Saturday Calm

The google ad things on my site make me giggle: anger management, depression, divorce counseling, etc. etc. etc. It really makes me sound like I am an absolute nutcase. Which apparently is what I have turned into.

I have been in a haze the past couple of days since my freakout. In many respects the aftermath is calming because nothing seems to affect me. You don't feel. You just mechanically go through your day, but you are disconnected and calm. There, but not. And for once I don't seem to mind that I haven't heard from Mr.3 in a couple of days.

I suspect this is what Mr.3 feels like. And partly...it is wonderful....this calmness, the not having to feel anything, being so disconnected from your mind and your worries. The other part of me hates every moment of it. I stumble around, I can't connect to those around me...I can't be myself, speak or act or even think like I normally do. My memory is shot. I can't keep my thoughts together even in conversation...and if we pause in conversation for more than a few seconds I can't remember what we were talking about anyway.

Last night I just gave into this calmness....I stopped trying to keep myself focused. I think it resulted in alot of me staring at the TV but not really paying attention. I found myself staring at the tapestry on my wall today. The fan was making it move slightly and if you unfocused your eyes you could pretend that the birds on it were really moving. The calmness does give you a heightened sense of attention on the oddest things....inanimate objects mostly. I continued giving in today. I have been playing mindless computer games this morning and afternoon. I started to listen to my ipod and was getting really wrapped up in the music.

And then the music made me feel.

A song would remind me of being in Turkey and feeling beautiful and carefree and the future wide open in front of me. And then another song would come on, and I would remember Mr.3 and I would be overcome with love and sadness. I have been sitting here crying silently as I come out of this fog.

Feeling again is difficult...and at the moment I really think that I would like to be numb again. Then I wouldn't feel ugly and fat and utterly abandoned.

I keep telling myself that I should just sit down and write...write it all out and hopefully it will make me feel better. I can't bring myself to do it. I just sit and stare at the screen, thinking of all the things that I could say but categorically unwilling to move my fingers across the keyboard.

What do I do if he never comes back home?

Emotionally Numb?

Today is a strangely peaceful day. I have no deadlines. Nothing must be done today. I can just work...and work on anything that I choose.

Why can't everyday feel like this? So easy and carefree?

For All of Those Who Thought I Was Strong---I'm Not

I have found my breaking point....and if you were one the few people who actually saw me breakdown I am sure that you will be haunted by it for quite some time.

I heard back from my teacher on my course design grade. Basically---there is no way that she will even entertain the thought of me doing extra work to raise my grade. She also doesn't even think that I am capable of doing the work. And she accused me of "winging it" through my entire project.

Naturally, most people in my position would lobby the teacher to reconsider....but my breakdown yesterday proved that I was not emotionally or physically able to complete the work even if my teacher had approved it. I was so beaten down that I was...and in many ways...am still useless.

So I am giving up. Much to the shock of those around me (Mr. 3 was perhaps the most alarmed). Giving up is not in my nature....but it is the only thing that I can manage at the moment. So I am going to petition to late withdrawal from my thesis hours and the course design project. I can prove that that I was not able to withdrawal by the deadline and that I have extenuating circumstances that might affect my performance. I am also going to ask for a leave of absence from my program for next Fall, and take my comps and retake my last class in the Spring. I am not even going to try for the thesis. The faculty in the department didn't want to deal with it before I have having issues...there is no way now that they will deal with this. If I go onto the PhD route I will deal with that issue when I get to it. I need to just get myself back together and get back to school later.

I can also say that I have officially had my first real bout of secondary PTSD symptoms. I completely freaked out yesterday, and I can't remember things....and while I am better today, I am still not at a hundred percent and I probably won't be for a few more days.

I also discovered that while I have so many things going on...so many personal and family issues going on, that I resent when others try to "take credit" for this current situation. Both Mr.3 and my mom had made overtures that it was their fault that this happened. And for once, this isn't about them...this is about me and only me.

Oddly enough, something must have resonated with Mr.3 because he called me at his lunchtime today for 10 minutes. I was so stunned that he called that I didn't talk very much...well I talked and cried at the same time. This would have been so much easier to deal with if he was here with me, if only just to hold me. Of course that short phonecall was the first in a week and a half. I hear less and less from him. I am afraid that one day he will forget to call me or type with me all together. He said that he had a call scheduled for 6pm tonight...and of course he didn't call. He never does call when he says that he will.

Yesterday really concerned me...I was very low...and in a place that I don't want to be in. I feel broken. Broken in that kind of way where you know something is broke but you aren't sure if it even can be fixed...or if it is even worth it to try.

Happiness is.....

that even on the absolute worst of days, all can be made temporarily well when you find that last bit of chocolate you thought was gone at your desk.

Tuesday Musings

This will all be incredibly random.

Driving to work today I saw a little old nun walking towards the Cathedral. I wonder where she lives and if there are more. I didn't think that there was a nunnery in Utah...but maybe there is.

My grade in course design is not what I wanted it to be....and I am desperately trying to get ahold of my professor to see what can be done to salvage it. And it is causing me to have a horrible day...and all I want is for my husband to hold me. It just tears my heart out that he isn't here.

Jimmy has begun to start spending the graduation money that he has been getting in the mail. He bought girl pants yesterday...and a couple of shirts that are pretty cool....but WAY, well...gay. Who knew?

And of course I am trying to think of something else to write about. The grade thing has been pretty hard to handle.. I feel like a complete and total failure. Apparently my professor is online on WebCT, and I keep checking back every few seconds to see if she has responded to my email. Is it paranoid of me to think that my professors really don't want me to write a thesis? Because whenever I try to talk to my professor or advisor about it they make lots of excuses about how I am not approved (although I was told that I was) and that it wasn't going to work.... I think that they are so used to people wanting to do the terminal masters that they are reluctant to do the extra work of a thesis.

I just checked again to see if she had sent me a message back...nothing. And she is offline now according to WebCT. Is she ignoring me? While I would really like it if she had just made a mistake on the grading...nothing would work out that nicely for me. So I foresee some major groveling in my near future. I think that I am just in shock over the grade.... I put so much work into the project. I was really careful with it. I probably put more work, time, and thought into that project than anything else that I have done in my college career. And with the final grade that I got she must have given me a C on the project...which I just can't see how that happened. I can't.

New Things That I Have Learned Today

First of all, and I am sure that this probably doesn't need to be stated, but if you comment on my blog....if you enter into my cyber-realm (I so need a crown!)....anything you say is free game for me to comment on.

Second of all....it amazes me that based on one paragraph of writing that I did in 2004, that today, someone can completely make up their mind about who I am. So on this ill-fated blog-post of 2004, I wrote about someone I knew from High School....someone who was a complete jerk to me after high school (and to several other people as well)...and also someone who, back in 2004, I heard something funny about and posted it. The information I posted was based on my assumptions at the time and second-hand information that I had heard about him.

Well...today, he commented on the blog post just to correct by facts. In normal circumstances, I would have been pleased and surprised to hear from him...especially since I had seen him (and his haircut which was silly-I won't deny that) a couple weeks ago at the mall. I had seen him and at the time purposely avoided saying hello to him, because I didn't want a repeat treatment of how he had treated me before. (Not that he noticed me anyway...but he felt secure enough to call me a "stalker"-wait...I am getting ahead of the story...) In normal circumstances I would have been pleased to hear from him, and might have sent him an email telling him that it was nice to hear from him and that I did in fact have my facts wrong, and the evidentable "so I saw you at the Mall, your children are adorable, and how are things?" yada yada yada and so on. But these aren't normal circumstances, because after he "corrected" me he said: "It's funny how your point of view is effected by your emotions. Bitter party of one."

