Suddenly Lonely

I was doing well being here in Small Town. I was beginning to make friends, look forward to things other than work and support group, and I'm even beginning to get my house unpacked. Yes, I have been living in Small Town for about 6 months and I have only unpacked the things that I use...

The closer we get to Thanksgiving, the more I'm missing my Mom. I miss Dad and Brother too, but I'm so close to my Mom. I was going about a week or two without talking to any of my family members, but about a month ago, phone calls to Mom starting coming on nearly every day or two. That's usually about the time I knew it was time to go visit home or have Mom come have lunch with me in College Town.

After calling Dad yesterday and learning that he wasn't able to come down to visit for Thanksgiving, I tried calling Mom but she didn't answer. I called Brother today, twice, but he's still not answering. Seeing as he just got a new girlfriend and his track record for doing family things when he has friends and their families... I'm thinking the odds of him coming down are pretty slim as well.

*sigh*

So, I'm excited for Mom to come down and to also see my other Home State family who are hoping to come down to visit Mema. I hope they get to come down. Somehow, youngest uncle keeps missing family functions with an explanation that he has to work. Mema has recently mentioned that she is not particularly pleased with him at the moment. She also made some comments about exboyfriend that made me think that the rumor has finally reached the family about him getting talked to by the police and probably arrested under sexual assault charges, that were dropped.

I don't know what's going on. Oh the joys of having a family who talks about nothing with the people going through things, but gossip and speculations spread like wildfire. Along with the gossip, comes believing and siding with non-family members, depending on the story that gets told and from whom they hear said tale. Thus resulting in family splitting, rifts, and silent treatments.

The pull for me to find a guy and settle down is not strengthened by current circumstances... if that tells you anything...

Graduation Came and Went, but It Turned Out Happy!

My last post was about how I was all sad at school ending. I had just finished my last final and instead of relief or happiness, I was feeling sad. Well, it's okay. Despite how difficult, frustrating, and down-right draining nursing school was, it was kind of my identity and a time of stressful excitement in my life for the past 3-4 years! The end of that is relieving, in some ways, but I've learned it's okay to be mildly sad at the ending because it's the end of a major life era.

Through nursing school/college I've:

• had countless highs and lows
• gained and lost friends
• was encouraged in my calling
• was told I would never get into the program, and then did get in!
• I went through many traumatic events, all in a 2 year time-span
• learned new things about myself
• lost pieces of what I htought was important about me, but gained new insights and strengths
• learned the basics of how to "be a nurse", according to textbooks
• had countless instructors, patients, friends, and family tell me that I was made to be a nurse
• I've cried and laughed with patients
• cuddled babies
• held the hands of people in the dying process
• celebrated "little" things with patients and families of patients
• been able to care for those who nobody else would touch
• and so much more

These things were my life. These things comprise a major part of my life and nursing school has consumed my every thought for at least 4 years! The end of such a monumental milestone is allowed to be a time of mixed emotions. Throw in the fact that I have friend and family troubles, I am recovering from PTSD, and shit is about to get real as far as my real life starting, and it's completely understandable why I was overwhelmed at a time where most people are supposedly happy.

I have talked with several of my friends, both nursing and non-nursing, that graduated with me on Friday, and they are having similar mixed feelings about graduation. Many of us are waking up in a panic because we feel we need to be in class, thought we are done now. Others are sad school is over because some of us are moving to other states and we may never see each other again, let alone every day!

Graduation is a happy time, but it's okay to be overwhelmed, sad, anxious, nervous, and a host of other emotions. Being able to feel all of these is part of what makes us human and helps us concrete these huge monuments in our memory bank.



I'll tell you a bit about how my graduation weekend went, though, just in case you were wondering...

Thursday: Pinning went well. My Mom pinned me, but Mema and Brother were able to go up on stage with me. It was a great ceremony and the Nurse's Pledge really got to me. As I was reading it with my classmates, and my family and friends listened to me promise my life for the career of a nurse, I was able to reflect and realize that nursing is my calling. The pledge sounded like it was written for me!

