t know what to think or how to feel, and you are seriously messing with my mind. I almost think you want it; that way, the crazier I become, the easier it will be for you. You can’t stand that I have any emotion, if I cry you ignore me completely, I feel like you criticize every move I make, every word I say, to the point that I don’t want to say anything at all. I don’t care turned into, “do you care about anything.” Yes, I care about a lot of things, one being our marriage that We have built for 20 years. I want you to fight just once for it. I want you to care also. Why is it if I struggle at all? I get nothing but anger and resentment from you?
You want me to talk to you and communicate, but when I do, you ignore it altogether. I am sad, lost with nowhere to turn. I can not shake the feeling that something is going on. I can’t ask or say anything because I fear the reaction. I want to be a priority, and maybe that’s selfish, but when the kids grow, and jobs end, we will only have each other. I have no idea why I am even writing this because I won’t send it because I can’t take the rejection of you ignoring this like you did the last message I sent you.
That was damaging to my very core, and I have to put it down on paper so that I can get it out of my head in the hopes that it will stop eating me alive. You're here, but you're not here; you don’t see me or hear me.
I am having a tough time communicating anything because I still have no idea where you stand your actions don’t mirror your words, and I am so confused. I have no freaking idea what you want; you said you struggle, but why. What is it that makes you struggle? And if you were struggling, why haven’t you talked to me about it before. I wish I didn’t feel this way like I am reliving a nightmare from the past, I want this feeling to go away but it won’t it nags at me daily, and you are not helping with all of that at all. Placing a privacy screen on your phone, turning off apps because of my tracking comment, not sharing things with me, thinking I am trying to log into your email, at this point I want to hack every single account you own, but I know that makes me look even crazier... I also know that it would be pointless. I would not find a thing, you are smarter than that, and it would make me feel any better about my level of crazy.
Answer me this, and I don’t want the I don’t know what I want, I lived that once before and it broke me, and I refuse to live in that state again. Please, I beg of you to tell me what you want. Help me understand why it is you struggling. I started to feel the disconnect in December, and I should have said something then, but again, it makes me sound crazy when I say I have this feeling that something is up. How do I approach that?

I am afraid, and I need you.
I am afraid you’re going to run, and we’re going to lose everything. All these years, all I’ve wanted since meeting you was to grow old with you. You’re the person who makes me feel safe, and you’re not here, making me feel safe because there’s this wall now. I gave you my heart long ago, and I choose you.
I BELIEVE in you. That you can be and do and achieve whatever you want. I’m sorry I don’t say it more.
I APPRECIATE you. That you give so much of your time and effort to providing all that you do for me, I don’t say ‘thank you’ nearly enough. I am so grateful to you.
I FORGIVE you. Because I know you do not set out to hurt me. And I’m sorry that I hold grudges and put up walls with you when my feelings are hurt. It’s a defense mechanism, and I’m trying to stop.
There are many people in my life that I love. I inherited almost all of them: parents, kids, siblings, friends, and extended family. But I didn’t inherit you. I choose you!!! I love you. Because I woke up today and chose you .” And I’m promising as I did on our wedding day, that I’m going to wake up every day and pick you no matter how I’m feeling. My feelings are always going to change. But my choice on this matter will not...I am yours, ALWAYS & FOREVER!!! I don’t know what eternity looks like, or how to get there. But I know that with you holding my hand, we’re going to find it.
Please choose me too.
Love, Me
The sad, hurtful truth, this was not enough.  I remember then as I do now how much that hurt. I was trying to fix whatever was going on, and he was shutting me out. I had no idea at the time why.
I was chasing him, and the truth was not enough.
I wasn’t enough to stop him from all the choices he was making.
I wasn’t enough for the truth that I would learn in a few short days and the emotional turmoil that would follow for months to come. I would try and believe all the lies, the manipulation, the gaslighting all so he could continue to hide his choices. He would say all the right words, but his actions didn’t match his words. Truths he was holding because he didn’t respect me enough, to be honest.
I asked the Lord to please help me decern between his truths and his lies. I asked him to guide me to the truth. The fact that it was just about to shatter me to my core. The truth I wouldn’t learn from his mouth but from the mouths of others and the realities that the Lord wanted me to know. The Lord kept telling me to fight to save this, and I thought I was prepared to do just that, but I was not aware that the devil was also going to stand there knocking.
I wasn’t prepared for the battle I would fight between the two or what it would do to me.