And it begins. You can read the comments (note the plural here because he commented twice at the time of this posting), but I would like to decontruct his last sentence.

First, "It's funny how your point of view is effected by your emotions." Well, it isn't funny but quite normal actually...everyone's point of view is "affected". Following on the play of words here, "affect" being emotionally driven and "effect" causing something. So then are emotions caused by the point of view or does your point of view influence your emotions? Regardless of this philosophical and linguistic puzzle...let's just say that he is not saying anything new or profound.

The second sentence really is what got me. "Party of one" is wrong, because I am not a party of one and haven't been for quite some time....in fact, in the aforementioned blog post...I was not a party of one then, and I even mentioned Mr.3. "Bitter" is what really gets me. And I wouldn't have been that concerned over his comments, if he hadn't called me bitter. Even through all of the hell that I have been through lately...I wouldn't call myself bitter. Bitter people aren't as optimistic as I am.....and bitter people aren't as nice as I am to people....in fact, if I was bitter...I would have killed someone by now. I will admit that if you call me "bitter", yes I will react back. But I would react back if anyone called me any sort of a name. That and there is a connotation that is allied with a "bitter woman" that of someone who is so consumed by their bitterness that they are unable to move on from that bitterness. But I HAVE moved on. And I am only commenting on it today...because I found it so damn funny.

The hilarity continues as he commented back on my jibe that he has learned to google his name to tell me that he (and it is such a stereotypical remark) that he "doesn't care" what I think. But he must....if he didn't care, why correct me in the first place...and why feel the need to correct me AND call me bitter if he didn't care? Furthermore....he also "cared" enough to CHECK BACK TO THE POST and comment again...to tell me that "he didn't care."

He has accused me of making assumptions about him. I admit, I did. I have been corrected in my information. However, the manner of his correction did nothing to sway the opinion that I have of him. Yes, I don't know him anymore....I can only base my opinion of him being a jerk on his actions towards me when I last met and spoke to him. He also doesn't know ME anymore...but he felt no issues in labeling me as bitter based solely on a blog post that I wrote in December of 2004. I am not saying that I am the better person here (keep in mind that I can say that though, especially since this is my blog), but we need to remember that he is not the better person either.

PTSD links and more...

So I am finally going to crack down and begin to link some of the PTSD sites that I read almost on a daily basis.

For today though, there is a good post from Patience Mason writing about writing therapy. If anything I hope that Mr.3 gets to read it, it might be something to consider for later.

An Addition....

I had just hit the publish button on the last post when Mr.3 called me. I was so in shock that it was him calling that I about choked on my string cheese.

So for about 3 minutes we had one of those conversations where nothing was said and everything was said.

I told him that there was another email/blog post for him. He asked what it was about and I told him that it was about battlespaces. I also told him that I have proven myself enough to him and that we could go no further unless he let me in. He agreed.

He said that he was allowed a quick call to me "because he was flaking out" to let me know that he has a half hour phone call scheduled for 6pm this evening.

He was also out of breath. I asked him if he was ok, he said that he was upset and that we would talk about it later. I could hear it in his voice....his anxiety was up, which means that his adrenaline is up. I can't remember if I have posted about this....but increased adrenaline in the brain shuts off the access in the brain between the short term and long term memory. And adrenaline will stay in your system for days at a time....this is why someone just doesn't return to normal when they have a flashback.

This tells me several things: one, that I got through to him....and two, the news created a situation in which I cannot be sure that he will even remember me talking to him.

Let's reason this out shall we? Let's say that me being upset really did bother him. That would account for his strange attitude when we talked on Thursday. His short term memory wasn't allowing him to retain the knowledge about it and talk about it. He commented that he had been allowed to call because he had been "flaking out" on contacting me...so it is clear that something is interfering with his memory. His doctor has given him a notebook in which he is supposed to write everything down in....to help him remember. Because he can remember all the information that he wrote down in a paper from two years ago...but it is up in the air if he remembers what he had for breakfast. Posting everything on this blog and in email to him, while frustrating, is helpful because at least there is a record that both he and I can refer back too.

So I got through to him, but at what cost? He needs to learn that there are going to be things in life that upset him, and he needs to learn how to work through all of that. One of the things that will be the biggest problem for him, is learning how to cope when I am upset. If he reacts to me being upset, it triggers a response in him that creates another situation in which I get more upset...a horrible cycle results. This is why we need to be in therapy together. Talk therapy is not going to help him with anything unless I am there too. We need to learn to interact with each other so that we can be together.

My anger and frustration with him is completely natural, and in fact, I express that anger in a fairly non-confrontational way. But if Mr.3 is physically unable to handle normal anger expressions from others....he is not going to be able to function normally...unless he can gradually learn to teach his body to react in a different way. This is where I come in. Talk therapy can help us both by giving us a platform to one, deal with my anger, and two, help give Mr.3 the right tools to help me deal with the anger.

Whoever said that "knowledge is power" never had to deal with a situation like this. I can understand what is happening with him...I understand what the consequences are....but then again...my anger feels pretty selfish in the face of it. Even though I have every right in the world to be angry. I feel pretty powerless.

Mr.3 mentioned that he might be able to get time online in a couple of hours....besides the fact that I need to work on my project...I am not going to be online purposely. He needs time to read my second email and this post. He needs time to calmly...and with even breathing....read all of this, take notes, talk to his doctors....and then have an open and honest phone conversation with me tonight.

This could be another breakthrough....but I never knew that breakthroughs could be so painful. While I want to be there online for him to satisfy my own need to talk and be with him....I need to sacrifice that time in hoping that he will read what I have written and take it to heart.

Mike, honey, I love you so much...I hope that we can make it through this.

Battlespaces-- Another Letter to My Husband (still no word since Thursday)

Yesterday, when I said that you needed to prove that you were not my enemy....it started me in thinking about battlespaces. This situation would make you the bad guy. You abandon without cause, but give lip-service that you are not. You promise funding that never comes through, and you have no worries about running off with half the rent money and never paying it back. It is very similar to the relationship between the US and the Kurds, when you look at it. And the situation is sickening. I have never thought of our marriage as a battle. I have always thought of us as two people working side by side in the name of one united cause...us. But you are pushing me away. Maybe it is because you have been pushed away for so many years by others. Maybe deep down inside you are so scared that you have found happiness that you are bound and determined not to let it happen. Maybe you believe that good things cannot happen to you.

But they can...if only you would let them. If you stop fighting and surrender, you could be happy.

You are no longer in a job where you have to leave for weeks or months at a time on a moment's notice. And even when you were in that job, your wife had the benefit of a commanding officer calling her to let her know that you were being deployed. You are not in that situation anymore....and I don't have to accept you running off and leaving for days, weeks, or months at a time without having outside confirmation of where you are.

I am not asking too much.

I am also not asking for to much for open and honest communication from my husband. I have played all of my negotiation cards up front with you. I have offered complete forgiveness and acceptance. Yet, you keep me in the dark. I have continually shown myself as understanding and willing to learn to see things from your point-of-view. Yet, you still feel that you need to "protect me" from yourself. I have been completely faithful in all of my wedding vows....yet you act as if to "love, honor, and cherish"ing me are a waste of your time. What are your negotiation cards? Let's see, you tell me that you love me, but you treat me like dirt. You tell me that you want me as part of your recovery and treatment....yet you ignore my pleas, tell me stories to give me false hope, withhold information...but insist that you are not. I am not a simpleton. I am not involved in your treatment because you are actively making sure that I am not involved.

But I try to be.

I try to be there for you...to help, love and support you. I keep trying to get through to you...even though you are giving me no encouragement, no acceptance. Hell, I can't even talk to you anymore because you even have control of that. All I have is the ability to send you stupid phone messages and write wordy emails trying to explain things to you about how I feel...because I have been denied a voice in this process. You are the most selfish man that I have ever met in my entire life.