Friday: Graduation was wonderful! My mom's sister and her husband drove down with us. Then Brother and Dad met us at the event center. Everyone loved my cap, except my peds professor (who I've had serious problems with all semester and who mocked it in front of the other professors to my face!). I put RN but instead of "Registered Nurse" I wrote out "Redneck Nurse" and put it on camo back ground. I'm known as the class redneck and so many of my classmates and friends loved it! What's even better is that when my peds professor was mocking my cap, the other professors chimed in and told me how cute it was and how creative I was to come up with that. So, it made me feel a bit better. I got lots of pictures and had a grand ol' time during graduation. The nursing class was in the back of the graduate seating, and many of us were talking and laughing the whole time because getting through 1000+ students all graduating takes a long time! Many nursing students wore their stethoscopes as cords and I even graduated Cum Laude! I was so close to the next highest gpa, but graduating with honors at all was an accomplishment that I am very proud of.

Saturday: This was the day of my party. Many people RSVP'd, so I got food for about 50-60 people and rented a park. Unfortunately, only 3 of my friends, one of my uncles and his family came, and then two sets of family friends came. Well, my Mom, Dad, and Brother came too. It was cold and rainy, so my dad was surprised that anyone came at all, but the people that did come went out of their way to make sure that someone came to celebrate with me, so I was glad for that. I think I should have planned it for a different weekend, because so many people were having parties that day. However, it was disappointing, yet a good time to practice "spinning" the situation to find the silver lining. The spin is: the people that came are all so very dear to my heart, I was glad to be able to spend lots of time with each of them individually instead of being overwhelmed by the amount of people who showed up.

So, it was a good weekend. My favorite day was graduation. I got so many photos with friends. I shared a lot of smiles and hugs. The whole day fell into place and G-d worked out the whole weekend just the way it was supposed to be. I'm so very glad for that.



Ladies and gents, I would like to present to you... ME! I graduated counseling, nursing school, and I am beginning my adult life with a job right out of college. Life will not be easy by any means, though many days I wish it were. However, I know that sometimes the L-rd blesses others through the struggles I have and the L-rd blesses me through different events, both seemingly good and bad events. Life is a journey. It's hard, fund, and every changing. All we can do is hold on for the ride and pray that someday, our life makes a difference and we learn the lessons we are supposed to learn while here on this earth.

I'm approaching this next phase in my life with cautious optimism. I'm terrified, but I see the L-rd working every day. Most days are still a struggle, but I'm not bed-bound anymore. Even today, when it's cold and cloudy and I have nothing I really need to do, I pulled myself out of bed and got my butt to Starbucks. I'm making baby steps in my healing journey and graduating counseling is proving to be a struggle. However, I know that I can go back to counseling at any time, but it is meant to be a temporary crutch as opposed to a new life-long sentence/expense.

I graduated!

Now I'm: BedpanAlley, BSN!

I have to catch myself, I keep calling myself a nursing student instead of a newly graduated baby-nurse... I'll fix that in time. Maybe someday I'll begin to feel like a nurse, but the learning will never end. Good thing I love to learn, right?

Brother to My Rescue

I talked with Mom today about reporting the guys. She couldn't really talk and express her thoughts because Dad was home and he still doesn't know what happened. In fact, he's still mad at me about exfiance.

It breaks my heart that I cannot go to my dad for support with this stuff because he would have a heart attack or stroke, probably both. He would call his brothers, and all of them and all of the buddies he calls would end up in jail with either murder charges or charges for severely beating exboyfriend's and exfiance's asses.

While I understand and appreciate the sentiment, all I want is for him to hug me and tell me he's sorry that it happened to me. I want him to tell me he is there for me and wants to support me. I want to know that he still sees me as his little girl even though I've been dragged through the mud and the muck and am defiled in the worst ways possible. I want him to tell me he believes me and that we will get this whole mess sorted out legally and nobody but the guys that can't keep their dicks to themselves will be ending up in jail and probably, eventually, prison.

That's what I want. But that's not how life works.

