Mental Health Friday #18

“I felt as though I were standing in a box and the box kept getting smaller. Every time I felt ok, something happened that would knock me around again.”

The above is an excerpt from my last post. During this time, my emotional reaction was intense. The people in my life that I had always been there for, left me feeling completely worthless to everyone. Being badgered about my medications made me feel as though it didn’t matter what I did or said, and it didn’t. I was intensely hurt, and intensely angry. I can’t say how horrible those couple of years were, but I can say it was never as bad as being with my ex-husband.

When I first left, my physical state was one where I could not safely walk an eighth of a mile by myself for worry that my legs would give out on me. I had trouble with depth perception, balance and coordination. From the start, every time I was with John and I was in pain, he would ask me to go for a walk. I found that walking made the pain better and I began to walk everyday. At this point I was medication free.

That winter, I went back to my doctor once my insurance was all set and I got back on the medication. This only lasted a couple of days before I was unable to stand up. I was extremely dehydrated and my body was not breaking down the medications. I knew it was my liver. I went to the doctor’s three times over the next year and every time I was seen by a nurse. It took until July of 2015 to get an appointment with my doctor. Then they cancelled the appointment because the doctor had to take a month off. At that point, I made the decision to find a new doctor. Over the past few months, there have been a lot of doctor’s appointments and I have been in treatment for Hepatitis C for four weeks now.

In the spring of 2014, less than a year after I left my ex-husband, I got a phone call from a friend. I had known this woman for 18 years, although I had not seen her or talked to her since before the previous Christmas. When I answered the phone she asked me why I didn’t have a truck yet and I said I didn’t have the money. She said I should have had a job by then, that it had been over a year, (it hadn’t) I told her I was disabled and she told me that she sees people in wheel chairs bagging groceries. She said I was looking to blame someone for my life and when I asked why she was saying these things to me, she said because of the conversations she had had with me over the winter. I replied to that saying, “But I did not have a phone over the winter.” She insisted I talked to her on John’s phone, but that was never true. She had obviously spoken to someone else and was yelling at me for it. I tried to talk to her about this later on three different occasions, only to be told that she didn’t have time for it. I could not continue a friendship with this woman and it broke my heart. I did not, nor do I understand why she called me to say those things. Sometimes it is the not knowing that makes it the worst.

There are no words for me to describe the emotional destruction I felt over this period of time. I ached for my boys every day and I couldn’t understand why. My youngest son told me he didn’t care that I left, he didn’t miss me at all, that it was the way I left. I said nothing. At the time he told me he needed time and I gave him that. He lied and as I have mentioned in a prior post, he talked to me and manipulated me until after I signed papers saying I wouldn’t take his father’s money.

In August of 2014, I was at a breaking point. I felt as though I had no voice, it was as if I didn’t exist at all. No one would hear me. On my oldest son’s birthday in August, I took the picture my youngest son had given to me a couple of Christmas’ before and I brought it to him. On the back of it I wrote, “He showed me no mercy, you showed me no mercy, you threw me away like yesterdays trash, I don’t have mercy anymore.”

I wanted some one to hear how they had made me feel and my son was the one to hear the words, but he missed my voice. He stood in front of me and treated me just like his father does. I guess in essence, I trained my children to be this way. I trained them to treat me as nothing, because that is what they watched their father do for their entire lives. I don’t believe this will ever change.

What did change is the way I treat myself. The way I interact with people, or choose not to. I have been far too hurt to be careless with myself. As it is now, I am on very mild medications for Bipolar disorder, while going through treatment for Hep C. I have very few people in my life, but they are well chosen. I take care of myself, make sure I eat right and keep hydrated, because medications won’t do it all. I can’t stress enough how much exercise has helped me through all of this. I continued to walk and lift 5 pound weights throughout, until I was walking five miles a day and other exercise as well. I wouldn’t recommend that much exercise for anyone really, I wasn’t on medication at the time, it was necessary for me.

I live with John, the man that has helped me and been such a wonderful true friend. He has recently asked me to marry him and I have said yes. I have a couple of really good friends and one of my sister’s is now in my life again. I am happy and content with my life and looking forward to my future.

What I will always need to accept is that I am not now, nor will I ever be the same person that I was. I can love myself for who I am now though. Success is not becoming who I was, it is becoming who I want to be.

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Guest Writer: Trae from (TripleClicka.com). I’m honored to have Trae who’s been diagnosed with bi-polar disorder, participate, help spread mental health awareness and blur out stigma by sharing her story, here on Mental Health Friday. She’d be back in two weeks.

If you’d like to contribute and share your story on Mental health Friday, I’ld love to have you. You can contact me on My email address: mykahani@yahoo.com . Image credit: HealthyPlace.com