I read so much about this....I read the success stories and the failures. I want us to be a success story.

We can be. I have made as many overtures on this that I can. We need to work through all of this together and the only way that we can do that, is if you let me be a part of this. You have to let me in. YOU have to do this. It doesn't matter how open and accepting I am if you refuse to use me. I don't need to prove myself, my loyalty, and my love to you anymore. I have proven it all to you...even when you hurt me (and it is often) I take the pain and ask for more...because I see so much potential in you, and in us, and our future. I have shown that I am willing to work on this.

You need to take the next step.

You know what you need to do. And you know where to find me.

I love you.

May I draw your attention to...

the new photographs on the page. The Flickr account has been updated with something so scary that it boggles the mind....yes, I actually took pictures of my face....not hiding behind anything, but actual pictures on my face.

I got a new camera yesterday and have been playing around with it. Lots of fun! I am going to try to post more photos from now on.

Oh, and I you are looking for an update...no word from Mr.3 since yesterday.

Letter to my husband....

Friday Morning

Hummm....well, no information from you as to your schedule today. My schedule is a little different than most days. I will be at home until 10:30 am, and then I think that I should be home around 3-ish. Which is normally in that window of when you can be online. So if I miss you would you please send me an email with information on what happened in your group sessions, specifically what was said with DeWitt. I am looking for a viable reason as to why you are not home. And of course if there is something that you should tell me, I would appreciate it if you did. I know that it seems insensible to ask that of you all the time...but alot of anguish could have been avoided last Fall if you had just opened up to me.

I bought that book you were talking about "the Killer elite"....not that it is an enticement for you to come home, but it will be here for you to read along with a stack of books that I keep piling up for you.

Other than that I am not sure what to say. Whereas last week I felt connected to you, this week I feel a large disconnect. Normally I feel pretty good after our chats, but I didn't after yesterday's. Maybe it was the lack of me being upset not being recognized....maybe it was because I felt that your "chipperness" was too forced. Either way this week has left me at a total loss. You seem to be on this cycle of you telling me that you are going to come home...and that you are way excited about it....but then you limit your contact with me even more. And then of course, nothing materializes. You did this for months last Fall, would you please spare me that pain again? I want to support you....but I can't support you like that when the hope you offer me hurts so badly when what you say doesn't materialize. If you had truly put yourself in my place, you would understand that. Even though you say that you have done this....you really haven't, and you will never be able to until we, together, are face to face talking about this. Just like I will never be able to shake my anger and depression until we can work these issues out together.

While part of me believes that you are in Utah, there is this other part of me that believes you are still in Washington DC. And when I think about that, I wonder why you couldn't just tell me that you wanted to go back there to go back into therapy? I would have been understanding of that....but then again, I would have recommended that we try for therapy here first, so that I could be close to you but also so that I could have visited you and been a part of your recovery. How you intend on keeping someone's trust but still be stubborn enough to try to hide your treatment is beyond me....it isn't like I didn't know that you had a problem you wanted to seek treatment for. I have alot more reason to believe that you are not in Utah and rather somewhere else....little tells, like you insisting on taking items from the house here that could be easily liquidated, you taking two months worth of razors for a two week trip, the massive amounts of luggage that you took...but your insistence that you were going to leave your big shirt with me because you knew that I would miss you. Something about that resonated with me when you said it. And of course the phone records showing that you were still calling from DC when you had been telling me that you were on the train for 3 days.

And I am sure that your response to all of this would be anger....or "why can't I just trust you?"...My response to that is that I am stuck between two worlds. One world where circumstantial evidence keeps piling and piling up. And the other world where I want to be the loyal wife and trust what my husband says. Unfortunately the weight of the truth falls on you. You either get released from Utah and come home, or you come clean with me as to what is going on...we get you a bus ticket home...and you come home. Nothing can be proved until you come home (or perhaps a doctor's call).

I think that I have spent enough time proving to you that I am not the enemy, that I am a loyal, supportive, and trusting wife. You need to now prove to me that you are not my enemy.

So unless something miraculous happens today, we are again faced with another weekend...and as you feel that you don't need to check in with me on the weekends, I will be lucky if I hear from you on Monday.

This needs to end if we are to survive.

I hope to hear from you soon.

I miss you and I love you.

10 Random Things I Learned Today

1. While I understand the basic principles of forming a budget and planning for the future...I have friends who are about to graduate college who have no idea. Not only does this frighten them...but it frightens me.
2. Frederick II of the Holy Roman Empire wanted to learn what would happen to children who were raised without being talked to or touched. He took several infants away from their parents and gave them to nurses who were forbidden to touch or talk to them. All of the children died before they ever spoke.
3. I can in fact recall information that I researched several months ago with a high degree of accuracy, but I can't seem to remember what it was that I wanted to look up earlier today.
4. Compared to the other GV bloggers...I really don't write about social issues or "substantive" topics.
5. It is possible for your shoes to be too heavy for your legs to lift, and the likelihood of this situation increases with the earlier the hour it is in the morning.
6. The first sunburn of the season will always happen at the oddest time and when you are in the oddest positions....and if I had a camera I would take a picture of my brother's legs to show you.
7. Research has shown that if premature babies are massaged for 15 minutes a day that they develop faster than babies who are not touched.
8. Even if you understand what the IT guy at work is trying to do to your computer...it will still be an unnecessary "upgrade" and will take 4 times longer than it should.
9. Premature babies are prone to sleep apnea.
10. My family is rather sneaky about sharing information on my state of mind.

10 Questions I would like answers to:

1. Why is it necessary for my co-worker to stamp her feet outside my office door in order to get me to notice her? Why not just say, Hi?
2. Why does one crave deep fried foods? I understand the craving of fruits and vegetables because your body is only trying to gather nutrients it needs....so what did I need out of the fried zucchini at Greek Souvlaki?
3. What was I going to look up earlier today?
4. Why is it that every time I tell my husband that I am upset with something that I am met with silence? Why can't we just have a fight and get over it?
5. And whoa....why am I having blog deja vou?
6. I don't really understand why astronauts suffer from bone density loss....how common is this? And how many astronauts are put out of commission for it?
7. Why is it that in one week on GV the Turkish blogs will have too much going on to fit into one article and the Kurdish blogs will not have enough? And vice versa?
8. What was that pre-teen girl trying to accomplish preening in front of her house looking like a hot pink version of Julia Roberts in Pretty Woman?
9. Why it is that people who are mean to their service dogs don't catch on that their dog is deliberately leading them into that wall?
10. Where did that frigging gnat in my office come from, and how many times do I really need to kill it?

An Announcement....

I would like to announce that I got an A in my syntax class. Now all I need to do is finish my project for the other class....do well on it, and my academic standing will be returned.

Fhew! That is one thing down.

Last Night and This Morning

Last night was bad, real bad. Early this morning I was online in the hopes of catching Mr.3. He seemed to be in good spirits and told me that no one was released last night as his doctor had some kind of emergency. There is supposed to be a lunchtime meeting, but he has given me very little information besides that. Here is the email that I wrote him this morning after our 5 minute online chat:

That was kinda strange this morning, that we managed to meet each other online.

As I said earlier....I feel lost. I don't know how to process this information...holding out hope kills me when it all comes crashing down at a deadline.

