When Life Hands you Big Bad Things

On Wednesday, my husband got a phone call from his dad. He stood up and walked around the living room, "My dad is calling."

"Answer it," I reply.

"No," he says, and he sits, staring at his phone. 

A few minutes later he reads a message his dad sent, that he has named him the beneficiary of a health savings account he has with a small amount in it, with instructions to divvy it up amongst the siblings if anything were to happen to him.

"It sounds like he's going to kill himself," I say. It's just a weird out-of-nowhere message. 

"No," he replies.

On Friday, I get home a little after 11 pm, walk in the door, and take a look at my husband. He looks like a mess. 

"What is it?" I ask him. I immediate start thinking about his brother with the drinking problem, maybe something happened to one of our boys. Panic.

"My dad killed himself."

He walks me through how he got a text message from his dad with his suicide note. I see the messages my husband sent in return. Pleading. Concerned. Desperate. 

His dad left the contact information for his ex, who happens to live in the same area, halfway across the country. He says he called her, he called his grandpa, no one knew what had happened, his dad wouldn't answer the phone, the police were dispatched for a "rescue" mission, and how he had gotten the news around 9 pm that his body had been found and he had been dead around a day.

His dad had a postmortem text sent to my husband with his suicide note.

I don't know how anyone deals with something like this. This isn't normal. This isn't ok. This is horrible. It's selfish. My husband and his siblings are a month away from mourning the loss of their mom to cancer 6 years ago and now they have to work out their feelings about their dad killing himself. 

He cheated on their mom. He abandoned them. He had a horrible drinking problem. His suicide note talks about how miserable he was, broke, lonely, how he should have never drank.

The siblings keep asking me when the funeral will be.

We met with my husband's grandparents. They live about 10 minutes from our new house. While upset over the death of their son (step-son for the grandma, since my husband's original grandma passed when he was 7), they said they have been expecting this call for awhile now. He's been a hard drinker for quite some time, unemployed, broke up with his one serious girlfriend he had after the divorce. He'd been hinting about it on facebook apparently. Could anyone have said anything to stop him?

My husband wishes he would have answered the phone call. He wishes he could have driven down there, picked him up, gotten him to see some hope. Would it have been enough to stop him from killing himself? Is it a darkness that would have crept back in eventually?

My sister-in-law told me that their dad called three of his children that Wednesday and not one answered. All emailed him back, but not one answered. To be fair, the majority of the time that my husband did answer the phone, his dad would be severely intoxicated, oddly rambling about stuff. What is it like to hear the slow descent into mental illness and addiction? I've only met the man maybe 4 times, once at our wedding. The other three times were when he came into town and took all of his children out to the bowling alley so he could drink while he hung out with them, the youngest sibling being a teenager.

When we met with my husband's grandparents, they said they want to tell people. They want everyone to know and talk about suicide and addiction. People keep quiet about it, about mental health issues. 

We can't even properly grasp the situation. A man has taken his own life. Can we even mourn it? He was a good dad sometimes, when they were young. He got lost in the grasp of addiction. It cost him his wife, his children, and eventually his life. Is it worth it? Is alcohol worth it? Are drugs worth it? Pornography, gambling, sex? Are any of these highs so fantastic that they are worth a life? Do you have a funeral to memorialize an addict? A philanderer? A man who abandons his children? He had no friends at the end, just him and an addiction. The addiction certainly won't come to the funeral.

I'm an outsider to all of these events. When my mother-in-law had cancer, I poured myself into helping, into trying to fix, into praying. But it didn't make me have any more of a right to be upset or feel a loss, because she wasn't my mother. I had her as a mother-in-law for about a year before she died. I mourned her for my husband, for the loss of a grandmother for the baby I was carrying, for all the things she could have been for me and my family. I mourned her for my husband. How do I mourn this man now? I barely met him. I would often run through conversations I would want to have with him, words I'd like to say if I ever had the chance to sit down with him, to discuss the impact he has had on my husband and his siblings. I won't get the chance now. My husband never got to say any last words. At least with his mother, we knew she was sick and that she had limited time. We had the chance to spend time with her, to make a few good last memories. 

And now I am left with a legacy of loss. My husband has inherited a strong cancer gene that killed one parent, and a strong mental health gene that killed another. My little boys have a quarter of each of those in them.

I am at a loss. I don't know how to deal with this.

My husband is in bed, sleeping. It is nearly 11 am. I can't tell him how to grieve. I don't know how I will one day process the death of either of my parents. I am lucky. I am privileged. 

I am left wondering if one day I will lose my husband to cancer or addiction.

