forgiveness

When I was 18, I did something that I have a hard time forgiving myself for. I treated several people poorly, and I feel as if I hurt one in an irreparable way. I would give anything to relive my life and undo what I did, but I can’t. Meeting with a friend last week and hearing of her heartbreak brought up this moment in me. She was so upset at her terrible boyfriend, and all I could think is: I am the kind of person that can do this to people. I am her jackass of a boyfriend.

It seems that when I talk about things with my therapist, that I can start to move beyond them; I thought that I could do the same by explaining the moment here. That maybe, I could work out what happened and explain it to myself in black and white. Then, perhaps my Emotional Brain and my Logical Brain could be on the same page. That's why I wanted to write about my past relationships. I thought maybe it would help me figure out how to forgive myself. Now, I see that it was just another way to punish myself for it all over again.

While I was writing about the incident, I started hearing the sirens of my alcoholism. “I could buy a bottle of wine and drink it and nobody is here to know” and “I’m not really an alcoholic – I like wine, so what? Lots of people like wine” are my main indicators that I am an on the verge and need to get to safety as soon as possible. I was supposed to spend the weekend alone, but I instead drove 8 hours so that I could be with my husband and in-laws to keep myself out of harm’s way.

I see now that it isn’t thinking through the events or understanding them that helps me heal, but having the reassurance from somebody that the past is past, that I was young and heartbroken, and that if it were somebody else in my position, I would have forgiven them long ago. Three people on this earth knew what had happened, because I couldn’t bring myself to talk about it with anybody. Even now, I cannot find the words to express the shame that I feel; all I know to say is that I cry more about this than about the memories of my sexual abuse. I haven’t ever brought myself to tell my husband of the incident, and although he is not in any way involved in it, it feels that I am constantly lying to him by not letting him know that I apparently have this capability inside me.

Long after the person I hurt has moved on from my mistake, I find myself stuck. At my therapy session yesterday, I told my counselor the story. My counselor brought up that with a mother like mine, I know what it is like to be hurt irreparably, because I have been so many times. Some people become cold in response to all the pain they’ve endured; I take empathy to the extreme. She noted to me that I am clearly more affected by these mistakes than my sexual abuse, and that clearly shows that I am punishing myself too much.  My therapist reassured me that I should not tell my husband, because it serves no benefit to me or him, has no relevance, and can be quite damaging to our relationship because it will undoubtedly play on his insecurities. I badly needed that reassurance, because that’s what my brain was telling me for the entirety of our relationship, but I was constantly wondering if that was simply to protect myself from a difficult conversation.

I am not going to write about the relationship here. In fact, other than DW, my husband and this man that I hurt, none of my past romantic relationships are consequential to the story of my life, and so I am abandoning the idea of writing specifically about the relationships altogether. I am trying to make a choice not to relive my mistake any longer. I know I have punished myself long enough: my alcoholism took root in the moments during and after this incident. I made mistakes that I would take back, yes. But, it’s hard to breathe just thinking about the pain I was trying to numb out with my behavior. It was seven years ago, and I have to move on, just as the others involved did.  I would have forgiven anybody else these sins long ago; I want to give myself that same kindness. 

DW, the high school sweetheart

I have snippets that come to me like visions, or overwhelming feelings with no discernible cause. When I describe them to people, I often call them "dreams", because I think that calling them "visions" comes off as a bit schizophrenic. The best way I can explain these visions is that it is as if somebody has downloaded a memory of something into my mind that I haven't experienced yet, like I'm remembering something that hasn't happened. Whether or not you believe in these things is irrelevant, I think: perhaps it is just good intuition and luck. In any case, it happens more rarely now and less intensely than when I was younger, but it peaked when I was with DW.

When I was a junior in high school, I was taking an advanced calculus class that was half seniors and half juniors. Some of our classmates and I would have study parties before every exam. We would invite anybody who wanted to come, make popcorn, and work through practice tests and homework together and learn from each other's strengths. A couple seniors would come to these study parties, one of which was a boy who I began to notice: I'll call him DW.