What in the actual HELL?

Yes, I am writing from a place of pain, I am writing from a place of sadness, and I am writing from a place of what in the actual HELL happened. I remember the argument we had on January 16th. I remember asking why am I never enough? I asked him why he was keeping things from me? I remember being angry that I was being left out of his everyday life. He was closing me off, and I couldn't figure out why? It had been ten days, and I could still feel the strain something was, not right. I finally faced the fear and said, I feel like there is a strain, and I am not sure how to fix it.  I asked him how we fix it. He said he is sick of feeling like he has to make me happy that I was scrutinizing every action. As I read that, I can not for the life of me understand the desperation and pleading in my voice, and I was placing the blame on me, making it my fault he said I didn't appreciate anything he does for me. Oh, how hard it is to read any of it. What was I fighting for what? For the lies, the deception? For the cheating?
I asked over and over what he wanted, begging him to tell me. I just wanted to get back to the amazing us. Whatever this was, I wanted it to be resolved. I said I was sorry over and over again.  I don't want it to be like this; this didn't make sense to me. I tried my best to fix it, and no matter what I did, he rejected it all. He pushed me further and further away. I was not sleeping, and I couldn't make myself eat, I was going through the motions, every day it was something new to pick at, he would say I didn't need or want him, then he would say I didn't appreciate him,  then it was I was overreacting. Then it was me not looking at him.he would say we are unhappy, and I would respond I am not unhappy with my life. What the Hell is going on.  I was spinning, and I could not keep it all straight. I thought I was going crazy. I was nothing I just ceased to coexist. I finally had enough at 1:25 am January 27th I wrote it a long text, I bore it all I put it all out there, every feeling all my insecurities and what I was feeling asking him what had changed and why?
I thought all I want is for him to wrap me in his arms and say we are going to figure this out whatever it is. We have survived so much, and this is just a little argument. So I sent the text and wrapped him in my arms, he stirred at the sound of the incoming text, and I said it's just me and I felt him drift off to sleep. I prayed that this would help whatever was happening and that this would soften whatever was going on, and that argument that had lingered for way too long. I was confused at what we were even upset at. It was now something entirely different.
The next morning he got up went to play ball, and I watched as my phone went from delivered to read. He didn't say a word, not a word about the novel text I had sent bearing my soul, not a single word for days, then weeks, and almost a month.
I couldn't understand how someone could watch the tears flow and not say a single word, how someone sitting next to you was in pain, and you ignored them like they were not there. He could and would say all the words, but his actions spoke different, and I was about to be told of the rumor on none other than facebook messenger.
I was living a nightmare, and it was about to get worse. It was about to trigger every fear that ever existed, and it was all going to come rushing to the surface, and all the pieces where going to start falling into place and my life was about to get dark really really dark, and I could not hold on anymore it would prove to be too much for me and it would change everything about me.

I Understand

I started writing tonight when I received a message asking me how did you feel when you discovered the truth. My heart broke for this woman. I knew exactly how she felt. Her world had just come crashing down.
I said these words.
I want you to know that Heavenly Father has been listening and watching. He is mindful of all that was going on around you. He has seen the truth; he has heard and understood what you were then only suspicious of, I am praying for angels to surround you, the Lord is going to send you people to love and support you. He will not leave you alone. I am praying for you also to feel the love of the savior. He will help carry you through this time.
With that being said, this is what I felt when I discovered the truth saw the truth with my own eyes, and this is what I am going to share with you. I am also not as good at following my own advice. So my survivers out there that have lived this awful nightmare you are not alone.
I have been judged by many for writing, and I have felt shame for someone else choices and tonight as I read that pleading from me for answers I said to the Lord, I get it now. The Lord sends people, and tonight he sent me. He sent me because, like her, my heart feels the same; my words are his.
Cheating on someone is the worst I will say it again the WORST thing you can do to someone. When you do this, it's not just hurting them; for a person who has been cheated on, there will always be a reminder to them. It will haunt them, break them, anger, regret, anxiety, shame, depression, loss, and your choice caused that. You cheated and told them that they were not good enough for you. That you never loved them.
Why would you put someone you love in this position?
They now doubt there self-worth. Questioning it all, and everything they knew about you.
You did not do anything wrong. Nothing and I repeat NOTHING you did or didn't do could have stopped this, and I know you tried.
Why did it happen?
Am I enough?
Why did they do it?

