What About Her?

I was living my fairy tale life. I was living happily ever after. I was a Princess with the best Prince Charming a Princess could ever ask for. I should be happy. I should be on cloud nine. So then, why was I so miserable??

 I spent most of my life always on the verge of tears. Sadly that did not change when I got to California. My heart was still shattered. I still had so much pain inside that I couldn’t seem to get beyond it, and feel good or happy.

      During the years from 2002 when I got to California up to January 2006, life was wonderful. We continued to follow each other around, madly and passionately in love with each other. “Puppy” was so kind to me. All through the years, he spent so much time, being so gentle and loving to me, telling me how much he loved me and replacing old cruel names with loving kind names. He helped me with low self esteem. He helped me with anger issues. He helped me as I battled and struggled to get over the shame that was so ingrained in my heart for so long. The shame. I had so much shame. He was helping me heal, from such a long lifetime of abuse. We spent these three years just living life. Worshiping, singing and making CD’s, and loving each other.

But at the same time, there was a different side to me. I was with my Prince Charming and he was helping me through so much. Yet, I still had so many fears and hurts and pain inside me. My heart was still in pieces. I had a fountain of pain. Stab wounds in my heart that wouldn’t heal. Always on the verge of tears, never seeming to end. I had such a hard time believing and accepting when “Puppy” told me he loved me. His actions did speak louder than his words though, and that made it easier for me. He was always the sweetest man in the world.

I had a fear of people. I couldn’t seem to get myself to go out much, unless I really had to; or unless I was with “Puppy” holding his hand and not leaving his side. I couldn’t meet new people without being terribly afraid. And I couldn’t stand up and talk to people I didn’t know without feeling like they were all thinking bad things about me and judging me. I felt like everyone was staring at me, thinking horrible things about me and judging me. I had this thing that happened to me when I was nervous, hot, or hungry. I get red; I get flushed, spotted, from my chest up my neck up my face. When I had to meet someone, or stand up in front of someone to say something, the redness happened. I had fears that would come and go suddenly. I felt so unsafe all the time. I felt like if I didn’t know what was going on around me at all times, and if I don’t' have control of my surroundings, and the people around me, that I would feel unsafe. I would have this really sudden surge of fear if there was something going on that I didn’t know all the details about. I would constantly have fears and memories of the past, something always seemed to remind me or would bring up feelings, fears and memories of times when “serpent” or “the dad from across the street” or mom would do something to me. I would sit on the couch to crochet, and my mind would run away with thoughts that I could not stop. I would carry on actual arguments with “serpent” or “the dad from across the street” or mom or with someone else, and all the sudden I would get so angry, my heart would be racing, and “Puppy” would speak to me and I would jump on him and argue with him about something. It was so horrible. I would sit there thinking thoughts and having flashbacks that horrified me, or enrage me, and I couldn’t even stop them. Until I would get up and walk around and shake myself out of it. And, I also had a terrible anger problem. I am not a violent angry person. It was just a quiet anger that erupted only with my “Puppy” when we are alone. I was irritable, cranky, and all around generally depressed and unhappy. I went back and forth between these times and the good times, when I was on top of the world, happy as ever, living out my fairy tale life with my Prince Charming.

In 2005 we noticed that I was having trouble sleeping and that I was snoring horribly. I was always tired all the time too. So we scheduled a test for me at the sleep apnea place. I went and had the test and the next morning when he read the results to me, it was as if the sky had fallen in. He told us that I had suffered over 100 episodes an hour of my breath stopping. He explained to me that it was as if every night my body was drowning, and I was fighting for air, all night long. So they set me up with a CPAP machine and a mask. Well I tried it, for six months, faithfully. I couldn’t do it any more than that. They started me at the number 12 and that’s an extremely high force of air blowing around in your head. I would open my mouth and air would come blasting out. So six months of that and we got a recliner for me to sleep in sitting up. That began to help a lot.

And then came 2006. I started seeing some other health problems. I always had a weight problem, all through my life. I ate food for comfort. It was my only friend. Breads, pastas, candy, sugary sweets. They comforted me. Now I was having issues with a severely heavy menstrual cycle. I bled enough for 3 women. I would go through two Kotex each time, every half hour for the first two days of it. And my mood swings were horrid. I cried and yelled and I’d yell at “Puppy”. But he never got angry with me. He had and still does, an unconditional love for me that I believe will never end. The problems with this cycle got so bad though, and I ended up having a hysterectomy in November 2006. It seemed as if that had helped, but then something else would happen that would change a lot of things for us.