On a Monday night, I had a vision that DW was going to ask me to the Senior Prom. He was going to do it outside of a house I've never been to, under a tree I've never seen, and next to a dark blue pickup truck I didn't recognize. A black-blue sky would be dotted by only the brightest stars, with wispy clouds moving quickly through it. I told my friends about the vision, telling them it was a dream. That Wednesday, we had a study party to prepare for a Thursday Calculus test at a house of one of the students that I had never been to. I saw the tree and the truck on my way into the house, and I knew that the vision was referring to tonight. I spent the study party trying to put it out of mind, trying to focus, trying not to notice that DW was trying to time when he left with when I was leaving. I knew exactly what I would say, because I knew exactly what he would say from the vision and I rehearsed my response.

It happened exactly as I had seen. It was surreal -- I felt like I was in one of those made-for-teen movies where the popular older boy and the not-as-popular misfit girl get together. I had never kissed a boy before. I had never had a real boyfriend before. I wasn't unpopular or bullied, but I wasn't popular and I had always felt plain. And here I was, one of very few juniors being asked to the senior prom.

I wore shoes, jewelry and a dress that I had laying around because I didn't have time for anything else since he asked me two weeks before the dance. I still have the photos of us on the stairs in a friend's house with him, me with a silver scarf thrown around my neck to accent my black gown, he with his arm draped around me, and both beaming. I have never thought of myself of glamorous, but looking at that picture reminds me of Old Hollywood.

We went to a fancy dinner, and then to the dance, and then to the school-sponsored After Prom. A friend's parents were making breakfast for us post After Prom, and we went to their house in the wee hours. He and I sat on a couch, and I laid my head on his shoulder, and we both fell asleep until somebody woke us up when it was time to leave.  He drove me home, and as he was dropping me off, we had a moment -- but no kiss. I just remember me giving him a sly smile as I read the nervousness on his face. I floated into my house on a cloud at 8am. Boys had liked me before in school, but never the one that I was interested in. It always seemed impossible that the person interested in me and the person that I was interested would ever be one-in-the-same; I had just learned that it wasn't.

A few days later, he was waiting for me outside the public library that I worked at as I got off my shift. He asked me to go to dinner with him. When he was dropping me off afterwards, he said, "I was supposed to ask you something that night at Prom, but I chickened out. Will you be my girlfriend?" I said of course. A few days later, we had our first kiss.

He was my first boyfriend. He was the first boy to tell me I was beautiful. He was the first boy I kissed. I was head over heels. He was a complete gentleman. There was a lot of kissing while horizontal, but he never pressured me into anything more. My parents loved him; his parents loved me.

A few months into dating, DW and I were making some graduation party rounds when I was with panic washed over me. I steadied myself on a trampoline nearby and tried to regain my balance. This was the first time I had ever been overcome by disassociated, overwhelming feelings like that, and I didn't recognize what it meant. But it made enough of an impact on me to note that it was 2:33PM at the time.

I was sitting in the living room with DW and his parents when I got the call. I stood up and said that I had to go but couldn't say why. My dad had a heart attack, and because of his pride, they told me not to tell DW or his family what was going on. My little sister was at home alone and I needed to go be with her. My hands were so shakey that I dropped the keys to my car on the way out, and I had to ask them to turn on their light. When I did that, DW knew something was very wrong. He came out and hugged me and said he was coming with me. We got in the car, and I told him what was wrong. I remember him holding my right hand with both of his hands and talking to me in a soothing voice as we drove.

I asked my mom when they left for the hospital, and she said 2:30 that afternoon.

