Living in a Nightmare:
The month is October, the year 2005 and you’ve begun to notice some irregularities. You’re feeling incredibly tired, even after long hours of sleep. Your energy levels are the lowest they’ve been since your last pregnancy and you’re feet and hands are tingling for hours on end. You’re starting to get concerned, very concerned. You talk to your husband, but again he’s no help, too concerned with his own world to even bother with someone else. With the encouragement of some friends, you take the journey to the doctors, hoping for the best, but trepidation and fear sour your thoughts.
After months of tests, MRI’s and CAT scans, the news isn’t good. It’s not the worse thing that could have happened, your son is quick to remind you, but there’s no other way to feel about it; you’ve been diagnosed with MS, multiple sclerosis and you’re devastated. A feeling of helplessness and fear courses over you, what will this mean for me? I have 4 young sons and a husband who works full time, how am I going to survive? Who’s going to help? What the hell am I going to DO!
Fortunately or unfortunately as the case may be, you’re shuffled off to hospital almost immediately. There you are administered steroids to help suppress your ailing immune system, hopefully preventing further damage to the nervous system. As unpleasant as the situation is, the knowledge that this is the best thing for your children is what keeps you going, even if your husband has yet to make a meaningful attempt to visit you yet.
Finally, the day has come and you are released from hospital, not felling rejuvenated as such, but the knowledge that you can finally see the kids today has you impatiently on edge and encourages you to at least attempt feeling better. As you arrive at mums to pick up the kids, you’re greeted by tears rather than smiles, sad faces welcoming you to the devastating revelation that your grandmother has had a heart attack and is currently in hospital. To think, last year she and you picked out a burial plot as a joke, thinking back on this has you bursting with tears.
Christmas and New Years blur together, neither important nor relevant, all you can think about is grandma and how you can’t go and see her because of this stupid MS. As you sit anxious in your home, you’re greeted by some good news, grandma’s surgery was successful and she is expected to make a full recovery. Words cannot express your gratitude, but tears of happiness say everything. These tears of joy, soon turn to sorrow, pneumonia has claimed the life of your grandma and you couldn’t say goodbye.
As the grief sets in, the months fly bye, the struggle of coping with it all at once is difficult, but thanks to the kids, you’re able to find some sense of worth and meaning. Your husband on the other hand is becoming worse, spending more time by himself and widening the gap between you both, hostility replacing his usual passive demeanor. This comes to a head close to Christmas, when he and you orally spar in a crowded car ride home, culminating in him promising to never be considerate or compassionate again to you and your family, though it’s hard to remember when he was ever like this.
As 2007 begins, your husband quits work, claiming his previously undiagnosed bipolar disorder prevents him from working, though these sporadic acts are becoming less surprising. As the year stretches on, you find yourself learning to cope with your MS sufficiently, though your husband has become unresponsive, lying on his mattress on the floor, never straying to far, never accomplishing anything. As your patience grows thin with the increasingly sedentary monster he is becoming, you confront him about his behavior, begging him to try to at least accomplish something, anything. As he flies into a blinding rage, he storms from the home, screaming and ranting, right in front of two of your children.
Moments later, the phone rings, it’s him and he’s threatening suicide. As you and the children sob and beg for him to reconsider, he hangs up, leaving you all stuck, hopelessly trapped by fear and guilt. Have I caused this, is this my fault? He later calls back, admitting that he could not go through with it, but the trauma has been set and yet again, all he can think of is himself. As he leaves to go to hospital, you cannot help but feel emotionally empty, drained by the awful events that have occurred.
After this incident, you both decide that you cannot be together anymore. You feel guilty, as if you’re abandoning him, but this is for the children not him and is truly the best course of action. As 2008 goes by, you try living life on your own, attempting to date and just trying to move on. While not exactly working, you start to feel better, your ex-husband is paying monthly support and you feel as if you can move on, finally moving to a better place after years of hardship. This good fortune however, does not last into the new year, as your ex-husband has become incredibly possessive, finding out you attempted dating, with your realizing he never moved on.
In demonic fury, he removes funds completely and vacates to a new home, leaving you with nothing to sustain you or your family of 5 on. These horrible events scar you and the children, forcing you into the workforce, forcing you to sell the home and causing you to fall below the poverty line, while he hides away, still expecting sympathy. As the overwhelming sadness sets in, you are comforted by the knowledge that you still have your children, giving you the strength to continue fighting.
As this story comes to a close, I would like to reveal that the women in the story was my mother and all the events that happened are true. Thanks to my mother throughout these event, my brothers and I have always had a stable and loving base, keeping us happy when times were glum and giving us the best role model possible for our lives. Though what happened was horrible, our lives have improved over the years and the events of the past are nothing but memory. While the past was tragic, the future brings new hope and great pleasure and I look forward to embracing it with open arms and an untroubled mind.
Caden Reid: s4264905
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