Wow. I totally vanished, didn’t I?
So much has happened in my life since I posted here last. I’m going to need to go back and re-read my own blog to figure out where I left off in order to do a full update.
To make a long story short, I was fired from my job at the church this summer which is pretty much the whole reason I vanished for so long. It set off all my PTSD symptoms and I’ve pretty much spent the past four months recovering from the shock and looking for a new job.
Essentially I was fired because the pastor didn’t want to work around my PTSD. If I’d been smart, I would’ve kept detailed notes about things he said to me over the last couple of months that I worked at the church … I’m sure I would’ve had grounds for a lawsuit based on being fired because of my disability.
But I wasn’t smart and didn’t keep notes because I kept trying to be optimistic that he wouldn’t really be that cold-hearted and fire me because he didn’t want to accommodate my PTSD into his crappy management style. I was actually going to put in a request for accommodations when it came time for my next performance review … but he was smart and fired me before I could request the accomodations.
He actually lied to the church board about why I was fired. He told them that I was about to quit anyway (which he knew for a fact I wasn’t!) and he told them that he wanted to make certain I’d qualify for unemployment payments. Well, much to his surprise, non-profits (like churches) don’t have to pay into unemployment … so I didn’t qualify anyway! The church Board decided to give me a generous severance package in lieu of unemployment (but I’m sure that fact just burned him up when they wanted to take care of me … he just wanted to kick me to the curb).
To put it simply, the pastor is an ass. Short and sweet. And you know what else? He killed the church! Seriously! It’s closing officially in two weeks. I knew months and months ago that his agenda was to the kill the church … I tried numerous times to see if I could meet with the church Board and warn them about his plans, but I kept being told that he would have to be present at any meetings of the Board since he’s the Moderator of the Board.
It’s all been just plain crazy. I know this is incredibly disjointed, but I hadn’t really thought out how to talk about what’s been happening when I started typing. I’ll try doing a more comprehensible update later.
Oh, and on another note, I start training for a new job on Monday. My serverance package had just run out, so it’s not a moment too soon! Pray for continued health for me as I start the new job (my family’s been sick the past couple of weeks).
Life. Never a dull moment, huh?
Tips for Significant Others
I stumbled upon this blog post about tips for the Significant Others (SO’s) of people with DID (Dissociative Identity Disorder). Wow. These “tips” were so difficult for me to read. It almost triggered a full on panic attack just browsing this list:
http://servngu.wordpress.com/2009/04/07/tips-for-significant-others-of-multiples/
I know the person who wrote it meant to be helpful. But try to read it from the perspective of what it’d be like to be actually married to what’s being described. All the lying, mind games, confusion, sexual difficulties, cheating. Being the SO of someone with this disorder is enough to almost cause a similar disorder in the SO. It definitely caused the PTSD in my own life.
As difficult is it is for me — being the SO of someone with this diagnosis — imagine being the children of this sort of thing! I’m going to attend a seminar next month called “Childhood Lost” which is about helping churches be helpful to the children of parents with mental illness.
I definitely feel like my kids have lost much of their childhood to this horrible and confusing situation with their dad. They had to grow up so fast. They’ve dealt with issues that most adults have never even had to grapple with before.
Anyway, I hope you visited that link. I’m off to do some deep breathing and regain my calm and composure.
… just keep swimming, just keep swimming …
~Betty
Not sure I can talk about this, but here goes …
One of the most difficult things I’ve needed to work through in my whole crazy situation is something I don’t find myself able to talk about with anyone. Not friends. Not my pastor. Not anybody.
Since I haven’t really been able to talk about it, I’m not even sure I know how to write about it, but I just started thinking today that maybe this would be a fairly safe place to work through some of those issues (especially since I only have a couple of regular readers so I won’t have to worry about an onslaught of advice, etc.), either.
Where do I start?
One of the symptoms my husband experienced was that he would have “problems” sexually. Sometimes he would space out entirely (that’s the dissociative disorder kicking in), or he’d become unable to perform (that’s the frontal lobe dementia), or it’d just become icky or scary or nasty (hard to explain).
Anyway, I was coming from a world where a wife “biblically” had no right to ever say “no” to her husband sexually. It was all in the name 0f submission, basically.
So no matter what sort of problems he was having or what he was doing to me or how dissociated he became, I thought it was God’s will for me to submit to it all. To the point of injury. To the point of rape. To the point of a living hell.