I will not apologize for anything that I have written in the past 24 hours. You must remember my position in all of this...and while you have felt that you have given me enough information and don't understand why I can't be satisfied with that...there is a difference between information and for lack of a better term, a story. I meant to tell you ages ago but I read your journal...I read it in an effort to find some clue as to where you are...some clue as to your state of mind. In it, you said several times how you didn't understand why I wouldn't just believe you when you told me about things that were happening...why I wasn't satisfied with what you said. This was in relation to your Charles Schwab account. At first I was so happy to hear that you had a bit of money and that you would be able to pay your bills...and then the figure kept getting bigger and bigger...and you kept getting statement information with no numbers in it. Nothing has come in from Charles Schwab since you left...another instances of your "information" being just a story. There needs to be something solid behind any information that you give me....this takes us back to you giving me bad intel.

And with the past 24 hours I feel that I have been given the same thing again, and I find it incredibly cruel. Even if there was an emergency on DeWitt's part yesterday, you could have tried to call me instead of letting this fester. And after all that we have been through...it still seems as if you are "trying to protect me"...deciding what is appropriate for me to hear. Did we regress?

When I type with you and talk with you...I put on this facade of calm and patience. Actually it is the same facade that I use with everyone else nowadays. I try to be strong for you so that you can get well and come home...under that facade however is a women who is riddled with fear and doubt. Who has legitimate anger and rage that she finds she can't get to express to anyone....because so many depend on her to be strong. While you have made progress I have not....yet I find that I have been placed in this impossible space that I am holding up everyone else about this situation (friends, coworkers, family) that I can't find time to support myself. I feel like I am rotting from within.

I am tired of being riddled with guilt everytime I express my feelings because I worry that it will set your progress back.

I wouldn't even bother dealing with this if I didn't love you as much as I do. I can not conceive life without you as my husband, my lover , and friend. And frankly, I don't know how I haven't completely lost it by now. I fear that I suffer from secondary PTSD (which I still find as a funny phenomenon, but I have all of the symptoms) and I worry that I can't help you if I am in such bad shape. Last night the anxiety and anger and I don't know what really scared me...my heart actually hurt and for a while there I thought that I might need to go to the hospital....I tried to calm myself down, but I am really not sure if I was trying to calm down or wishing that my heart would stop altogether.

I miss you so much...and I want to get better but I can't even start that process until you are home. Please come home and end my misery.

I love you.

What state am I in?

I really don't know. It is 10pm on Tuesday night and my husband has not called me nor is he home. It makes me sick to my stomach. I sent him a cryptic email because I wasn't even sure what to say. I want to yell at him....I want to say things to him that will cause him pain...because he seems to have to no problems with causing me pain.

He has robbed me even of the ability to be angry at him.

He has cut off my voice.

I am stuck in a flashback of last fall....at least then he had a viable story of why he could not be home...the VA wouldn't clear him from their police system. And then finally the VA just handed him over to the police and he was in jail. And for once I knew where he was. Now, he has no viable story left.....he told me today that his therapist said that there was no more progress that he could make "in house". He has no reason.....no more excuses to not be home.

I used to try to think up his excuses for him to not be home. And most of the time I was right on the money with my predictions. Not this time. I can not think of one logical excuse why he is not home right now. Even if he was still in DC...why hasn't he told me? I have given him PLENTY of guilt-free opportunities to tell me the truth. If my husband cannot even tell me the truth, even after all that we have been through, even with me supporting him through all of this....then maybe he really is the coward that he feels that he is. Because only a coward would continue to tell someone that they love them, and that they will come home to them....and not do what they say. Until he can face what he is or has become....I don't want him home.

I watched this show on tv tonight about women who were married to men in prison. I sympathized with them and envied them. I envied them because at least they had the luxury of knowing where their husbands were. I sympathized with them because they understood how I feel....a way that most people wouldn't understand.

I can still love and support the man.....but I don't need him because I can't depend on him being there. I can't hold out hope anymore because I can't handle the disappointment.

The only one who can change how I feel is my husband. He needs to stand by his words. He needs to come home....before he doesn't have a home to come home to.

The Nature of the Week

The nature of good days and bad days astounds me. Take today for instance....today is a good f*$%ing day.

Is the saying that good news travels in pairs or comes in threes? I am hoping that it is threes.

Good News Item Number 1- My parents are currently in a contingency sale of their house. This couple would buy my parents house only if their house sold. Well that couple has changed their mind and want to close on the house and move in as soon as possible. So the house is sold!!! after it has been on the market since last September. Further good news is that upon hearing that the house is sold, my Dad put in an ultimatum to the new job and he has now found out that he is to report for duty as manager of the new ALCO store in Sodona Arizona on June 11th...Oddly enough my parents 31st anniversary.

Good News Item Number 2- Linda, my boss, called me today (I am taking today off) to let me know that it has been approved that I work this entire summer. This is amazing!!! Now I don't have to worry about trying to cover rent for those two months and my benefits for those two months. I had taken out a loan to cover the expenses, but I knew that I would have to get a second job for the summer to still make ends meet (I helped my parents out financially.) Now I have a surplus...that I intend on holding onto. But in the meantime I know that I can help my parents out more and that we (that being Mr.3 and I) will be able to take a short trip to Florida so that I can finally meet my in-laws (that is a little scary actually).

In between the texts from my mom about the sale of the house, I was sweeping mine...and I was suddenly overcome with emotion....my body was telling me that today was going to be the day...today was going to be the day that Mr.3 comes home. I have never felt like that before, so sure of something....so let's hope that good news really does travel in threes...if anything so that I know that my intuition is still functioning properly.

And now, I should go back to one of two things....working on my project or planning my brother's graduation festivities. See.....good news all around...and its a MONDAY!!!

Reading about the Brain

Ok....so when I am faced with difficulties, I research. Those close to me are normally the ones where all of the information I recover is thrown upon. Not that I expect those close to me to want to know what I am reading and researching, but they are stuck with it anyway. I guess that I could probably give you a taste of all the stuff that I read about...I warn you though...it will be even harder to follow my line of thinking...

Earlier this week I have posted about depression....and I do not under any circumstances want to have to go on medication for this...and this means, Yes! Research! Chemically, depression shows itself as lower levels of dopamine and seratonin. You can take pills to increase your levels, you can eat foods to help increase your levels, but because these things are entering your bloodstream they are not going to be as effective in your brain as if they were produced naturally by your brain. From my reading (and oddly enough this played into alot of the reading that I have done about PTSD and the brain) talk therapy, where you learn coping mechanisms to deal with emotional issues, has shown itself to be much much more effective in the long term in dealing with issues of depression, PTSD, and overall mental health. Another way of naturally raising your seratonin and dopamine levels is by having sex, because the endorphins released create the natural seratonin and dopamine that your brain really likes. Of course, in order to use this method to help counteract depression...I need Mr.3 to be home. :)

This lead me to want to do more research on the brain...and of course a book purchase. I bought a book called "A User's Guide to the Brain" and it has been fascinating to say the least. Basically with your brain it is "use it or lose it" when it comes to neurons and synanpasis' and such. There was a study on some nuns in Minnesota who stayed very actively intellectually and not only lived longer but also suffered much much lower incidents of dementia. The book has also talked about how the brain can re-train itself to handle certain things that it has lost the ability to. So like in the case of PTSD, prolonged trama can lead to short term memory loss and affect decision making abilities...but with therapy in which coping mechanisms are developed to help with memory the brain can re-learn to act within normal perimeters. With practice, a skill can return...just like riding a bike.

What has really sparked my interest in my reading today was reading about how the brain initially develops. At conception, cells begin to divide and divide and divide. By two weeks into this process the cells are folded into each other into a long tube, this tube is the beginning of the spinal column and the brain. Two weeks into conception! How friggin' cool is that?! The book gives a figure of 250,000 nerve cells are being created every minute at this time in development. And while the brain is one of the first structures to form in a fetus, it isn't fully developed until 8 months, and after birth it begins this process of testing all of the neuron pathways it has formed to see which ones work well and which ones the body would do better without. Constantly revising itself, over and over and over again, until we die. Oh so cool.