I know you are going to ask these questions over and over again as I have done the same.
You are going to feel emotionally scarred, and you're going to build this wall around your heart, so it won't ever be hurt again.  It's going to hurt because your world has stopped while the rest of the world continues. You're going to feel paranoid, the hurt, you will carry it for a long time. Do not judge yourself for anything you do because you are not yourself. Trust was broken, and you want to trust again, but the fear prevents you from ever wanting to feel like this again.
Be patient, and kind to yourself, all things I am not awful at. I have been told to have compassion for me who wanted to believe.
You will feel like an emotional wreck, a mess inside, a shell.
When you're cheated on, you feel like you were never loved, respected, or cared about. They didn't think about you or how it would affect you only themselves. It was selfish, and it was unfair. It damaged you.
My thinking was you picked the one person you wanted to spend the rest of your life with, the one you would stick by through thick and thin the good and the bad and the ugly the one you created a life with.  I was shattered, I picked them, and they never picked me. There was always someone else.
To love someone is to respect them, now all of that has been betrayed. Loyalty is what you gave, and now instead of receiving what you gave you were cheated on, and that is the absolute most damaging thing you can do to a person that loves you.
I am here, I hear you, I have felt what you feel, and my heart is breaking for you.
I testify of the truthfulness of his love, and he has a plan much bigger than what you have for yourself. He will hear the silent pleading of your heart. He may not give you the miracle you want, he may not answer all your prayers, but if I did anything right in the mess of this,  it was trusting that he would never leave my side even when I challenged him, screamed and cursed. He sent me the most amazing people to walk this storm that I still battle. Not everyone will get you, or what you have been through. I have been broke down enough to not care much anymore. Find the people who will listen, the ones who can see past your fake smile and will see your pain. The ones that will hold your hand and reach out to take yours. The ones that will stay by your side and not judge you. They are his gift, they will be your light and shine when you don't. His words flow from me effortlessly. He will guide you, he loves you, and he is there.

Words

These three words can still bring tears.

Here is what I have found for the most part people mean well.
What some may not realize is that words can do so much more damage to your already fragile soul.
You don’t get to choose how someone heals after you broke them, or how long it takes to recover from something so traumatic. You didn’t have to live it. I have found it way longer then I want, than I wish, I have prayed and hoped for the pain to go away to wake up and be okay but the truth, how do you just forget 25 years of your life and be okay? I have learned to sit in the pain if I am ever going to be okay, and it sucks! There are scars you can’t see and a truth you don’t know, some too painful to share!
So My words that Suck:
How are you?
You need to move on (yes if only it were this simple)
Get over it( because getting over infidelity is just something that happens by saying this.)
You're okay! Am I alright because inside me feels like a ticking time bomb!
You're so much better off? Yes, single parent, one income, losing you past, present and fearing the future, losing my best friend and eternal companion feels like I am so much better off.    

                                       


You're going to be okay; even so, would you be okay had this been done to you or someone you love?
You don’t have to live it, and you don’t have to wake up every day and battle all the self-doubt and failure that surrounds you. You don’t battle the thoughts Satan would have you believe.
The words that follow me around like a thought bubble 💭 above my head. The ones I hope nobody will see.
Your not enough ( have someone go back on their covenants to be your eternal partner makes you feel you're never enough for anyone)
You failed
The reason I have a hard time making eye contact with most people. The shame, humiliation, the truth that is now my reality.

