Hard Times

Good morning y’all! I know that I have been remiss in writing, but things have been so hectic. I went to San Antonio yesterday for the eye doctor to do a visual field test so that the insurance would approve me having the eyelid lift surgery. They showed me how much better I would be seeing after the surgery. Wow, the difference is amazing. I will keep you posted on the progress and when I am supposed to have the operation.

I have shared with you about my second marriage and I know that it probably seemed like the worst time of my life. However, the darkest time in my life came after our divorce. I’m not real sure how to start this part but I know that I need to explain that I don’t see myself as the victim. I wasn’t a “victim” of domestic violence, I am a “survivor” of domestic violence. I didn’t always see it this way. For a long time, I thought of myself as a victim. You ask what the difference is? Well, for me, it is a state of mind.

After my second failed marriage, I felt such a hole in me that I needed to fill. I went looking for it in the only way that I knew at the time: MEN! I started going out to bars and drinking again. I did some really stupid things all because I was lonely. I was actually broken and didn’t know it. The emotional, mental, and physical abuse had taken a huge toll on me. I met a man who made me feel pretty and worthwhile again. I hadn’t felt like that in a long time. I got pretty attached to him very quickly. Too quickly! I didn’t know how to be alone, I didn’t like myself, so I didn’t want to be with myself alone.

It wasn’t too long after meeting this man, he bought some drugs. I knew what pot was and I had heard of other drugs but never seen them. He told me that I shouldn’t do them. But I wanted to do whatever he was doing (if that isn’t sick, I don’t know what is). So, I tried crack for the first time. Oh wow, the feeling it gave me. Again, I won’t go into the details of every time that I did drugs. I worked for a company that I did accounts payable, accounts receivable, and payroll. I’m guessing that you probably know where this is headed. I stole $20,000 from that company for drugs.

I don’t think that this was the lowest point! My lowest point was when I phoned my children’s dads and had them come pick up them under the pretense that I was sick. But I knew that I wasn’t taking care of them any longer. After the first time trying drugs, I think that I was trying to kill myself. I felt so much pain (not physical) and I didn’t know how to deal with it. At least with the drugs, I escaped all feeling.

I figured out that the company that I worked for knew that I had stole the money and I started to run and hide. Besides with drugs, there was a couple of times that I actually did try to kill myself. I felt trapped. I knew what I was doing was wrong, but I didn’t know how to get out of it. One day, the cops came pulling up and I didn’t even try to hide, which would have been possible. I was not just tired, I was exhausted physically, mentally, and emotionally. I was so ashamed of what I had done. I wouldn’t even contact my family. I did go see my children before this happened and told them what I had done and that I would be going away for a while.

All that followed was so scary to me. I won’t go into details about how all of the court stuff went. But I will tell you about how I felt. When I was put in jail and the bars closed for the first time, I had never felt so scared and alone in my life. I had seen movies but to experience it first hand was beyond words. I started reading books again and I lost myself in books. Again, I was trying to escape my reality. I started attending the church services. Growing up, I had been to church and I knew who Jesus was, but I don’t think that I ever understood anything. I started reading the Bible and I began to understand who He was and what He had done for me.

I wrote my children every week and I waited for the letters that I received from them. It was God and these letters that got me through this dark time in my life. I met some wonderful women thru this and I met some not so nice women who wanted nothing more than to tear you down. I ended up going to SAPF. They call this a rehabilitation and it is, but it is also a prison. At that time, it was a nine-month program. I have to say that I learned a lot about myself. They provided counseling and group therapy. I think that it helped me figure out why I was so broken and gave me the tools to help myself.

It has been almost 20 years since all of this happened and I haven’t touched any drugs. As a matter of fact, the only legal problems I have had is one speeding ticket. I will write what it was like when I got finished with all my legal issues and the trials that I went through in a later post. I think that this is a lot to ingest in one setting. Plus, why would you come back if I gave you all the details now? Lol    If there is one thing that I want you to take away from this story is that no matter what you are going through, you can “survive”!