Honestly, sometimes it seemed almost like God was raping me. Isn’t that a horrible thing to say?! But that’s how it started to seem. God wanted me to submit to my husband no matter what. My husband was essentially raping me. But I had no right to say no. It was literally my nightly hell on earth. I would lie in bed with tears steaming down my face, thinking that if I were a good Christian, I had to lie there and take it. No matter what “it” was.
I knew he was no longer in control of himself in this area of his life, so I didn’t blame him for it, but it was so horrible to think it was God’s will for me to endure such abuse night after night.
To top it all off, I found out after years (years!) of this going on that because of the dementia and the dissociative stuff, my husband had no memory of us having sex at all, so he thought I’d been holding out on him all that time!!!! It was such a nightmare!
I finally told my counselor (a decent Christian man) what was happening. He told me that under no circumstances would he, as a man, ever want his wife to endure what I’d been suffering and that he knew for a fact that my husband (the man he was before the problems essentially took him from me ) would’ve never wanted me to experience that nightmare, either.
So my counselor basically gave me permission to say, “No.” To stop submitting to all the nonsense and abuse and non-functional weirdness that my husband didn’t even remember.
But so much damage had already been done to my spiritual life, it’s been a struggle ever since. Trying to sort out the fundamentalist stupidness that I’d been taught from the truth of Scripture and the true heart of God has been a never-ending journey of pain and discovery for me.
I never realized that my faith had become toxic.
But it was killing me emotionally, mentally, spiritually and even doing a lot of physical damage, as well.
Okay, I have to stop typing now. I feel like I’m about to have a full blown panic attack as I’m thinking about these things. Need to go breathe and get my head about me again.
I’ll be back … probably.
~Betty
He’s moved on. But what about me?
Since my husband and I had to separate homes because of his abusive behavior resulting from an early onset dementia and a severe mental illness, he’s found himself a girlfriend.
How she can put up with his crazy behavior, I’ll never know … but maybe by not living under the same roof with him, she doesn’t see it the same way I did. He can actually control himself for brief periods of time (maybe a couple of hours at a time) so just having a girlfriend rather than a full-time wife and family might work out better for him in many ways.
Now … where does that leave me? I’ve been married to him for nearly 30 years. We have three children together. I’ve been true to him the entire time of our marriage (even during our separation the past couple of years). I took a vow before God … “til death do us part.”
But according to many people, infidelity is Biblical grounds for divorce.
But what if the infidelity is committed by someone who’s lost their sense of right and wrong as my husband has? What if the person isn’t able any longer to discern truth and error, right and wrong, sin and righteousness?
Because I know he’s not capable of staying true to his former moral code, I actually don’t feel jealousy or anger at the situation. It just makes me sad for him, sad for our kids … and even sad for the other woman who’s gotten involved with something frightening that I know she has no clue about.
We’re still married. He’s still working and providing child support for our two youngest kids (our oldest is 21 so no longer subject to child support stuff) … and medical insurance (for me and the two younger kids).
But he hardly ever sees us anymore. He nearly always spends his weekends elsewhere (guess where?) and never sees us during the week. He won’t allow us to come visit him at his apartment anymore (why? who knows … is he hiding something?).
Other than the medical insurance I receive as his wife, there are really no benefits whatsoever to being married (our taxes are even higher because we’re “married filing separately” now which is taxed at a much higher rate).
And the reality is, I’m still fairly young … and VERY lonely. With no hope as a “married” woman of ever moving on, relationship-wise, as long as he’s alive.
I’ve talked with two pastors indepth about my situation and both have said that they think my case is unique and definitely would fall under Biblical grounds for divorce.
But it still confuses me.
The other marraige vow was: “In sickness and in health.” His infidelity is caused by sickness. So is it really infidelity? Is it really grounds for divorce? Would it be abandoning him?
But it’s not like he’d be alone. He’s already fully involved with someone else. I feel almost like by sticking this thing out, it’s like I’ve chosen to be part of a polygamous (sp?) marriage. And it makes me feel dirty. Which is such a bummer because I’m not the one doing anything wrong.
My kids have actually told me that they think I should divorce him so we can all move on with our lives.
Weird situation, huh?
~Betty
Wow … I just hate PTSD
If things keep going the way they are, I think my PTSD is going to end up costing me my current job. While they can’t fire me for having a disability, if the disability keeps me from doing my job adequately, they can let me go (or so my boss told me this week).