So, I told my Mom that I have been seriously considering reporting these guys today. That took a lot of guts on my end and I was hoping she would be supportive. She couldn't even say what was on her mind but she told me it is a bad idea because it will get back around to the uncles, their families, Mema, and then Dad. Therefore, she said, it is better for me to not report it so that Dad and the family don't find out and don't have backlash.

Excuse me for believing that reporting these assholes was going to better the world somehow. Forgive me for finally being able to see beyond not wanting to hurt them in their lives even though my life is completely ruined, I have worse psych problems than before, and I'm hanging on by a fucking thread! Apparently trying to lock these fuckers away so that they don't do this to any other girls is the wrong thing to do an I should deal with this bullshit on my own for the rest of my life, because I'm going to die alone caring for everyone else but me. Pardon me, it was my bad. Social justice cannot be served in the way that would prevent this from happening to others. Legal justice cannot be served to prosecute them at all.

Maybe my life should just fade away so that my family and friends won't have to suffer through the psychological problems of having people doubt my PTSD symptoms, my stories, the bruises he gave me that I used to hide, the cuts that have turned to scars that I continue to hide, and the fact that I don't want to wake up anymore. No, I won't kill myself, but maybe if I moved to another state and changed my name, then nobody there would have to know. I wouldn't be traceable. Then, maybe for the people I leave in this state, their life will be easier and they'll be none the wiser. I'll be a runaway but nobody will bat an eye because life will be about a billion times easier.


With my mind reeling from the phone call with Mom, I called Brother. She mentioned that I should because we had a football game on today (the Super Bowl...) and she suggested that he come over to my place to watch it since he's having problems with his roommate. Heading her advice for this, I called him up, but I figured he was probably at work. Turns out he was. We exchanged the customary small talk but I brought up reporting the guys. He asked if I had been thinking about it, and I told him I have been for a few months now. Really, I've been thinking about reporting them since the them was only a him after the first one. But I've been more seriously considering it in the last few months. He told me I should do it and that he'll support me if that's what I feel like I need to do, or he said he'd continue to support me if I feel like it's okay that they don't get reported.

I broke down and started telling him about the conversation with Mom. For the most part, I try really hard to not cry around him because he doesn't need that kind of stress.

I am an ugly crier. Like uglier that ugly. There is snot, blubbering, and eye leakage EVERYWHERE! Even on the phone, the listening party gets snot and tears on their shirts. I don't know how, but it's a gift I have.

In the process of me telling him that she told me not to report the guys because of dad and the family, he told me that he understands that. I do too. We have spent most of our lives sharing the good with Dad and avoiding the bad because he doesn't take it well. However, he suggested calling Mom, telling her to act like she doesn't know anything, and then me sitting both parents down and telling them together. I feel bad lying, but it seems like the best way. I told him I'm scared Dad is going to blow up the way he did when I wrecked my car and how he blew up when exfiance went up to ask for Dad's blessing. Brother told me that if Dad says anything negative or hurtful or how what happened to me is ruining his life (as he usually argues everything that I do ruins his life) then I just leave. I get in my car and I head to Brother's house. However, that way Dad would be finding out when Mom is finding out (supposedly) and so maybe he will take it better. I still think he's going to have a CVA and an MI (CVA-cardiovascular accident, aka stroke; and MI-myocardial infarction, aka heart attack). He may also call up his brothers and go through the previously mentioned story that lands him and a bunch of guys in jail before the guys that actually hurt me can end up in jail or prison.

I love my dad. Truly I do. I am a daddy's girl to the bone and love spending time with him. I absolutely love my Dad. He has a laundry list of mental illnesses and that makes life difficult. And, for selfish reasons, I absolutely hate that I cannot tell him the things that are going on in my life. I want so desperately to tell him everything. I want to explain why I call exboyfriend and exfiance dicks when I tell stories about them. Dad defends them every time, saying that he "likes the kid" and it's like a fucking knife to the heart. He doesn't know what he doesn't know, but if your daughter calls someone a dick and she does not do that on a regular basis and she is typically very happy and forgiving, maybe there is a problem there.