While reading this I was overcome with the feeling that I really wanted to be pregnant (and I think that this is separate from the baby lust thing), just because I thought that it is so cool that being female that this fantastic development process could be happening inside my body. And one day, when it does happen, I want to make sure that I appreciate every single moment of it, and every moment of my child's life because what happens in nature is so completely wondrous...and to use the same word that I have been using through this entire post...something so completely...

cool.

Update

Mr.3 just called. I was stunned, and shocked....and exquisitely happy to hear the sound of his voice. And for 17 minutes and 26 seconds I got to speak to my husband, bliss.

Well the news is that the group he is in has been told that they will be released on Monday or Tuesday. If this is true it is wonderful news! If it isn't....who knows what shape I am going to be in on Wednesday morning.

But I got to talk to him...and just that calms me down. My anxiety goes up when I don't hear from him....partly because I worry that I am going to miss my window to chat or speak with him. At least this week he let me know what his schedule was going to be like...and even though I was online the same amount of time, if he didn't come online it was because HE missed his appointment, not because I was not vigilant enough. Odd line, but it makes sense to me.

I feel so much lighter now that I have talked to him. 6 days since I have heard his voice last. I think that I will be able to make it through the rest of the day now. :)

depression regression

You could say that I haven't been posting because it is the end of the semester, and that would be partly true. What would be more true to the situation is that I am so hopelessly depressed that I haven't been able to function. This last week has been bad. I have been doing alot of reading on depression and how to handle it, and I have my up days.

Today is a down day.

We had an Outreach meeting today and we talked about the June workshop...it is kinda the crowning achievement of the year. And just thinking about all of the work that is going to be dumped on me just fills me with anxiety. All of our volunteers are wanting their own rooms and we are running out of rooms to begin with. And I want my own room...in fact I want to stay for a second night because last year I was so run off my feet that if I could have stayed another day I could have felt a bit less run down. And last year I decided that I was going to stay the second day...actually Mr.3 and I made the decision because he helped out last year---and did much more work than our volunteers. But I can't even plan on him being around in June, let alone tomorrow or next week.

This week has been horrible with communication with him...or rather no communication. Of course, I heard nothing from him over the weekend. On Monday he called me when I wasn't online waiting for him and because of a work thing I could only talk to him for a minute. He said that he was going to call that night and didn't. Tuesday nothing, Wednesday a chat online, Thursday nothing, and Friday a chat online. And now it is another weekend...where I probably won't hear from him...and I feel myself cracking at all the hindges. And to make matters worse, he keeps telling about all of these breakthroughs that he is making....and that he testing normal on all of his baselines and that the doctor said that he is going to be able to come home....except it isn't happening. You would think that the one week that is supposed to be his last he would contact me more. I sent him the following email this morning...but I fear it will have no effect. I am so scared that I am caught in this horrible cycle that will never end...or it ends when I finally snap. And who knows when that will be be...but it can't be long. I can't keep this up anymore...

Hi Honey!
I left you a phone message last night. I hope that you are able to get a call or some internet time this weekend. No contact from you on the weekends really ticks me off.....I try to be all nice about it but it really makes me angry and sad.

I have an Outreach meeting this morning from roughly 9-11. I don't expect to be home until noon though. Other than that my day is unplanned...I can try to be online for most of the afternoon, but it makes if really difficult for me if I don't know your schedule.

I am curious to know what you and DeWitt talked about last night. It obviously wasn't the news that we both wanted. If you are showing normal in your testing there is no reason for you to be there. And I will not tolerate you doing what you did for an entire month last Fall which was that every day you were planning on coming home and it didn't happen for one reason or another. The longer you are away the more room I have to doubt...and the more that our marriage suffers. While I am incredibly excited about the breakthroughs that you have made in the past two weeks (and I can see them change in your tone and in your excitement...something amazing is happening with you!) we must remember that for this entire time, I have gotten no help....and definitely no validation about your situation. I am afraid that the longer this goes on....the more contempt I am going to build up with this...and I worry that I will not be able to get rid of it all...and if I can't purge that contempt, we as a couple will not last. You have had enough "you" time...things need to transition, and that transition needs to be immediate.

Saying that this is an ultimatum would be silly...because I am not going to leave you, and definitely not in the immediate future. But it is our future that I worry about. You being gone for 8 months out of our 14 months of marriage is not acceptable by any standards...and definitely not acceptable because I have not been able to verify where you are this entire time. The only thing that I was sure about was when you were in jail. How sad is that? How much longer do you really think that I can manage living in this uncertainty? I think that my strength has been tested long enough.

You need to come home, my love. I am tired of being a wife without a husband. I miss you. I miss us. I just want to be able to move on and feel happy everyday again....because it has been so long...

I love you!

By Far the Coolest Thing that I have seen in a month

See more photos at this site, aikarin.com

End of Semester Silence

Yeah, I've haven't been blogging much because I am trying to finish out the semester. I am quite happy to announce that I have finished my Syntax take-home final a full 3 days before it was due!!

Libby and I have been trying to buckle down in our studies and have been meeting almost everyday for the past week at the coffee shop a few doors down from my house. Which oddly, has worked really really well. I think that it has been partly due to me working without the distraction of my computer. My presentation for course design was last Wednesday and on Tuesday we were at the coffee shop for 5 hours just working on school stuff. My notebook smells like coffee. And it payed off. My presentation was fantastic. I am going to be egotistical and say that my presentation was the most polished of all that presented and I looked like I was really on top of my stuff. And best of all, after my presentation I was walking up to my teacher to ask her if I had improved when she rushed up to me, grabbed my arm with eager excitement, and told me "well done!".

I nailed it. And hopefully salvaged my grade and my graduate career.

Now I just need to slowly plod along and finish the rest of my project. The presentation made it look like I have done alot of work on my project, but I really haven't. If I work on it for several hours every day for the next two weeks it should be great. Wednesday is the last day of classes, and while I would like to have everything done for then, it won't happen. Our teacher hasn't given us a specific deadline....she just told us to get it in to her before grades are due, which is May 15...so I am shooting for May 1st.

The only downfall of working at the coffee shop is that you feel obligated to buy something each day in exchange for taking up their table space...so I am going to have to budget for this. Because I think that I will probably do the majority of my thesis work there this summer....you know in those times between the second job that I will have to get.

Re-Violation

I was reading in the coffee shop at the end of our street when I had the unpleasant experience of having the doctor who so mangled me at my last girlie exam come into the shop (you remember, the one who even though I talked to her about my latex allergy, still used latex gloves on my exam...my internal exam). At first it was this strange look between us and I was trying to remember who she was and why I was getting the bad vibe. When she finally turned around I recognized her and felt a flood of emotions that I still cannot categorize.

Anger. Rage. Confusion....and the final one.....a flood of panic. Panic at the violation she had imposed on me....panic because all the feelings of inadequacy, the feelings of the physical pain of the aftermath....panic at not feeling right as a woman....panic with the worry that she might have caused irreversible damage.

I had to leave....I had to get out of there....being in the same room felt like it was all happening again. In fact I burst into tears as soon as I got outside the shop. I am still trying to heal from that January appointment. January! I wonder if this is how people feel when they face rapists.....

as if the violation is happening all over again.

PTSD Protest Songs?

So I have been seeing signs around campus for David Rovics, a peace activist/musician, to be performing. Back in my "protest days" (which sounds funny because I will always be a protester at heart) I went to a concert of his, and fell in love with his music. Hearing of him coming back in town I thought that I would review his music...and I found that his music only has a certain time and place in history where his music still resonates. The album I bought was made in 2002 and I felt that it was absolutely perfect for what was happening in the world at the time...and as I am listening to it now I find that I still agree with it. Then I decided to go to his website and see what he has been up too....first thing I notice....an endorsement by Cindy Sheehan. Oh god. Readers of this blog already know what I think of her and her ill-informed celebrity crew of protesters...and now David Rovics has sold out and joined them.

