I'm not crazy after all?

It was hard to get up this morning. The Man and I were up late talking. Want to know what happens after married people have kids and have no time for each other or sex? Why, they start dating again. Each other, of course. We went out for our date night on Friday.

Olive Garden had like an hour wait so we went back to the house. He took off his contacts which were giving him a headache. The doctors gave him the wrong perscription. That's about how it goes when you spend weeks waiting for your eye appointment, rush home after work to plop $100 down on tiny little pieces of plastic. We grabbed his glasses and headed out to Applebees. The same old, same old. There's like nothing good around here. After dinner we sat by our waterfall while he smoked the cigar I bought him.

I'd be lieing if I said all is OK with me. My PTSD is in total flare up mode and as much as I try to keep it in, I have to talk it out. Yet, I don't want to. What do you do with heavy painful stuff when your husband is mostly to blame for the PTSD you developed 11 years ago? Talk about complicated and touchy.

Then we were off to see the Captain Sky movie. It was definitely different. It was a great movie and a welcomed distraction. We got home around midnight. I have an appointment today with the therapist for PTSD. I'm really NOT in the mood to talk today. I want to just hide. It's only our second meeting so I have to go but I think I'll just ask her to give me suggestions on how to cope with the symptoms.

Unwanted thoughts, memories, dreams.

All relating to the traumas starting in October of 1992. Am I suppose to let myself remember them, process through them, or if I can try to block them out, which has never worked anyways. Why is this even happening now?

Each time I seem to go through these cycles I remember more stuff and I can see why my mind must have forgotten. He can't offer much solace as he wasn't himself during those times. That was a black year for us and it was before he gave his life to Christ. It doesn't change the damage that I apparently have carried around all these years. Those were seven months of hell when he was out of his mind on substances nobody should be on.

I on the other hand was a trauma victim, repeatedly allowing myself to be used and abused. Frozen. Unable to be the strong person I am. I sat helpless while I lost everything, including nearly losing my children. I've forgiven myself and cut myself some slack. I was young and completely blindsided, I lacked the tools I needed, and I had no idea just what I was up against.

I am learning those memories are stored differently then regular ones. Which explains why when I'm having flashbacks they seem so real and urgent. Like whatever it is that is rolling through my mind has just happening recently. There's a sense of urgency and pain mixed with anger and fear.

Llike they are present, happening in the here and now. I can really have a hard time coping with the overwelming feelings of pain, betrayal, confusion and anger. If Mondays weren't already a drag now I have to look foward to these "sessions" since she's only there on Mondays. In the long run this is what I need I guess. I now know I'm not totally crazy or just unable to let the past be the past.

It has been like twelce years since those dark months.

September is stormy for me. I now know people we thought were friends had begun offering him that crap around this time. I know that his mind was getting twisted in September of 1992 and by the first week of Oct 1992 he was gone. I felt like how we had was defiled. I was abandoned. My heart was broken. My son was confused. Our daughter was born, without him there. I never saw it coming. The therapist is right when she says she can see why this month and the month of October can be hard for me.

They are triggers.

Our original wedding date was set on Sweetest Day of 1992. We were to be married before Snoo was born. R had always wanted to get married long before, but being a young, worrying girl I made excuses to delay what my heart wanted all along.

I put it off, due to mistrust and uncertainty. Rightly so as it would later seem. However, it's not fair to judge it that way. Good and decent people make mistakes. Even worse so when they are not themselves. Sweetest Day is always extremely hard on me. Each year R tries to distract me, provide me with new memories. He is so wonderful that it has been more of a joy to celebrate.

For most people it's just a corny holiday that hallmark capitalizes on, but for me, it's a bittersweet memory of what once was and never will be again.

It's a reminder of innocence lost.

Broken dreams.

It was a "what would have been" sort of day.

I'm learning how to reclaim that day. I've already gotten R's gift this year.

It's so absolutely PERFECT that it's going to be so hard to not give it to him.