I hate that I cannot do what I need to do because I have to worry about dad reacting poorly. Oftentimes, his reaction is worse than whatever situation I am going through. For instance, my wrecking my car. I was shaken up, but I survived with no injuries. I was stressed majorly, but able to compose myself to do what I needed to do and call a tow truck, my mom, and get my car fixed. When he answered the phone for my mom, my heart sank. When I got home from my mom picking me up, he yelled at me for a solid 20 minutes because I was ruining his plans and his life. I was being an inconvenience and he made it sound like I got in a wreck on purpose just to fuck with his life. I guarantee you, I did no such thing. It's an accident. Accidents happen. I'm almost certain he's been in a few wrecks himself. I backsassed him and told him to not worry about it because I was going to fix it. I didn't get in the wreck to be an inconvenience and I am an adult and can fix my own mistakes.

He proceeded to ignore me for a few days until I brought up a conversation with him.

When exfiance went up to ask for his blessing, he told exfiance yes. Then called me and told me it was a huge mistake. He yelled at me, over the phone, for a solid 45 minutes on the day of the big date I had planned for exfiance and didn't let me talk at all. He kept talking about how I wasn't mature enough and that he regretted his first marriage from when he was 25 to some crazy lady in town. Whatever, that's not my fault. I wanted to yell back at him but there is no reasoning with him. He told me the same things over and over and over again until he had to go back to work. The essence of which was: I am not mature, I'm an idiot, I'm too young, he hates his life, he regrets his first marriage, he regrets his second marriage, and he regrets having kids.

I ended up saying yes when exfiance asked at the restaurant and I had the ring on my hand for a couple days. I ended up going home a day or two after the date and he refused to look or talk to me because he heard through my mom that I had said yes. I broke up with exfiance a couple days after that and Dad still didn't talk to me for weeks until I started talking to him.

Do you see the pattern? Do you understand why we don't tell him anything? Yes, we should tell him stuff, but we can't because he loses his shit every fucking time. It makes our situation 20x more miserable than if we just suffer through it alone. Then he wonders why we don't tell him anything...

Brother asked if telling them together and leaving if there was a problem sounded do-able. I told him I think it was a better idea than just flat out telling Dad, but I told Brother I don't think I can do it. Planning for it and actually carrying out the plan are two completely different things. I'm having panic attacks just thinking about telling Dad and they get worse as time goes on. However, I get so much more nervous when I am about to do it. I almost crapped my pants just asking my dad if I could go to prom. Telling him I've been ruined? I think I'd pass out from shame and nervousness. Brother ended the conversation by saying that he would go with me to take care of Dad and be my support. He told me before he offered to come with, to ignore Dad and let him (Brother) take care of Dad if he flew off the handle, like he normally does. Brother is the one who got Dad to start talking to me after exfiance asked for Dad's blessing. Brother told him to stop taking it out on me and to trust in the way Dad and Mom raised me. After that, and several weeks of reflection, Dad told me that that helped him "forgive me". *Just remember, everything that happens is my indirect way of making sure that I completely fuck up his life (that was complete and total sarcasm).* So, Brother is going with me, if I ever get the balls to go up and talk to them about everything.

And, where he comes from, domestic violence and rape are not called by those names. The country is old-school and they believe football players can do whatever they want as long at they take their team to state. Husbands can hit their wives because their wife must have done something to piss him off. Children can be physically punished to the point of bruises, broken bones, and other serious problems because they must have fucked up badly enough that they needed that kind of punishment.

Granted, not every person that lives in the country believes this way, but I've heard the mean things they say about a high school girl that reported her boyfriend for raping her a few years ago. They say that she was just mad that he broke up with her. She's just trying to get attention. He didn't do anything wrong, she made up stories to get him put away. And others. There are so many others.

When you hear about domestic violence, child abuse, and rape stories, how many of these occur in the country or in the woods? A lot. It's because not a whole lot of people are around, it's easier to do your own thing without anyone ever figuring anything out. Plus, their mindset is usually very different.