He had a couple of songs on his newer albums about returning vets and PTSD...I listened...and was horrified. Obviously no clue what someone with PTSD thinks about and like....obviously never talked to someone about it, who was there. It was cliche after cliche after cliche....

Needless to say....no longer a fan.

If you want to listen to good protest music, listen to Shake Your Peace. Much better and more realistic in my opinion...and they are currently doing a bike tour across Utah. When they play someone rides on a bike to create the electrical current for their amplifiers...which is pretty cool.

Oddly enough, they are playing on campus this weekend.

**An update to the Easter weekend post, Mr.3 and his doctor have been discussing my "enemy" idea (and it has also been a subject of discussion in his group sessions). He and his doctor think that I am on to something, and it sounds like it has been helpful in his therapy progress....but who knows when they will think that he is ready to come home. Hopefully soon, because at the rate I'm going I will have eaten all of his Easter candy...oh well! Seriously though, I hope that his serves as the breakthrough that we need....I have felt better since I had the idea, so if anything it is a breakthrough for me.

5 dollars for a story

In the same light as the snake charmer....if I give you 5 dollars for anything I get to write about you in my blog. So this post in dedicated to Candace the young work study girl from the projects of Wisconsin who "axed" me to buy some magazine subscriptions from her so that she can get a $1000 scholarship to some college.

I gave her money for several reasons:

1. I didn't really want any magazine subscriptions.
2. It takes guts to go door to door trying to convince people of a story that sounds like it is out of Office Space.
3. If she really is trying to "work" her way through school....she needs $5 as much as I do.

Baby Lust

I have mentioned this a couple of times...but I have baby blues REALLY bad. I suspect that I want something to bestow all of my love on and to have a piece of Mr.3.

Last Friday the old outreach assistant came in with her little boy. He is just about two and he kissed me. Oh, his skin was so soft. And today, a Graduate student who I haven't seen in a year and a half came in to defend his thesis. He has a nine-month old boy...with the cutest dimples.

Both of these incidents had the same outcomes...I played with these adorable children until I had to abruptly excuse myself so that I could go into my office...

and cry.

Cry because I wanted the same....cry because when they all asked me how married life was, and I smiled and told them that everything was ok....cried because I want a little one of my own that looks at me with Mr.3's eyes.
One day...

Easter Weekend

This was a quiet weekend. Jimmy and I drove down to Price to spend the weekend with my mom. It has been over a month now since we have seen her. The most amusing thing that happened was my brother dropping all of his candy down the stairs...an unexpected Easter egg hunt. This weekend was marked by several things....a whole lot of Shirley Temple movies that my mom and I watched....and an absence of both my father and my husband. Now my Dad bothered to call this weekend, but Mr.3 did not.

It has been an interesting weekend to say the least. I have been trying to figure some things out...about how I view our relationship, how I view myself....even how I interpret Mr.3's behavior. In some respects, this weekend scared me...and not for the reason that you might think.

Last Friday, after the Model Arab League dinner I went out to a bar with some of the people on the team. It has literally been years since I have been out. And oddly....I ordered two drinks without caring about the price, and I bought nachos for everyone...again, not caring about the price. I felt free....and I found myself realizing that if I was single, that I probably would have gone home with someone that night. And that is what scared me....I had never really considered what it would be like to be single again, and after thinking about it....there are alot of things that I would like to change about how I live, but being married to Mr.3 isn't one of them. When he comes back though....we are changing some things...we are going to go out as a couple. We are going to live a little, we are both young....we should act like it, instead of like senior citizens. I am also going to be more aggressive in "marital relations"...we are newlyweds for goodness sakes! We should act like that too.

Something that Mr.3 typed on Friday had me thinking...he said that life was so much easier when he knew who the enemy was. And then....I had this brainwave, and so I sent him this email.

You had mentioned in your last chat that you didn't know who your enemy was anymore. Well your actions show exactly who you think that you enemy is....even though on the surface it doesn't seem to make sense. Perhaps you should bring up what I am about to say at your individual meetings today.

Right now, your enemy is me. Let's look at this in logical steps, I represent in the enemy in two ways: the government and the active enemy you are fighting.

First the government: when we first met, I was enamored of you..your intelligence and background, something clicked between us and I took you in. Compare this to your recruitment into the service. I covered all expenses, I never got mad at you in the beginning because of finances (even though I was devastated when you quit the Marriott--it put so much pressure on me)....you were completely taken care of by me. All you had to do was go to school. I became a means for you to go to school because you even used my financial information to go to school. I became a tool to get what you wanted....the government did this for you as well. You see me as an entitlement, just as you see government services as an entitlement. Let's go into this further shall we? When you were hurt, you had two enemies...the government that put you in the position to get hurt and the enemy who shot you. By my demanding that you give an equal share into the household, in your mind I became the government. It is perfectly ok for you to feel that the government is entitled to take care of you but it is not ok for you to get hurt.....it is perfectly ok in your mind to have me take care of you but it is not ok for me to ask for you to help share in our financial fight.

Let's go to the enemy shall we? You are actively evading me. Last year when I asked you why you were going eastwards based on your phone records, you shut off contact with me by phone. You have done the same thing this time when I commented on the phone records. Last fall, everytime you called me you entered in the code before you dialed to show up as a private call. I thought that this was odd because when I would contact the VA...caller ID always showed a number. This time you are arranging all of the calls so that they appear to go through the cell phone. You are covering your tracks. In fact last time the only time you did not cover your tracks was when you were arrested...the enemy was real then and you came to me "the government" for help. You have even covered your tracks with how you contact me electronically...last time you only used hushmail, which cannot be traced for locations, this time you only contact me through the gmail chat, which also will not disclose any location information. Some other similarities between this time and last time: the doctors not calling me, the fact that you are again in a 3 week program which for some reason will not let you out. I am not the enemy and this is not a war game.

Everyone is an enemy to you, especially the ones that care for you.....your parents have been the enemy, until you have needed something...you push away and then return....I am the enemy because I ask things of you and I am trying to find you...I will continue to be treated as the enemy until a more defined enemy comes alone...then and only then am I safe ground.

Of course, on the surface all of this seems absurd. Of course your wife isn't your enemy, she only cares for you and wants you to come home. Or if your wife is the enemy it is because she has betrayed you in some way...she cheated, she was greedy....just like the government let you get hurt and told you that you were going to be left behind. I am only waiting for you to decide what my grand sin against you is....so that you will be able to fully leave me without guilt.

All I can say is that I am not your enemy....but I know that it is a hollow statement because you are going to react to me as if I am. You are going to continue to hide the truth from me....give me the bad intel....because I made the misjudgment of loving you.

I hope that this email has reached you.... I expect that once again you will just say that you are sorry and that you know that it is all your fault. But deep down you won't believe it....because of what I have said above. Until you learn who your enemy really is and how you treat the ones that you love as the enemy....we will not be able to have a life together. No matter how good I am to you, no matter what I do....it will all be worthless if you still treat me like the enemy. And no matter how much I ache for you to be home, no matter how much I love and miss you....maybe you shouldn't come home until you can ensure that you can treat me with the respect that I deserve....as your equal, your friend, your lover, your brother (sister) in arms, and your wife.

I love you
d

His response was...limited, to say the least. Here are parts of our chat online today...

me: I sent you an email with something in it that I want you to discuss with DeWitt

Mr3: I see the email.