I remember more about that night than any other night with DW. DW made us dinner. The three of us turned on a movie and ate popcorn together. Once my sister fell asleep, DW smothered me in cuddles and kisses. I remember having very chapped lips the next day, and somehow that still makes me smile. DW stayed with me until 3AM, when his parents finally demanded to know what was happening. That night should've been one of the scariest in my life, and though I feel shame to say that it wasn't, I'm glad it was the way it was. I would've lost it if DW wasn't there to distract me.

Around month four, DW had college orientation. He was gone for the weekend. When he got back, he called me and said sweetly that he missed me a lot. I had never had somebody say something like that to me, so I responded: "yeah, right". I could tell he was confused and hurt, and he said, half-jokingly: "Well, see if I say something nice again." I remember that so perfectly, because that was the first time I knew there was a problem.

About 5 months after being together, he left for a college an hour away. My mother wouldn't let me visit him because she was afraid of me driving that far. Soon, I felt like I had fallen off his radar. After a couple weeks of not hearing from him, I found his dorm phone number online and called it. When he answered, I said that I was ending it. That I still wanted to be friends, but I didn't like the distance. He said okay. It broke my heart. I always thought of him as my first love, but looking back I don't think he was. He was a lot of firsts for me though -- first date, first kiss, first boyfriend, first heartbreak -- and I think all that adds up.

Soon after breaking up, I had a vision that DW's grandmother died. I watched the newspapers and found that she passed a few days a later. I made an apple pie and left it on DW's front porch during the funeral hours, when I knew they would be gone.

DW holds a special place in my heart. When I found out he was engaged four years ago, it broke my heart all over again, regardless of the fact that I had moved on to other guys by that point. I wrote a poem entitled "loves that were" about it, which you can read here. We don't keep in touch, and I'm not sure I want to. But I'll always look back on the memories fondly. I feel as if the purpose of my relationship with DW in the scheme of my life was to help me figure out who I am and come into my own. Now that I think about it, that's probably how he fits into a lot of peoples' lives, since he now is a Youth Pastor in a lower-income neighborhood.

One of the largest impacts of my relationship with DW was with my relationship with my best friend. I was always the girl in high school to refuse to change my life around for a boy and here I was, the first one out of my friends to have a real relationship. My best friend was the opposite: she was constantly pining over this boy or that boy, but didn't date until well into college. She was upset that I started listening to Linkin Park while dating Dan (she had recently been converted to listening to only Christian bands) and wasn't always available to hang out. She told me I had changed. And admittedly, I had, at least in the way I acted: I stopped being a follower. I stopped putting on a show. I became myself. DW helped me find my own way, regardless of my friends' paths. My relationship with that friend never really recovered, but that is a story for another day.

As far as the visions go, I have no idea why so many of them predicted things involving DW. They are fairly rare for me, let alone this vivid, and yet I had three in the span of 7 months involving one specific person. When I have visions about people, though, it makes me feel as if God is assuring me of my relationship with them. Hopefully that means that I have had a positive affect on DW's life, just as he has had on mine.

not so romantic

Once my friend AN and I found each other in high school, we quickly became close. She and I understood life in a different way than the rest of our friends. We didn't have idyllic childhoods, and so we had a more realistic outlook on life. Our friends wanted to stay in our hometown forever, but she and I couldn't wait to escape it. She was the only friend I could ever be truly honest with -- and I hers. We believed it was unrealistic to be abstinent until marriage, though we were in no hurry to have sex. We loved the same moody music sung by men with eyes we could drown in.

AN and I went to dinner and a concert last night together. My favorite thing about AN is that we have similar experiences when it comes to relationships. We have both made mistakes. We have both been heartbroken.

AN has recently ended a four year relationship. She had not heard anything -- not a text, not an email, not a phone call -- from her boyfriend at all since he moved to Pittsburgh for grad school. She had no choice but to email him that she was moving on, because she had no other way of communicating with him. The relationship was in such a state that she hasn't seen this man for a year, and she only broke up with him six months ago. She found out through a mutual friend a couple months ago that immediately after moving to Pittsburgh, her boyfriend started dating somebody else; instead of calling her to break up, he just never responded to any of her attempts to contact him.