That makes me feel a bit crazy. Am I being over dramatic and making stuff up? How will this effect my uncles, aunts, and cousins? Will I be able to ever go back there? What if I run into a family member or friend of one of the guys? How much worse can my name be drug through the mud? THIS IS NOT A CHALLENGE TO ACTUALLY SEE HOW MUCH WORSE IT CAN GET!!! These are just the wonderings in my brain. This stuff keeps me up at night. I wake up in cold sweats.

I keep waffling between knowing that they need to get locked up to wondering if people will believe me to being terrified of what will happen with my Dad and extended family.

I talk to my counselor about all of this on Tuesday. I can make it until then, I think.

Lies Are Building

I don't know if you guys remember or not, but when fiance asked me to marry him the first time, he didn't ask my dad for permission first. This was one thing I asked him to do because I feel it shows respect to my dad to ask for my hand. Fast-forward about 5-6 months and he finally asked my dad Thursday night.

Now, dad has unmedicated and unofficially diagnosed bipolar disorder (type 2) as evidence by my DSM-V book and the fact that a lot of his side of the family has it. I'm talking most everyone has it. Anyway, fiance called my dad telling him he wanted to meet up to talk. Dad immediately called me and flipped the fuck out! Sorry for the bad language, there is a lot of anger in my heart. Yes, I still believe in the L-rd and I'm sure he's not happy with my language but I digress and I'm terribly sorry for the bad words. Anyway, dad told him he could marry me.

Next day, dad called and started yelling at me again. He went on and on while I sat crying silently on the other end. My mom called during my "talk" with him and I called her back when he was done. Mom was so great about calming me down, telling me to ignore dad and just get ready and be happy for the special night with fiance. I proceeded to yell and vent about my entire family being bat shit crazy for another 45 minutes. I know I'm not supposed to call people that are mentally ill crazy, even if I am too, but they are. I don't call others, well I really try not to call others crazy because I know these are things they can't help. But honestly, my family and I really need to get on some meds and get this shit sorted out because I'm sick of having nobody on my side because they are all so consumed in their feelings and they leave and stop talking to people when they get mad at the dumbest things. Dad could have told fiance his true feelings. Instead, he told fiance yes and yelled at me because he regretted that decision.

That night, I had a birthday dinner planned for the fiance. We went to a nice dinner. I had gone dress shopping with his mom so that I could find a really pretty dress to wear for him. I did my hair and make up and I was looking really good. Fiance talked to the staff at the restaurant and planned for them to come and sing happy birthday to him, but instead of just that, he was planning to ask me again to marry him in public.

I said yes and he gave me a new ring because the other one got stolen.

The past few days have consisted of me going home to my parent's house where my dad proceeded to ignore me and refuse to talk to my mom or I. They are now planning to separate in the spring because dad thinks life would be better without us because apparently my brother and I stress him out too much. Fiance and I are fighting because of what he told dad when he went up to talk with him. Fiance thinks it's bullshit that I told him that my dad has been yelling at my mom and I for the past few days when dad told fiance he could ask me to marry him. I think it's bullshit too but what do I do? Fiance says the only time he wants to dump me is when my family is being a pain in he ass and not wanting us to get married. Right now, I don't even really want to get married. I'm over this nonsense.

To make it better, I asked about his "dead" wife. He won't give me any straight answers about when she died or where she is buried and I'm angry that he gets so defensive when I do ask because I think that means he might be lying. I went through his Facebook the other day because it was his birthday and I was just looking at the birthday wished. Then, posts started getting more interesting. He told me he's only had one girlfriend besides his wife and me. When I was going through his page, he kept talking about other girlfriends, like 3-4 by name and others without naming them directly. The girl he also said was dead has been posting on her Facebook page up until the end of November of this year. He told me she's been dead for at least 2-3 years. So, I plan on asking him where she is buried, when she died, and what her last name was. The pictures of her that he showed me look an awful lot like this other girl that I found that is alive. I sent a message to her without any specifics in it yet, to see if she would even be willing to talk to me about him. So, we will see. I tried to talk to him when he was over at my place last night but he told me he just doesn't like talking about it. However, I do better asking him over the phone for some reason, then I can have a paper with all of my questions on it too to help guide me. Then, if he's lying, I plan on sending the ring back in the mail and never talking to him again. Whether I take legal pursuit for the other bad things he's done to me or not will remain unknown for right now. I plan on talking to his other "girlfriends" to see why they broke up with him and what happened in their relationships to see if we may all need to ban together for legal action.