                                   

I realized there is one who sees all, one who knows all, one that heard and saw the truth that I didn’t know. Heavenly Father was there when my world shattered to pieces; my reality changed. He saw as I broke into a million pieces, and he loved me through it all. His words aren’t you're okay, be fine, he hasn’t said your so much better off, he knows and sees all my broken, I can’t hide it from him. He isn’t whispering you get over it, and it’s been too long. He knows the work I do daily. He knows my heart; he knows it’s been ripped from my chest stomped on and shoved back only to beat and keep me alive. But that’s all it’s doing keeping me alive and killing me at the same time. One step I take forward to have it thrown in my face, and I slide back to start the work all over again. The savior stands there, reaching out his hand, preventing me from drowning. He knows the struggles I have allowed Satan to fill my head with thoughts, thoughts that I think are my own thoughts that scare me. Then I realize they are not my own, and I work to control them.

 I had a conversation June 28, 2018, and sent this photo when he said to me all I do is drown me and everyone else, he was sorry for making me suffer and that I was stronger than him, and why we all got punished because he failed. I told him he had not failed, and the Lord places people in our lives to love, help, and support us through them. I was begging him to let me. telling him the lord was there to help him.
Learning to sit in pain has been the most challenging thing. The day in therapy and he said I want you to sit in that pain, and I said this is what I am trying not to feel and you want me to sit in it? Nope, I don’t want to. I am sick of the pain. He said, stop running from it. Stop hiding it. Stop trying to feel anything else. I said the last part is natural I don’t feel anything but numb. The pain never leaves.
I want to pretend I was fine, and I would like for once not to hold back the tears. I want the tears to go away altogether. I know this shell of a person I am today. Numb I prefer that over sitting in the pain.

                                 

I miss that girl that was full of hope and promise back on June 28th. I lost her, I have tried to find her, but she is gone. Maybe she ran away? Never to come back. She can’t see the good; she can’t fix what has happened; she can’t un-see un-hear any of it. She is done sitting in the pain. She is physically, emotionally, spiritually exhausted, and the one person she cared the most about she could not save. She was wrong, so very wrong about what she thought her life was? She lived a fake lie, and she didn’t even know it. She could not see it; she was Naïve, stupid some would say.
WORDS & TRUTH have shattered her.
I don’t think she is ever coming back.
That person was willing to forgive it all. She fought & loved fiercely; she did what the Lord asked.
So yes for those that have called me stupid, fool, blind, crazy. Don’t worry, and you don’t have to use your words because if you look closely that thought 💭 bubble follows me and all those words are there. I feel them about myself also. That girl that ran and left me an empty shell. I don’t want her back anymore. She fought to be lied to, used, manipulated, gaslighted. She fought for love, and love is what shattered her.
The shell that’s left will keep doing what God has asked. She will keep doing it and sitting in the pain because the only thing I have left is the faith that he will lead me through, that he can turn something shattered into something not.
I keep going. When it’s hard when it hurts when I get frustrated with myself and when people question me. When I have no idea and doubt it all, he knows, and he pushes me to keep going because he knows what he is doing.
Recycling the pain into something that can help others. That is the promise I have that he will always be there reaching out his hand to me, to you and to that girl who’s innocents was stolen because she loved without fear, without limits, without hesitation, unconditionally.

I am so glad that I have a heavenly father that loves me, that I have a savior that died for me. That when I doubt he is waiting from me to take his hand.

SAFETY OF A BLANKET

It’s in the wee quite hours of the morning that I ask for help, I pray for guidance, I listen for the answers. Sleep never comes easy. Rest my body may get, but my soul doesn’t feel. 

This morning was no different and as I laid in bed talking to the lord. I asked him to give me the words to write next. Usually after that 3 am sudden wake and then prayer,  I can doze back off. 

It’s the unwelcome dreams that startle me. The power of a prayer, I had prayed nightly for my dreams to stop and Heavenly Father gave me just what I asked for.  For a solid month no dreams at all. I soon realized I needed to change that prayer, it may have taken the nightmares away, but it also took the good dreams. I still wanted the inspiration I received from my dreams so I started praying to deal with the nightmares associated with this trauma.  I didn’t only want but need those inspirational dreams, I had realized I missed them.

That day the lord guided me to the people that would be my angels here on earth. I know he had a hand in that phone call made June 3, 2018. He directed me and my kids to that Christ like love of these amazing people. 

