The Darkness Begins

It's a little strange to be writing about this now.  I recently promoted this blog to friends and family after having it for quite awhile and not posting much.  I think I had visions of being famous online but not in real life  Like I could have this successful blog where people across the country and around the world would know who I was, but my real life friends and family wouldn't.  It's a little intimidating now to write out my darkness when I know my mom or friend from playgroup might read it.  But I'm going to write it anyway because I think it's important both for catharsis and for shedding some light on darkness, so hopefully someone else can read this and know they aren't alone in their darkness and to give them hope that there just *might* be a way out.  I'm going to break this down further than I initially intended or I fear it'll be too long and too heavy.

So if you ask me where it all began, it's hard to say.  I remember a definitive shift after Squirrely Girl was born.  I felt like I went into a fog transitioning to 2 kids and never really came out.  Then we started some major work on our house, Handsome enlisted in the National Guard, and then was gone for 8 months for his BCT and AIT.  A few weeks after he left I found out I was pregnant with Boy Blue while we were living at my parents' house for 5 weeks during the drywall phase of our remodel.  Eventually we moved back home and then the stresses of the army ensued.  Threats of not graduating, an 8 week holdover in Missouri for one simple doctor's appointment, the army dropped our orders and didn't pay us for a month, and then he barely made it home in time for Blue's birth.  He only made it because I got ahold of an ombudsman who got things moving for us.  Really it was more than 2 years of constant stressors that really got the ball rolling.

You see, I learned shortly after Monkey Boy was born that it's easy to ignore the needs of a spouse or partner because the needs of a baby are so much louder.  I learned early on to make it a point to not ignore Handsome, to connect with him and do things together.  While it's easy to silence the needs of a spouse, it's even easier to silence your own needs.  And for years I have ignored myself.  I have powered through multiple remodels, growing, birthing, and nursing 4 children, another stressful spring, months of separation from my husband, drill weekends, and weekly drill at the local fire department.  There was only a short time where I had any consistent time away, space to do what I wanted because I wanted to and not because someone else needed it.  Then he left for BCT and I was alone again.  And all the while I thought I was just fine, trucking along and being strong.  Until I just wasn't.

I think this is from where my darkness sprung.  The seeds of were planted in solitude, watered by marriage too often neglected, sprinkled with misunderstanding, and more solitude.  I was the glue that held our family together, and all of a sudden I was becoming unglued.