So, that is how I went from happiness to complete and utter disparity and anger in a matter of minutes.

Marriage

I've been thinking a lot about marriage lately. Marriage isn't about finding the "right" person, it's about learning how to love more unconditionally. We're learning to love how Yeshua (Jesus) loves and how Adonai (G-d) loves us. Good job Eric Church for figuring that one out (song titled: "She Loves Me Like Jesus Does"). None of us can be an absolute "right" person because we all sin. Marriage is about learning how to walk along side someone who is selfish, has bad days, can do/say hurtful things, and otherwise do things that the world tells us we have a "right" to not forgive them for. Is that the model set up in the Bible? Not even a little bit. Look at the profit who married a prostitute. She continued to cheat on him, yet, the L-rd told him to stay with her and love her. He was instructed not to sleep with her, I think, but he was supposed to remain with her. Now, I'm not saying that you stay with your spouse if they are cheating on you, abusing you, or otherwise putting your and/or your family in danger. Seek help, talk to the L-rd, and determine what you are supposed to do. However, time and time again the L-rd tells us to forgive. Yeshua told us to forgive 77x7 times (in other words, continue forgiving. So why would we need to do that for strangers and friends and not for spouses? I have seen so many marriages implode because each spouse starts keeping a tally of what the other person did or didn't do and so they feel justified in not serving the other person as the L-rd serves us. Marriage is only temporary, it's only for our short lives while on earth. Being with the Creator is eternal. Our lives, it seems to me, are not about finding a battle partner and procreation for this life, it is about being molded into people who are more like G-d. Look at David. He was a man after G-d's own heart. He messed up royally, but he repented and worked towards allowing the L-rd to right his wrongs and take control of the situation. He worshiped the L-rd and continued to serve and minister to Him (G-d). David also had wives, concubines, and loads of children, but that is not what his life is about. That is not the picture we see in the snapshots that are kept in the Bible/Tanakh for us to study. Marriage, and life, is about extending forgiveness, grace, kindness, and loving your spouse as much as we love ourselves (or more) because that is how G-d loves us. Yes, marriage is about having a partner and continuing on the human race, but there is so much more than companionship and kids. Love is a choice and it can be a powerful choice.

Isaiah 54 paints a picture of the L-rd forgiving Israel after He had divorced her earlier in Isaiah's book of the Bible. This chapter describes Jerusalem as a woman who is currently childless and a widow, but it tells her to prepare to be "bursting at the seams". She is instructed to expand her house and she is promised a house made of saphires and gems. To me, this chapter sounds like a prophecy. It talks about her being protected in the land they are about to go into (so it is a prophecy that was taking place in their near future) but it also talks about things that are mirrored in Revelation and the other scriptures about how Yeshua is going to prepare a place as a bride-groom prepares a house for His bride. The house sounds like the house in Heaven that is described, and it sounds like what I will call a near-far prophecy. It talks about a government that is just and fair as well as all citizens being taught by G-d (as is said about heaven). It was occurring in Israels near future and also the more distant future. Please, read this chapter for yourself.

Anyway, it talks about G-d's promise of peace never being broken and the L-rd having mercy upon her (his people). It is home of the verse that says, "...in that coming day, no weapon turned against you shall succeed..." It also says the Creator will be Israel's Husband. It specifically states, "For a brief moment I abandoned you. But with great compassion I will take you back. In a moment of anger I turned my face a little while, but with everlasting love I will have pity on you, says the L-rd, your Redeemer." verse 7-8.