Two short days later as I was out walking, I got a message asking if my kids could go on a trip. She said I don’t want to take them away if you need them but I would love for them to join us. I knew the kids needed that. I knew I would have to return to work the next day or file for a medical leave. The mess of all of it was too much and I wanted them to go have some relief and joy.  

 The people Heavenly Father guided me to were sent in that awful day to be out beacon of hope, our shining light, the ones that would and did help us survive. 

This sweet amazing lady walks on water I can promise that. 

The day she picked up the kids, I knew they had left and I was on survival mode I got a text as my kids left that said mom she left us a present it on the table when you get home.

I arrived home from work to find 5 amazing gifts.

Blankets, these were not just any blankets.

These blankets are the softest, warmest, most amazing gift we received early on.  I have slept with it every single night since that day. I call it my Jesus blanket it keeps me safe and protected and I would be lost without it. Yes I am a grown woman and it’s been a security thing for me. It was a gift of love that I needed and I knew when I wrapped in it, it was her love and the saviors love wrapped around me. 

It’s in that safety of my bed I never want to leave. It’s there I can stay wrapped in that love.

There are days I can’t even leave the safety of that bed, days it’s hard to get up and put one foot in front of another. Days I go through the motion and long to be back in the comfort and peace of that blanket. The days it’s hard, and difficult to even want to breath. Days I wake up from the nightmare with the pain in my chest from the dreams. It’s also where I wake up with the words to write next, the answers to my prayers. The days that I drag myself from the security and love of that blanket.  Most days with not much more than a shower, a pony tail, and no makeup. The days all I can do is pray that Heavenly Father will help me survive. 

I know it’s in that safety of that blanket when the 3 am nightmares occur I can reach for that blanket and talk to my savior telling him all. The quiet whispers, pleading, and all the tears. I know he hears, he is mindful, he is always there waiting, listening and holding me up when the weight of the world keeps dragging me down, I can stay wrapped in that blanket for far too long. Like that blanket he is waiting for us to reach out and wrap ourselves in his love. That blanket is my connection to him it’s a reminder when I go to bed and it’s a reminder when I wake up to share my fears of leaving that safety. I could stay there forever hiding away from the world. It’s that blanket that I stay wrapped in while praying for help and guidance. I plead for understanding and I continue to ask for a glimpse every morning while wrapped in that blanket of my saviors love. 

I know how special this blanket has been for me and I have ordered one that I want to share with some else the needs the saviors love. 

Be still

There comes a time in our lives when we just don’t have the answers, or do we have the answers and just don’t want them? Be still and know that I am God. I have fought that over and over and over. I know he has a plan for me. I ask all the time for a glimpse of the future. No such luck but I think I will keep asking.  😉

I struggle and fail daily on the forward.  I think it might be because of the letting go, letting go of what I had planned, The future I was happy with, the future I thought I would have. I am not there yet!

I have prayed over and over asking what do I do next. How do I heal? I fight it over and over again it comes in answers to my prayers, a friends text. It’s that still small voice whispering to me. You know what to do and you refuse to do it.

Yes sharing, writing, it’s difficult to talk about, it’s hard to bear your soul to strangers. It’s the judgment of other.  I think I am sorta doing it, although I find a million other things to do. Except the one thing I have been asking for over a year. I am not sure I am ever going to nderstand why this happened the way it did, But it did. I have wanted to change it so many times.  I cant change it even though I have tried with all of me wishing it were not real. There are days I don’t want to open my eyes. I want to pretend none of it happens that I didn’t have to live it for another day.  I was asked to have faith. He had asked me to love myself and trust my talents. He has told me I got you, I won’t let you fail. Failure that I feel has surrounded me at everything turn. He has asked me to love even when it was hard.

 How I wish I could tell you that I have done it all right, that I have done it perfectly. I haven’t, I have failed most days. Trying to navigate a situation I prayed to not live. I have done my best and have given my all and in the end I did feel like I failed. He didn’t care he was there every step of the way, he has watched every tear fall, heard every conversation, every action. He wants me to trust and believe he loves me even when I can’t love myself. He has been there when it was too hard and I begged for another way. He has watched me stumble and get back up time and time again when the weight is to heavy.  He has sent some of the most amazing people just for me. The people he knew were going to be a source of light and were answers to prayers even before I asked him to send me someone. He hasn’t give up on me even when I have given up on myself.  

