So I haven't had time to do any food blogging in forever. I barely have time to cook which makes me sad because it's my therapy in a way. I found out a little over a year ago after I started going to therapy because I had become a broken person, a person I no longer recognized or wanted to be all in an effort to be the wife my now ex husband wanted me to be, that my now ex husband had developed feelings for another woman and was plotting with her to get me to kick him out so he could move in with her all under the guise of 'he needed a roommate and so did she so they moved in together'. My family was torn apart and my life was turned upside down. He showed no remorse or willingness to try to fix anything. He left and never looked back. I gave up everything, including my career and my college dreams, to push him through school and later be a stay at home mom for our kids. I'm not saying I was perfect. I know I wasn't and I'm still not. But the journey I started several years ago to make myself a better person, when I went back to college full time and later when I went to therapy because I believed I was broken almost beyond compare, continues.
This semester, after I graduated from TCC with honors last May, I started at OSU in Stillwater. I drive 2.5 hours a day 5 days a week. Most days I get up at 6 to do a little homework before my kids gets up. They get up around 6:45 or 7. From then on its rush rush rush to get everyone ready and out the door. I leave around 8:30 on good days, some days 8:45 but I get to Stillwater around 10ish. My first class is at 10:30 5 days a week. Then I'm in class until 2 or 2:30 depending on the day. I'm back home around 4 with just enough time to poop in peace before my kids get home. Then it's kids kids kids until 930 most days. Supposedly after that I'm doing homework until midnight. What usually happens is I pass out my bed and wake up with my papers glued to my face with drool and my pencil is almost always lost.
I am a control freak. I don't like asking for help or relying on other people. The few times I have, I've been called selfish and weak or they let me down when I was counting on them in a big way. It's always just been easier to do it all on my own. It's gotten to the point that I don't know how to accept help. I don't know how to ask for help. It feels like I'm admitting failure. My mother has helped me a few times but it feels like it always comes with a price. She always tells me how she had it worse because had 3 kids. Or her mother made her feel guilty or like a horrible person because she couldn't do it on her own. Instead of making me feel better, it makes me feel worse because I am in a better situation and I'm still drowning.
I don't know when exactly I became this person that I am today. I used to be strong and in control. Over the years I hid that from myself because I was made to feel bad about it. I lost that person and tried to become this fake version of me that I didn't like. I know that the physical ass-beating crazy psycho attack I suffered at Walmart two years ago didn't help. I don't have physical scars from that but I do have mental wounds that are slow healing. 6 or 7 years of being made to feel like my emotions didn't matter and not talking about problems so I bottled them up inside didn't help. And being in an emotionally abusive relationship with a man that told me all of his jealousy issues and gambling problems were my fault because I didn't love him the right way or talk to him the right way or respect him the right way certainly didn't help. I tell myself I'm stronger than all of those problems. I can overcome it. I can do it. Look at everything I've accomplished so far. Then the panic sets in.
It pops up out of no where. I try to break my assignments up into pieces so they aren't overly time consuming or overwhelming. One little piece falls out of place like one of my kids gets sick, I get sick, my cat has diarrhea all over the floor, or my ex husband tells me he's marrying the girl he left his family for and my daughter admits that she feels like she doesn't belong anymore in her father's life then one by one my carefully constructed balancing act of time management falls apart. I ignored it at first while I tried to play catch up but it didn't work. I got further and further behind. Before I knew it I was in German class surrounded my EMTs because I couldn't breathe and I felt like I was being stabbed in the chest.
I wound up in the hospital where they did every test known to man to test my heart and lung function before they told me what I already knew: I was having a panic attack. I left with a script for xanax that put me into a coma for several days and even further behind in school work. I'm trying to be calm and cool and Zen about everything but the truth is... I'm so far behind I don't know which end is up. If I fail this semester then I fail my kids and I lose my scholarships. Those are the only reasons I can afford to go. I cannot fail. My kids are counting on me. I cannot fail my kids! I have not told Jason about any of this really because I don't want him to use this as an excuse to take my kids away from my. They are my life. I fought so hard to carry my babies after several miscarriages and infertility treatments. I can't lose them.
I asked him today for help. I sucked it up and admitted defeat. I can't do it alone. I need help. I feel like a failure asking for it but I need to let go of my tightly controlled grip on my life and let people help me when they offer. I need to learn how to ask for help when I need it. I need to stop thinking asking for help is weak and realize asking for help is a sign of strength. I need to remember the strong, confident, funny, loyal, creative, and genuine person I used to be and find her again. Until then everyone is stuck with this version of me. A quiet, slow, tired, contemplative, and slightly tear stained less than perfect Me that needs lots and lots of hugs.
And a laundry fairy. I need a laundry fairy desperately. And hopefully she, or he because I don't discriminate, dusts too. That would be lovely.
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