Does this form of anger or turning away not sound like how guys, and often women, handle disagreements and fights sometimes? I know that in the fights I have had with Brother, Dad, exboyfriend, fiance, and other men (sometimes even with women), the men tend to need to take a moment to walk away. Having been reading many books on male behavior lately to try to understand fiance's point of view so I can better know how to relate and love him, it has been stated again and again that men often need space to think when women often need to be able to talk about issues for hours, often rehashing the same things over and over, until they feel they have thoroughly looked at every nook and cranny of the issues and they feel there is a satisfactory solution to the issue. In the passage above, G-d is taking time to calm down because He loves His people so dearly, but they messed up really badly. It's almost like G-d was showing women that it is okay for men to need space after an argument to process and calm down because that is how He wired them and sometimes that is what He does too. We are made in His image and both genders have different characteristics that mirror His as well. Dealing with arguments seems like it would not be needed to mirror Him, but we obviously do. But G-d uses the metaphor of marriage to show us how deeply He loves us and how greatly He forgives us even after doing horrendous things. His mercies are unfailing. Marriage, much like many things, are simply a tool He uses to give us tangeable ways to see and experience His love more deeply and to understand a fraction of the pains He feels as He watches and supports us through the earthly adventure, desperately desiring us to be back with Him.

Just some thoughts that I had bouncing around my head for weeks now. I told some of these things to my friends over the past couple days and they told me they are worried about how I view marriage. They tell me that marriage is about finding the right person and if I do that, then everything else will just work out. My thought was that divorce rates are high and I think it is because sometimes divorce is understandable, but sometimes people go into the marriage wanting a happily ever after and life isn't necessarily about happily ever after on Earth. Marriage takes work. The Bible says that your own body is not even yours anymore because you were bound with your spouse so women cannot hold out sex all the time because men have that inherent need for it. That is because that is how G-d wired them to be able to feel loved and so that they can have a place that they can let their guards down. Read "for women only." It was very helpful for me. There is one for men ("for men only") and you can get the set ("for couples only"). I bought them on Amazon and it brought up a whole slew of other books that talks about couples and how each spouse should relate to each other from a Biblical or Christian standpoint. There are probably Messianic books too if you are interested.

Don't take my words as stone, this is merely a quick brain dump before I rush off to clinicals because my Messianic devotional ("The Voice of the Lord") reassured me of my theory that I had just gotten discouraged about after telling my friend about it yesterday. She is a believer but did not like this thought, I feel like it was a G-d revelation though. Oh well.

More Suicides!?!

Dad's friend's wife just committed suicide. Nobody knew she was depressed until they found her suicide note. She sat in a closed garage with all of their cars running and I think the husband found her. I'm still numb.

It's been a year since Country Boy died.

At lunch mom wondered how nobody could tell she was depressed. I mentioned that many people don't know when others are depressed and brought up that I have been depressed since 5th or 6th grade and she didn't know. She got sad and asked if I had ever had suicidal thoughts. I told her I tried at least 5 times in 8th grade. Mom started crying. Brother was there and he didn't know what to do. I didn't either and I still feel so bad for breaking my mom's heart like that but shouldn't she know? I went and sat next to her because we were in a restaurant and I knew she needed a hug. Now she asks me how I'm doing all the time. She told me that if I ever feel sad or if I am not happy when I get married that I shouldn't try to kill myself but should call her instead. She hasn't told Dad yet. We don't know if that would help him decide to get treatment for his depression/bipolar or if it would just hurt/anger him and possibly push him over the edge.

Life is such a struggle but no excuse to kill yourself. On a selfish note, my list of suicides needs to stop growing.

Life Update

Man alive my life has been crazy busy lately! So, let's hit a few highlights.