This past week at stake conference, I was sitting there feeling like I just don’t fit in. Trying to listen from the very back and keeping my mind from the swirling of thoughts. 

Then there was this...

Be still, listen, then the words that were spoken by Elder Gong. There it was the part he needed me to hear. I applied it to me. I can’t hold on to save myself, but I can and will hold on to save kids, with the help of other’s and the Savior. 

This I know is the only reason I haven’t quit when the pain was too much to bear, when my world stopped spinning while everyone else’s kept turning.  

I was reading a update of Facebook about the teens that were in the auto accident and one of the mom’s posted this.

I knew I was to read it. She mentioned how she read it and then 2 people shared it with her. 

I guess I must have also needed it because I read her post last night and today 2 amazing special ladies shared it with me within 45 minutes of each other. I have no doubt the lord is mindful of me. I know he knows the silent pleadings of my heart and I know he hears and answers my prayers. I know he will never leave me even when I feel like I am failing at every turn. He is standing there to carry me.

I know without a doubt that this gospel is true. I could never deny it after this last year and seeing his hand in my life. 

Much love to all of you out there struggling, to all of you who feel like you are failing. For you who find it hard to love anything about yourself, 

He is there! 

CPTSD

 Been a little MIA recently trying to figure something out. Oh and writing in a different form. It’s kinda taken over the blog. It’s been falling into place, piece by piece. 

  

I had no idea what this stood for until 1 year ago when I was diagnosed by my first therapist. 

I thought PTSD was something only people who came back from war had. I learned really quickly that was not the case.

This is what had been plaguing me since January 16th 2018.  When I had first found him sitting on the back road, I found it strange then and wondered what the heck he was doing . Clarity now was he was waiting for a girl. Had I been 5-10 minutes later I probably wouldn’t have rolled up to him all alone, but with her. I wouldn’t have to spend months or weeks wondering and being lied to over and over and over again. I first asked the question I wasn’t sure I even wanted the answer to a week after this incident.  The fight that night on the 16th would change it all and him ignoring me like I hadn’t asked him. Him thinking I didn’t know something was wrong or him actually not caring that I was crying myself to sleep because I knew something was wrong. That question I feared but was hoping that I was wrong, if I wasn’t  that he would actually be honest with me.   

Do you want to know what it feels like? I will describe it the best I can. 

Paranoia 

Repeated intrusive thoughts. 

Unstable emotions. 

Out of body experiences. 

Alternating between feeling numb and striking out in retaliation. 

Inability to stop your mind from searching for the truth. 

Feeling overwhelmingly powerlessness, crazy and broken. 

Needing to regain self worth, but blaming yourself.

Confusion and disorientation.

The trauma of betrayal and the trigger of memories of buried emotional and not to mention the spiritual damage. 

Yes what he had done prior, but claimed was noting, All came rushing back in like a open flood gate all hitting me at once. 

When those prior traumatic experiences are triggered and re-emerge, they become complex and complicate the healing process.  

Healing, yes healing is the most difficult thing there is for someone after infidelity!  Praying every single day that tomorrow will be the day that you will wake up and be okay. That tomorrow has never come. 

If this is something you are struggling with after infidelity. I am sorry I know how you feel the utter devastation of every fiber of your being.

The daunting task that you will now have to try and heal yourself and failing over and over. The weight you carry alone for minutes that turn to hours, that turn to days, that turn to weeks, and into months and then years.  Wondering if you will actually ever be okay. I have felt that pain you feel, deep in your chest.  The endless nightmares that you wish would go away. I have cried the tears that just wont stop no matter what you try. I am there I have felt the love of others and the love of my savior when I am deep in the darkness and I can’t see any light. I know I have an army behind me cheering me on even when the only thing I may be able to do some days is breath! 

Much love to all of you with the same shattered heart like mine. May the lord bless you with your tomorrow.