I am asking for a pen to gist it so I can discuss it. We have no printer support

11:10 AM I think it might be an interesting thesis but I don't agree with it

me: well I can't find any other way to explain your behavior towards me. adn last week I heard an interesting expression....

11:11 AM what seems like a crazy idea one day can be a breakthrough the next

Mr3: Maybe it can be. I didn't say the idea was crazy

11:12 AM me: no, the expression says that it is crazy....I on the other hand think that it is right on.

11:13 AM Mr3: OK, I am confused

me: about what?

11:14 AM hello?

11:15 AM trying to communitcate....

apparently it isn't working....

hello?

Mr3: No I am confused about your expression thingy comment

I amtrying to figure out where I misinterpreted

11:16 AM me: the expression says that an idea can be crazy....I on the other hand believe that the comments expressed in my emai are not crazy but an accurate assessment of the situation

why didn't you call this weekend?

11:17 AM Mr3: I don't know. I really don't know. I am just so down ...
I know it brings you down and I live for our conversations, I just couldn't

I spent so much of the weekend in a state of despair

11:18 AM Outside of sessions I just moped

The holiday made if worse

11:19 AM me: there you go again....making these decsions that are wrong. you have been doing this routinely...not contacting me makes it worse. but no matter how many times i tell you that you are not alone in this....you make the decsions to ensure that you are.

11:20 AM it isn't fair and you know it....yet you still treat me llike I am the enemy....withhold the information and you sttay in power

Mr3: I don't see them as wrong, I see them as protecting you and I guess they are wrong

I don't withold information from you

me: you are protecting me....you are alienating me.

Mr3: I don't intentionally alienate you

It isn't about alienation

me: well you do, and you do it ALOT

11:21 AM Mr3: It is about I don't know that's why I am here ... I don't know what's wrong in my head

me: all you needed to do was wish a happy holiday....I had pretty much figured that you weren't going to come home anyway and told you so on Friday...so it wasn't like it would have been anything new

11:22 AM that is why I would like you to bring up my email to DeWitt....you seem to listen to her

Mr3: I am trying to listen to you too. I really am trying to

I know you don't see it and I know I cannot provie

it

11:23 AM me: and while you are worrying that you might be the next guy to get upset and pull the phone cord out of the wall...at least remember that that guy had the opportunity to talk to his wife and did...at least that wife got a call ffom her husband and that she knows that he is alove

i get 6 minutes on average on the phone with you....I wait around for you all day....

Mr3: I realize that

I know that

11:24 AM me: I spend alot of time.....to get nothing from you.

Mr3: I understand that and I cannot tell you what a 2 minute or 20 minute call means

Yes you do.

You spend a lot of time for very little return

me: 2 minutes or 20 minutes doesn't matter much in the grand scheme of things when I just don't get calls.

11:25 AM I am investing my life in you.....do you really realize that?

I haven't left you.....I have been supporting you...even through alot of oopposition.

11:26 AM maybe when you decide not to be stubborn anymore and have to do everything for yourself they will let you out

Mr3: Maybe that is the problem. I need to once again become completely self-sufficent to appreciate how to share

11:27 AM me: you call this self-sufficent?

is this your way of telling me that you want to end everything?

Mr3: No I don't want to end anything and certainly not us

No this is not self sufficient

11:28 AM I am merely saying that perhaps it is something that I need to really explore with the doctor and this is the breakthrough that I need

me: maybe you need to realize that it is your idea of having to be the one in control---the self suffiencent one--that got you into the place that you are int.

Mr3: that we need

me: you need to learn how to trust

Mr3: It may be that idea

11:29 AM The idea that was a crazy suggestion

Maybe this is it

me: I am trying on my end....I am trying to help both you and us.

11:30 AM and we need a breakthrough or I am going to break apart and I can feel it happening.

You probably have to go soon, and I am supposed to go and interview Ibrahim

Mr3: I am sorry. I never meant for any of this to happen

I miss you so much

11:31 AM Go make me proud honey bunny

:)

I love you so much

me: I want to tell you that I love you and I want you to come home...but only if you are better and really really willing to make US work.

I miss you.

and I love you.

Mr3: I want us to be us .. :)

I love you

You can decide what you think happened....I felt liberated. I am so proud that I stuck up for myself and my future. I think that things will get better.

A Letter To Mr.3

*I found out some disheartening information this evening, and the best way to present it is by posting the email that I sent to my husband. I don't want to give up on this....he is sick and I know that if given the chance we can work through a lot of this. Psychologically, I can't give up...or the past few years of my life have been a waste, and that is something that I cannot accept.

I am probably going to leave a phone message, but I will probably be able to focus my thoughts more clearly here. I appreciate that you thanked me for doing all of the reading, and trying to understand what is going on. I feel like I have been doing quite alot of work on this end trying to keep our marriage going. It is important to me, and I thought that it was important to you.

It is clear to me now that you will not be coming home for Easter, and you might not be coming home for a long time.

Your lack of trust in me is disgusting....you must think that I am the most naive and gullible person in the world. You must think of me as stupid.

I so want to believe that you are in Utah and that you are getting help. I want to believe that you want to make this work. But you are lying to me. When you were in jail, you lied to me about your phone and wallet and wedding ring. When you were in Florida, you lied to me about the cell phone...even after you promised me that you would never lie to me again. I gave you a second chance and you are ruining it. Why tell me an elaborate story about you coming home on a train....telling me in a chat on gmail that you were on the train, coming home...when the phone records show that your calls were still originating from Washington DC? Now the records only go to February 28th, but as you were telling me that you were elsewhere at the time...I have already caught you in a lie.

How many more lies do I have to find out? Why do you keep telling me that you want to be with me...that you want to spend the rest of your life with me, when your actions clearly show that you do not? This, you cannot blame on PTSD....this stems from choices that you have made. And choices that you actively choose, even now, to make by not telling me the truth...even when I have promised not to be upset.

I am not sure what my feelings are anymore. My gut still tells me that you are seeking help....but I don't know where or with whom. I don't know when I will see you again, or how you will get home. Because you probably have no money to buy a ticket from anywhere as you have probably already pawned MY camera and OUR portable DVD player, leaving me to try to pay for the library stuff that you took out and racking up the bills on. I almost feel like it was pointless to even ask if there really was a job. Although I still think that there was. And if you lost the job, I can only assume that it was because you had a problem while in DC. I wondered if you were alright when I talked to you and you had been out drinking with friends. I wonder if it was then that something happened....a flashback based off of our conversation when we were talking about Rwanda...you were so angry with the UN and I was trying to calm you down.

I am oddly calm, and I don't even know what that means.Did I expect this? No. I wanted to believe in you, to trust in you...and I don't know what is real anymore. I do know that I don't want to spend my life alone. I want my husband and the future that we have planned. But I don't want to be strung along, to be lied to. I don't want this uncertainty anymore. I had thought that we were making a breakthrough. You sounded so confident this morning when you said that you didn't regret that you had turned yourself in for treatment. And I was so glad that you were happy with your treatment, that you were learning new things. Maybe I can understand now why coming home frightens you so much....there is so much that you would have to come clean about. So much error. And maybe this is me, being Penelope, endlessly waiting, weaving tales of hope during the day only to unravel them each night. Penelope whose Odyssues comes home briefly, only to have him leave again. I wonder how this story ends? Can we create a happy ending?

I love you.

Day One Completed Successfully!

My dear editor Amira on Global Voices is taking a much needed vacation this week, and I get to cover her duties while she is gone. Besides checking the other authors in our region's posts before they go onto the site, I am responsible for finding 5-10 interesting weblinks a day from regional bloggers. I have just completed my first day of tasks...and I am sooo excited. Everything was posted correctly...hooray! I think that I will be less nervous as the week goes on, but I am really excited about getting this opportunity. Plus, I like to watch my author post count go up and for the first time ever I am listed on the awesome authors of the week list....I hope to make it to the list for the month too!

ok, gush off.

sunday downers

I have nothing to say, yet I am compelled to write...which obviously doesn't make for interesting reading.