1. Boyfriend finally signed on his house after having to be postponed weekly for about 2-3 months. So I went out to help him clean and paint but I didn't really help him, I just talked while he worked.
2. My med/surg clinicals are going okay. I failed a careplan because I didn't do my care map... ugh! That clinical day was ridiculous. I made careplans for 2 patients and I lost both by 1100 that day. So ridiculous! I lost one because the primary RN for that patient was being a preceptor for a new nurse and couldn't handle 2 students on top of that, which I understand. Then I lost the other one because he got discharged. So then I get to do two extra care maps on two brand new patients and I get to pass meds that I have no idea what they do because I didn't do a full caremap/medication chart for them. There were more frustrating things and I went through the entire day fully flustered, but I can't remember them right now because I have tried to block that day from my memory.
3. Roommate may/may not be upset with me. Between my long day of classes (8-4:30) on Tuesday, my late nights at the hospital doing careplans on Wednesdays (noon-6ish and then up until midnight to finish them), and my clinicals Thursday/Friday, I hardly see her anymore! Then she goes to her mom's on the weekends and I hang out with Boyfriend when she's gone. I sure hope I didn't upset her, and I try to invite her to stuff when Boyfriend and I do stuff or sometimes I invite her to stuff with her and I and maybe some other buddies of ours (without Boyfriend) but our friendship just feels a little on the rocks. I've asked her if it makes her uncomfortable when he's here but she says it's okay. I don't know, I miss her though!
4. Brother got a new job!... at a hookah place. Mom knows about it, dad doesn't know where he works, he just knows that Brother got a new job. So that might be a fun conversation to watch! Knowing Brother though, it probably won't be much of show because Mom didn't get upset with him when he told her he was smoking pot and none of his big news that it supposed to produce entertainment for me does! It's a real bummer!
5. Dad also got a new job! He had been self-employed for 20-25 years and he's been struggling with that for a very long time. He showed up at his buddy's place of employment one day to talk to the boss and he was hired right away! His buddy had been talking him up for months and the boss believed him so much that he didn't even require training for Dad, he just put him in a truck and let him go! Dad is so excited and happy all the time, I don't know that I've ever seen him so excited for anything. Plus, all of the ladies in the office and his fellow employees love him and think he is just the coolest thing since sliced bread and he has exceeded their expectations from what his buddy told them. That is hard to do ever, but especially in trucking! He now gets benefits, over-time, a regular paycheck that he doesn't have to track people down to get paid, and he's not so hard on his body as he was when he was a welder/fabricator/mechanic. I'm just as happy as a pig in mud about that! And he is too!
6. Dad gets two bullet points because G-d has answered so many prayers about him for me. It's taken years of praying, like, since I was a little kid and learned to pray. He's quit smoking, started working on his marriage with my mom, he got a job, he's happier, and he's understanding the beauty of Sabbath. My heart is just so full it could burst!
7. Mom called me and told me dad was acting weird. He had gone out to a fast food place and had to go in because they don't have a drive-through. Dad doesn't go to fast food without a drive through because he does not like talking to people and he feels like he's being stared at and judged (which I fully understand), because it's part of social phobia (which I have, which is why I understand). Anyway, he went in and called Mom to see if she wanted anything. That doesn't happen either! They've both been in a marriage but acting independently for several years. They were married at the end of the month that I was born, about three weeks after I entered the world, and they did the whole co-dependent marriage relationship thing for awhile. Then, slowly, they started doing their own laundry, sometimes making their own supper at night, etc. They are still married, still live together, still share the same bed, but they were not fully a team. So the fact that dad asked if he could bring her something home was a big deal because that had not been done in several years. So she explained all this to me and then said he had done dishes for her (also not done in a long time) and he was calling just to see how she was doing, etc. I laughed because to me, it sounded like he was doing the Love Dare from the movie Fireproof. The more I think about it, the more I am convinced that he may be doing it or at least just trying to be sweeter to her. She told me she had been a little ornery to him and I told her to be nice because I thought he was doing the Love Dare and that I had prayed for them to get closer in their marriage for a long time. I think she may have started crying because her voice changed like it does when she cries (she cries when she's happy, sad, confused, at dog commercials, EVERYTHING!). That was all a few weeks ago. As far as I know, their communication is increasing/improving and they are both being nicer to each other and hopefully getting closer with each other. Another reason my heart is getting fuller and fixin' to burst!
8. All the nursing stuff I though I lost through my semester of Mental Health is not lost at all! I am really loving med/surg because I am understanding things that were difficult before and I feel like an actual nurse! I keep impressing my clinical instructor, when she least expects it, and I'm able to shout out answers in lab that nobody else knows because I seem to be decent at this nursing thing! Even nursing for adults!!!