She's devastated. She's humiliated. Four years wasted with this jerk! She hates that so much of her development into an adult involved him, and then he just left it without so much as a goodbye.

Because AN and I are kindred souls, speaking with her often stirs my own heart. Talking to her about this over dinner and trying to console her took me back to all my heartbreaks.

I have been thinking lately about the relationships with men that I have had throughout my life. I have scars left by men, and by my own behavior against the men I have loved. I have been thinking about this a lot lately as I am trying to work through the confusing events of my life, and trying to decide whether I should write about it here.

Reader, my hesitancy comes from fear of telling you these imperfections in my life and my own character. I keep thinking, "they won't like reading this," but that's unfair to both of us, isn't it? It assumes that you, Reader, are as judgmental of me as the person in my head (who happens to be my narcissistic mother). And it defeats the purpose of this space: trying to accept the events that make up my life thus far and finally process them. These are parts of me, and if I can't even bring myself to write about it, no way in hell will I ever be okay with it being a part of my history.

As I told AN last night, we can't always seperate the bad from the good. Sometimes, things are a mixed bag, plain and simple. The best we can do is learn from the bad, and revel in the good. That's what I plan on doing. I will be writing series of posts about the important romantic relationships in my life as a way to process what they were and what they did or didn't mean. I hope that in the process, I'll gain a deeper understanding of myself and continue on my Gauntlet of Healing.

silver lining

I am afraid of becoming my mother. Through all this work I have been doing, I am starting to realize that, ironically, fear fuels the parts of my personality that resemble my mother’s. I have been trying to think, “If somebody were in a similar situation as me, what would I tell them to do/say?” instead of “What can I do/say that will make nobody dislike me?”. I am intuitive when I am looking from the outside; but when I’m in a new or difficult situation, I go to angry putty or shut down.

My car is in the shop. Still. It has been there for a week now. When I first took it in, it was pretty clear it was a fuel-related problem -- probably the fuel pump -- from work my dad did on it. I told the shop everything we did and found out before they touched the car.

They checked the fuel pressure. When it looked fine, they dismissed that it was fuel-related.  They called me and told me that it was the timing chain and tensioner, and it was going to be $950. I got a phone call two days later, and they had gotten to the point where they could see the timing chain and tensioner….and they were both fine. And the car still wouldn’t run. So they had to put it back together and figure out what was wrong with it.

It is now a full week after dropping off the car, and they called me to tell me it was the fuel pump. They said they missed it before because it is keeping good pressure right until the second before the engine shuts off…which means the fuel pump dies intermittently and shuts the engine off. Then they said it would be $950 to fix it.

There were a few long seconds as I freaked out a little. My parents happened to have their car’s fuel pump fixed at the same shop several times before. Because of that and internet research, I knew this should be a $700 fix. I knew they were charging me for all this extra time to go down the wrong path before fully exploring the fuel system that I had told him was almost definitely the problem. I knew I was going to have to argue with this guy. Past Melissa would’ve gritted her teeth, said okay, called her husband, her husband would’ve said it was a ridiculous price and insisted Melissa talk the price down, then Melissa would’ve gotten mad at said husband for making her do something uncomfortable.  But Current Melissa is less scared of becoming her mother and being embarrassingly mean to store clerks. Current Melissa is realizing that just because there is a disagreement doesn’t mean that there should be yelling. Current Melissa knows that she can ask for something reasonable in a reasonable way and a reasonable store clerk would be happy to try to help.