Anyway, my latest performance evaluation didn’t go well at all … the things that were dealt with about my performance either had to do with PTSD reactions … or had to do with some memory glitches that my boss is having. I think he might be having some sort of early dementia issues; he’s even been needing to go to the doctor for tests because of his memory problems so I know it’s not my imagination that he’s forgetful.
Dealing with someone with memory issues is too close to what I’ve dealt with in the abusive stuff in my marriage that brought on the PTSD in the first place (my husband’s problems were caused by a combination of an early onset dementia and a severe mental illness).
When my boss has his memory glitches, it triggers many of my PTSD symptoms. This week I realized that the only time I need to take anti-anxiety meds anymore is when I know I’m having a meeting with my boss. I don’t even need the meds anymore when I deal with my husband’s issues (not even when he’s at his worst).
So whether I end up getting fired for an inability to follow through on a few of my job requirements due to the PTSD … or if I end up needing to find a new job because of my boss’s memory glitches that trigger all my anxiety-related symptoms … either way, the PTSD could cost me my job.
Just ranting a bit … probably not even making much sense. lol
Off to a meeting with a friend from work who’s also dealing with crap from this same boss. We both decided we needed a shoulder to cry on (or maybe just someone to rant with for awhile). 😉
Later …
“Betty”
KEEPER of the home
I stumbled upon these blog entries awhile back and I just now found them again. This is definitely worth reading if anyone’s facing a situation like I was … in the midst of an abusive marriage but trying to struggle with finding practical ways to live out Biblical mandates such as “submitting” to your husband and being a “keeper at home.”
http://hupotasso.wordpress.com/titus-2/keepers/
It definitely puts a different spin on things from what I usually hear or read in the Funadamentalist and Evangelical circles I’ve travelled in most of my adult Christian life.
I just love Biblical word studies. 🙂
“Betty”
Random thoughts
I’ve spent so much time the past few years researching the strangest things — things I never dreamed would ever touch my life.
Multiple personality disorder? Yeah, right. It seems unbelievable that I could be married to someone for more than 25 years without knowing they had something like that going on (but it sure explains a lot). 😦
Frontal Lobe Dementia? Who knew that after watching my mother-in-law succumb to its ravaging effects, that I’d then see the early signs of the very same incurable, progressive, degenerative fatal brain disorder in my husband before his 45th birthday.
Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder? Of the four of us living at home (myself and my three teenage/young adult children), two of us have full-blown PTSD, complete with panic attacks, medication, etc. And the other two have some PTSD symptoms although not as fully developed or debilitating.
According to the standard issued by the Social Security administration, my PTSD has caused me to become 50% disabled. Technically I probably shouldn’t even be working right now, but how else will I feed myself and the younger kids?
I simply can’t afford to be disabled right now. Maybe in six years when my youngest goes off to college (hopefully with the help of financial aid!), then I can take some time to have fulfledged breakdown.
But in the meantime, I really have no choice but to just keep on keeping on.
It’s amazing to me when I think about the family history that led us to this strange place in life where we find ourselves.
Umpteen years ago (don’t know exactly when), my husband’s father was sexually abused as a child. Well, as they say, hurt people hurt people … so that hurt little boy grew up to systematically abuse and rape his own three boys.
One of those boys was my husband who developed the ingenious coping mechanism of dissociating during the abuse, removing himself mentally from the situation to protect himself in the only way he could. Hence the development of his DID (“Dissociative Identity Disorder” aka Multiple Personality Disorder).
Then the family history of Frontal Lobe Dementia decided to rear its ugly head in my husband, leaving an already hurt and mentally ill man to find himself unable to control his impulses, thus allowing the DID to basically take over his life. Rather than being the coping mechanism to allow him to stay “sane,” the DID became the controlling factor in his life as he started “switching” almost at random. And then without the use of impulse control anymore, he became violent and abusive to myself and our three children.
So now he’s dying as his brain literally deteriorates. It could go quickly … or it could be a long drawn out process. Currently he’s still able to function at work (he’s done the same job for 20+ years and it’s all routine for him), but at any moment he could become unable to work or drive or live on his own.
What happens then is anybody’s guess.
What a long strange trip it’s been (and continues to be).
“Betty”
- Next: Keeper of the Home
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