Sunday is seeming to be quite the downer so far....even with sleeping in. I actually slept in! The only problem with that was that I had dreams that Mr.3 and I were cuddling in bed, and it was a disappointment (to say the least) to wake up and find that there weren't arms wrapped around me after all. He didn't call last night, although I talked to him early yesterday morning. I wish that my moods and emotions on this wouldn't move as drastically as they seem too. Of course, to everyone else I am just friendly and emotionally aloof.

After I finished the Operators Manual to Combat PTSD, I was feeling REALLY good about things, even my anger issues. I felt good about the situation. Now I am in a general downer....but I think that it is a whole list of other things today and not just Mr.3. This could be a good side, that I am worrying about things other than him today.

I got a D on my Course Design midterm, and while if I do well in the rest of the class I will still be able to get a B...it worries me. After getting the C in Syntax last semester and having to petition to be able to retake it....getting another C in something and having to go through this process again will more than likely get me thrown out of the program. And it would be horrible to get to the end of my Masters program, only to be kicked out of it. I was really shocked by my mid-term grade...like thrown off my feet kinda shocked, because I really thought that I understood everything. Another cosmic curveball. I hope that this isn't like repayment for blogging about being annoyed with the bug and JB....cause that is just uncool. In any case, I need to start working on that project anyway.

Yesterday's seminar went off without a hitch...like everything was perfect. It was great, and most importantly....Linda was really happy with me. I live for those moments, of knowing that I did a good job...but also that someone else was really happy with my performance. And even though I am saddened that I didn't get the Outreach job with GV, I expect it is for the best...besides it should be enough to be great at one Outreach job...can the world really handle me with two of them?

Well....as this rambling post continues on...I am trying to have an active Sunday. Jimmy has been complaining about his need to do laundry, which is fine, he just needs to finish it. And as I have laundry to do today too, so I have been riding him on it everytime the dryer stops. hee hee. I made a list of things to do today, a list that for once is quite achievable for one day and I have been making fairly good headway on it...if anything, just to keep myself busy.

I really really really want Mr.3 to be home, if anything just to talk to him. Even with all of this drama, we understand each other...and I know that he would make me feel better.

No, he isn't home yet

Yesterday was a hard day as I heard absolutely nothing from Mr.3. I kept it together, but I am sure that I felt distant to some of the people I was around. They apparently are staggering the release of the gentlemen in the pilot program. 3 were allowed to go home yesterday, and today there are going to release 3 or 4, but those individuals will not find out if they are going home today until after the group meeting...which ends at six. I asked Mr.3 to ensure that he got a phone call this evening regardless of the news. While I have been able to chat online with him twice today....hearing his voice is so much better.

A couple books came in the mail yesterday, and the one that I have started to read is absolutely fantastic. It is called "An Operators Manual for Combat PTSD" it has gone into alot of what is going on in the brain of combat vets, specifically what is happening during flashbacks...and it explains exactly what is going on in the brain during a dissociative state (and why things happen like they do). Initially, it was really hard for me to comprehend that Mr.3 didn't really know where he was last Fall....not concretely anyway. And even if he was told, while he was in that state, it wouldn't have mattered anyway because his brain wouldn't have let him comprehend that information.

And last night Jimmy and Libby went with me to a talk by Dr. Jonathan Shay, who has written the book Odysseus in America-Combat Trama and the Trials of Homecoming. While he waxed poetic in the speech, focusing more on the elements of the story the Odyssey that portrayed Odysseus as a combat veteran, he could have talked more about PTSD itself. For the audience there though, it was good. I would have liked to hear more. Libby and Jimmy talked on and on about how they had a hard time focusing during his talk....but I was riveted because the actions of Odysseus mirrored Mr.3 to a tee. I bought his book, and had him sign it for Mr.3. He was very polite and asked if he was a combat veteran. I said that Mr.3 was and that I was his Penelope. I was starting to well up the tears, and after that point I couldn't talk very much beyond "thank you". But when I said the comment, Dr. Shay looked up at me with such compassion and understanding...it was the understanding that really struck me...because I haven't met someone who really understands what I am going through, and what I am trying to accomplish. He said that he hoped the book helped, but he said more than that with his eyes.

Mr.3 has said a couple of times that I should write a book about this....and most of the time I have dismissed it, but I have been giving it serious thought today. Maybe I should. Maybe I would be able to be a resource for the other Penelopes in the world. I even have a working title---which I copyright now---Embracing Penelope- Finding Hope and Strength for the Combat Veteran Wife. Sounds pretty good to me, now we just have to see if I will do anything with it.

well....here it is...

I talked to Mr.3 for 8 minutes before I went to my class. Not much was said except reiterations of what was typed about earlier.

I cried. Of course.

And in the few moments that I had I told him a little about the anger that I am housing. I am sure that it didn't help him, but it helped me. He said that he would call me again between 8 and 9...which as of 10:30 this evening hasn't happened. So in many ways nothing has changed and I sadly have proven my prediction abilities correct.

Mr.3 is due to be released around 6 or 7 in the evening tomorrow. I hope that it is closer to 6 than 7, because I want to see a speaker at one of the local colleges who will be speaking on PTSD. I tried to find his book in the library ...before I heard about the lecture actually.... but the one I wanted to read was not there. So if I am lucky they might have copies of his books there...and if not at least I will get to hear what he has to say. His books have taken Homer's Iliad and the Odyssey and applied the basic themes to today's veterans. It sounded pretty cool, but the library only had the one focused on Vietnam vets and that demographic doesn't have the same specific issues as the newest vets...which is what I am more interested in.

In my class this evening, it dawned on me that I prefer to hang out with the two military guys in the class than anybody else. I was talking with Jared and we got on the subject of not sleeping and how when he was deployed in Iraq his sleeping schedule was all messed up....then we started talking about sleeping medications and the need soldiers have for them. It struck me as strange after we both started to talk about being startle sleepers...I never thought that I would be able to have a conversation like that with a military person before. It is amazing how Mr.3 has changed my worldview. And while I am frustrated and angry alot with the current situation....I am grateful that I have been given the honor of being able to see this world, even with all of its craziness.

My question is, can you handle all of my moods? I am not sure if I can, and they seem to rule me.

I hope that Mr.3 can come home tomorrow. It would be nice to have him around again....although the transition will be difficult. I still would like to have him back.

I am in that awful transition state between being at work and finding my way to class. I can't focus on reviewing and I really don't want to go...but you kinda have to if there are only 10 people in the class.

I typed with Mr.3 today for about 20 minutes. He says that he is due to be released on Thursday. I don't know what time, or much specifics because he refuses to call me. It seems that rather than dealing with my disappointment at getting bad news from him...he decided that it would be better just to not call me at all. I guess that it is the "out of sight out of mind" mentality...which doesn't really work for a marriage.

I am furious with him. And I have every right to be. Him not calling me or arranging it so that I have little contact time with him is creating more frustration....but he seems determined to ignore things and hope that they will go away. You would think that by now he realize that things just don't go away like that....but then again, that is why we are in this position in the first place.

When I typed with him this morning he said that he would call me between his break from 11:30 to 12:30. Of course, no call. Then he has a break between 3:30 and 6...exactly when I am in class. So my only real hope for him to call me is after 8...which means that he will not call me at all tonight. And that angers me even more.

I am torn as to whether I should even bring my phone with me to class....this doesn't categorize as an emergency by any means. And I haven't yet figured out how to put my phone on silent...vibrate yes, but not silent.

I wish that this was easier.