So I took a breath, and said in my normal conversational voice (though there may have been some trembling at first): “Ummm…I’m a little bit confused. I must be paying for the extra work before you guys figured out if was the fuel pump, because changing a fuel pump should cost less than changing a timing chain in a Sunfire. When I brought it in, I called to tell the story of what happened, and told them that when we sprayed ether into the air intake it would run, but then would stop when you stopped spraying it in. So, if it had been fully verified that it wasn’t the fuel pump before digging into the timing chain, I would be paying considerably less, right? I'm sorry, I just want to make sure I’m getting a fair price.” The guy, who I have dealing with exclusively through this past week, said, “Let me just rerun some numbers here….” One minute later, the quote was a full $200 less. I was expecting to pay $700, so it is still a little bit higher than I would’ve liked, but they had put four new sparkplugs in it, as well and that’ll probably save future money, so I’ll let that slide…..(forgive me my rationalization!).

My point is, I’ve been learning the lesson that I am not my mother. More importantly, I can be a fully functioning adult without doing the things my mom did in public that horrified me. [There don't have to be crying store clerks or children left in my wake!]  Today I got to put it to practice, and I got $200 of positive reinforcement. I am very proud of myself for the progress I've made.

pandora's box

I have Hashimoto's Thyroiditis, which is an autoimmune disorder that causes me to have chronic and severe hypothyroidism. Right before Christmas, I was put on a much lower dose of my medicine than I have been on since I was first diagnosed. Because of this, I have been exhausted for the last three months. I have trouble thinking straight. I am forgetful to the point of sometimes feeling very simple. I am back up to the weight I was at immediately before finding out that I have a generally non-active thyroid (I had lost about 10% of my body weight when I was first put on medicine, which was a little more than a year ago). I have an appointment with my endocrinologist next week.

Last night, my husband seemed to want to say something, so I asked him what was going on. He said, "Well. I don't know. Nothing, really."  I pressed him, and he said, "It's....I don't know how to say it. It's just that.....I'm worried about your health." I knew exactly what he was talking about. He was talking about the fact that I had gained weight -- almost back to the weight I was when I was first diagnosed.

My husband grew up in a household of three sisters, his mom, and an absent father. I assume this is why his personality is an amazing balance between sensitive brother and man-of-the-house. He can take charge when he needs to, but he is extremely in touch with his feelings. He also is very sensitive to people's emotional bruises -- which is great, because I certainly have a lot of them. My point is: he has never made any negative comment about the way I look, especially my weight.

So, last night was a stab in the heart that felt completely out of nowhere. I said, "You know, I've been weighing myself every day because I know my thyroid is off. It's less than it was when I first was diagnosed, but yes, I weigh more than our wedding day. I assume that's what you're talking about: my weight". He didn't answer, until I prodded again.

The floodgates opened. I sobbed in the way that makes you wonder if a person could literally drown in their own tears. I sobbed like a little girl who just lost her mother. I couldn't catch my breath. I cried for hours. Of course this was much more than my husband's comments warranted or deserved, but he held me tight to his chest through it all. I tried my best to explain what was happening: every negative memory of my mother telling me what she thought of how I looked overtook me.

When the Senior that I had a huge crush on asked me to the prom (and I was only a Junior!), my mom's response to the news was: "He must like big girls." Every shopping trip with her from the time I was in 8th grade was my mother telling me that I had "a woman's body", and therefore wouldn't take me to shop at the places my friends shopped, but only the places SHE shopped: JC Penney's and Sears.  When I was a in high school, I went with a friend shopping at American Eagle, and came back with a shirt and jeans.  When my mom saw the bag, she immediately made me try on the clothes because she didn't believe that they could possibly have clothes that fit me. When she saw them on me, she said in front of my friend that my clothes were so tight she could see my "gut". She made my friend and I get into the car as she drove us back to the mall, because she didn't trust that I would actually take them back. My friend and I cried the entire ride back to the mall, and then my mother marched me in to make me return the clothes.

There are so, so many more stories. These are the ones that just got to my fingers first. The worst part about all this is that I was watching videos of me when I was in high school and middle school just a few weeks ago. I realized for the first time that I was an absolute string bean then, and never once have I thought of myself as thin. My mother made sure of it.

