6/22/09

Hope seems to be the theme for this week! To top everything that has gone on in my life, divorce, death of my mom, and abuse of every kind, the icing on the cake has been infertility! Now, I'm not complaining. I've always seemed to have hope in all these trials. Lately the thought of ever being pregnant and having a child of my own has seemed hopeless! I've been to 4 doctors, none could figure out what was wrong. I've tried all sorts of medications, nothing has worked. This past week I started seeing Dr. #5 out of a desperate need for a second opinion. With in minutes of meeting him he discovered WHY I can't get pregnant and told me that were was still HOPE that it might just happen!

Today (Sunday) as Brad and I walked into Sacrament meeting we were greeted from our bishopric and our former bishop from another ward. Bishop R just happened to be the stake high councilman speaker. Bishop R was our bishop over 3 years ago. He was the first one, besides Brad, that I told what Jack had done. He got me going to counseling, when I was seeing Aaron. I remember one week after a rough visit with Aaron, talking to Bishop R and thinking that it was so much better talking to him then Aaron. He actually seemed to care and pay attention to what I was saying. He gave me advise and gave me numerous church articles to read about abuse. I stopped seeing Aaron because he wasn't helping me in any way. Bishop R asked if I wanted to try someone else, no. I had given up on LDSFS and thought for sure that they were all dumb, male counselors who couldn't possibly understand me. (James proved me wrong a few years later!)

Of course today's topic in Sacraments meeting was... hope! The first two speakers talked about always having hope. On Brad and I's drive home tonight from dinner at my aunt and uncles we talked about hope. It was the one thing that kept me going all those years. I had to have hope that someday things would get better. If I didn't have hope, I had nothing to live for! Hope pulled me though for many years. Then Bishop R talked, again about hope. He talked about his own struggle with depression, which I remember talking about with him years ago. Unfortunately, I have a big family history with depression and of course I too suffer from it. We have discovered recently that Prozac is my new best friend! It is crazy the world of difference in me when I'm on this little, dumb pill! It has made both Brad and I's lives a millions times better! Back, to what Bishop R was talking about... At one point he talked about when he was bishop and he would sit across his desk from people and counsel with them. He said that there were a lot of times that as he talk to those that were struggling he could feel the Savior's love for them. I don't know why, but it really touched me knowing that I could have been one of them.

6/7/09

I've been looking forward to this Sunday for awhile now. I teach Primary and although I love my class I've been looking forward to a week when none of the kids came and I got to go to Relief Society. Today was that day. I was thrilled as I went in. As the lesson wore on, my joy for being there turned to sorrow. I can't explain why. The lesson was on staying out of debt and staying away from pornography. The subject went way off course and made me uncomfortable. I prefer to focus on the positive things in my life. I like to talk about repentance and forgiveness not focus on the mistakes I've made. I felt like I had a huge sign over my head saying I was imperfect. I wished I could just disappear. Would it be too obvious if I just got up and left? The fact that I live in Utah where everything really does have to be perfect made it worst. There's a sweet old lady in my ward, she means well, but always seems to say something that bugs me. She said that people are too into trying to build up self esteem and it's something you are born with and Heavenly Father just gives you and you don't need to build it up! Sorry, but people have torn down my self esteem and I did have to build it up again and I'm proud of the fact that I did. The discussion went on about how horrible things in the world are and how horrible people are for doing things, for having self destructive thoughts and such. Maybe it's the fact that I've forgot to take my anti-depressed for a few days. Maybe it was the fact that the topics were making me feel guilty for taking them. I've heard that the gospel is the best anti-depressant, I've tried that. I can read scriptures, pray, sing hymns and such all day long, but it won't cure my chemical imbalance! Another sweet lady said that if you dream about something, set your mind to it and work at it, it will inevitably happen. So why am I not pregnant? At the end of class the RS President started talking about how diverse our ward is, in age, height, hair color, and that some were pregnant and how WONDERFUL it is. I hoped she would say something about those who hurt, those who struggle, nope. I looked at the other infertile sister in my ward and held back my tears. I have made mistakes, other have had made mistakes that have been forced upon me, I have forgiven and repented and moved on with my life. I felt like if I dared speak up and say that I used to cut that I would have been thrown out of the room. I'm not perfect, I do my best and try to see the best in others.

6/3/09

I actually need to get up early tomorrow, for once and of course I'm up late and can't sleep. A few weeks ago one of my sister-in-laws commented on how I treated our foster son, Joey. Well, long story short I decided to tell her about what was going on and here is what I e-mailed her- "I have been thinking about when we were talking about (husband) and I doing foster care and the way I treated Joey. I'm not trying to excuse the way I treated him, but I wanted to explain. I know I wasn't a perfect mom to him, but I was doing the best I could at the time. It all started long before my husband and I ever met. I don't know what you do or don't know about my past. In the past few years I've become open and comfortable talking about it all. When I was growing up my dad was verbally abusive. I had a hard time with it and didn't know how to deal with it all. Right after I graduated from high school I started in counseling for the first time. I met my husband the day after I finally moved out of my parents house. While my husband and I were engaged I was in a counseling group called SOLE for all woman who had been abused. It really did change my life, I learned how to forgive and move on with my life. (Sorry if you already knew all of that) Right after my husband and I got married I all of a sudden started to remember some other abuse that had taken place. When I was 12 I started baby-sitting one of my school teachers son, who at the time was 7. I baby-sat "Jack" for probably 3 years. During that time he sexually abused me. I didn't remember a single detail about the abuse until after we got married. After we moved to (here) I tried counseling again. It was a horrible experience and probably did more harm then help. I tried to move on with my life and I thought I was doing okay with it all. That is until we got Joey. He was almost 6, just a year younger then J was when I started watching him. Every time he touched me, wanted to sit on my lap, wanted some affect from his "mom" it triggered what Jack had done. It was extremely hard for me to be dealing with Joey when every time he touched me it reminded me of what Jack had done. Yes, I feel bad for the way I treated Joey. I wish I had been a better mother to him, one that he deserved. While we had Joey I started in counseling for a 3rd time. It was a great experience. I was able to work though all my issues with Jack.I went in another counseling group over a year ago and finished up seeing my counselor last year. I've been working on forgiving him and I'm finally starting to feel some closure about it all." She never responded to the e-mail and I wanted to just make sure she got it. I asked her on Facebook and she said she didn't know how to respond so she didn't. Tonight I've been preparing songs on my phone for a rode trip my friend and I are gonna have tomorrow. I'm so excited about it and didn't realized it was gonna be a rough night. I have also been struggling to get pregnant for 5 years and I was listening to a song about infertility that I've never heard before. That, plus writing sister-in-law back saying it's okay she didn't respond, equaled tears. To be honest, I'm not even 100% sure why. Is it just me or do you sometime just need to cry?