I told my husband some of the stories as they boiled up. He was apologizing profusely, telling me how beautiful he thinks I am, and that he didn't mean to imply that he thought I was anything less than perfect, but that he was just worried for me. He held me so tight, crying with me until I finally fell asleep.

Yes, what he said would've stung no matter what. I know that. But that reaction was not a normal one. Not anywhere close. I woke up this morning feeling an almost physical pain from the memories. My husband woke up before I left for work, and through tears, he kept saying how sorry he was that he ever made me feel that much pain. I have been trying to soothe him since last night, trying to let him know that this isn't pain from him, but pain that's been locked in me for a very long time. 

I worked a short day, and came home and cried some more.  As I'm writing this, I can't stop the tears.

This is what I was afraid of while pushing all the negative thoughts down my entire life, whether it be with keeping insanely busy or with alcohol. I've been avoiding this pain. And now that I'm starting to let myself feel it, I get these overwhelming waves of emotion that completely blindside me. I have to say, I am not a fan of this process. I know it's the right path, I know it. But it hurts. And it makes me incredibly pissed off at my mother. What kind of person says those things to their 14 year old daughter?  My husband said it best: "These stories don't even sound like something that really happen in real life; they sound like the things that people say to your in nightmares. Your real-life mother is like other people's nightmare."

I embarrassed of my reaction to my husband's comments, because I really, really do not want him to feel responsible for my pain. He isn't at all. He's yet another innocent casualty to my mother's cruelty.

There is a silver lining to this dark cloud. Although I did make a small pit stop at Angry at Husband on the way to Sad, I got to Sad in record time. That's great, because my normal MO would've been to just get pissed off at my husband for his perceived insensitivity, rather than dealing what is actually going on. That is showing immense progress. Healing hurts like hell.

honor thy mother

I've written a lot about my mother, and how terribly she treats me. Every time I hit Publish, I feel a twinge of guilt. She gave birth to me, she raised me, she invested a lot of money in me: does that deserve something back from me?

I've never been one to give respect because somebody feels they deserve it. Age is not a reason for respect. Following nature and getting pregnant does not deserve respect. My mother raised me, but she didn't love me unconditionally. She was only supportive when I did things she could brag about. I know there is a difference between a mother and being Motherly, and while mine was the former, she certainly wasn't the latter. It is so against her personality, that I can't say what she could've changed to be a good mother.

I guess the truth is, I don't know what makes a Mother. I especially don't know what makes a good one.

I was unspeakably relieved when I found out in college that it is unlikely that I will bear children.  I learned that my husband also has a disorder that make it unlikely for him to have children when we were just dating, and I was even more relieved. This is embarrassing for me to say, because my husband would be the best father I have ever known, and he can't wait to be. While I love babies and children, being a mother is never something I looked forward to.

When I sent the email to my close friends and family confessing my problem with alcohol (you can read the email here), my mother-in-law called me immediately. Through tears, she said: "You have no idea how wonderful of a thing you are doing for your future children." She grew up with alcoholic parents, and so I thought: that's right. I won't be an alcoholic parent. Yay for me.

Finally, all these months later, I realized what she meant.  If I hadn't had this problem with alcohol, I wouldn't be healing from terrible parts of my childhood now, because nothing short of an addiction problem would've gotten me into therapy. I would be as stuck as always: hating my mother, mad at everything, stressed to the max. And, as I'm healing, the urge to become a mother is coming on strong. I find myself crying about not being able to have kids with this wonderful man who married me, instead of reveling in it as I used to.

My mother-in-law was so right. This is an amazing thing for my future children.  I sure as hell will not be the terrible mother that I had. I am making sure of it. My daughter will respect me not because I demand it, but because I love her for all that she is and all that she isn't.

Not to mention, it's an amazing thing for my husband. And for me.

And when I think about that, I stop having these existential thoughts about if a terrible mother deserves to be respected. What matters is that I love and respect myself, the people who love me, and the children that will depend on me. The rest is just noise.