One of his brothers has an arraignment next week to find out if he gets jail time for his 3rd DUI.

One of his siblings just got off parole for DUI and has completely changed her life.

One of his brothers just got diagnosed with mental illness and is trying to get out of the fog.

How do you even begin to wade through the process of coping with a suicide?

THIS PAST MONTH SUCKS

Ok, perhaps all caps is unnecessary.
But truly come on universe.

I sat down with a friend yesterday for a cup of coffee (and wine, whatever, don't judge) and told her all about my life lately.
It's incredibly jarring.
I hate opening up to people because it's just very depressing.

Not that my friend would have in a million years expressed that. But really, when you are dealing with some crappy things in your life, you hate to scatter your crap everywhere. I almost want to lie or just omit the truth because it brings others down.

"How are you?!"
"My husband lies to me about his drinking!"
"Whelp see ya later."

See? Not very fun.

"How's the job hunt?"
"I've applied to over 30 jobs in the last 2 months and the only people who want to hire me offer $10/hour. I can't get a babysitter for that."

Or even more fun,
"How are your kids?"
"You mean the one that I just miscarried or the two that have been clinging to a respiratory virus for the past 3 weeks keeping us homebound?"

Who wouldn't want to hang out with me?

And I keep buying wine with the expectation of partially drowning my sorrows but then my damn husband drinks it all before I can.

I told my friend I want to start a church for broken people, for honest people.
I'm tired of fake.
I'm tired of lying.
I'm tired of people acting like everything is grand so they don't give a bad image to Christianity.
Well guess what? Anyone can have crap happen to them- good people, bad people, saints or satanists. It is inhuman to smile while suffering. That's why it's called suffering. Isn't it better to reach out to people instead, to say "I am hurting" and "I need help" instead of pushing them away and trying to rely on your own strength?
Whatever, I should take my own advice.
Instead I have been hibernating in my house so as to not cough on people, wondering if the bleak winter will swallow us whole for another 4 months, and whether or not I will reemerge with the will to try this all again, to put myself out there, to have hope.
I'm not suicidal. I'm not depressed. I'm just slowly being drained of optimism.

What I am, apparently, is a product of a controlling household. Who married a control freak. Who can't do anything without being told what to do or how to do it.
I ask God for guidance and have no way to proceed.
I'm in a maze and paralyzed by indecision.
I'm a bad metaphor.

I also saw a psychiatrist who said I don't fit any of the classifications for disorders. So I'm just anxious and depressed enough to be a joy to be around (ask my husband who leaves work early to go drink and not be around me), while not being quite crazy. He suggested some drugs for me but I cannot cope with side effects at this stage of my crazy. He suggested yoga.

Here I go trying yoga.

I Had a Miscarriage

I've been mulling this one over in my head for awhile. Usually, while I am cleaning or cooking or trying to sleep, I write letters in my head. I've always been too in my own head. When I was young it was dreaming up what I would say to someone I had a crush on, how to win friends and influence people. Now, it's angry words, diatribes, apologies, soap-boxes. This past week, I have been trying to find purpose in what seems purposeless.

I found out about 3 weeks ago that I was pregnant.
I found out a week ago that I was miscarrying that baby.
I've gone through about every emotion I can imagine in the past three weeks.
On September 1st, due to extreme user error on my husband's part, we had a condom malfunction.
Shit, I thought, I am pregnant now. No way, said my husband, reasoning that I had just finished my period like three days earlier.
But I knew better.
His family has a fertility problem. They are way fertile. Like way way fertile.
And so I took tests. Probably too many tests, all said negative. And finally on the 17th I got a pregnant result. Even though I suspected I was pregnant, it blew my mind. I had decided firmly against having any more children. I had been bugging my husband to get a vasectomy (its outpatient for guys, in-patient for girls, plus I've already had enough pain associated with that region of my body thank you very much). And now I was pregnant again. My husband was overjoyed. Maybe I will finally get a girl, I thought.
This had to be a gift from God. We used protection (even if used poorly), I was no where near ovulating (at least so I thought), and here I was pregnant anyway. God must have great things planned for this baby.



The reactions from many friends and family were not great.
I got asked if I had considered the day-after pill.
I was asked if I was pro-life.
I got asked if this meant my husband and I were staying together now.
Maybe this is a similar reaction that many people get, but it was jarring. I wasn't proclaiming- I'm pregnant what should I do? Instead I was saying I'm pregnant.
I'm not throwing everyone under the bus. Many people were excited or feigned excitement. That definitely helped get through the bad reactions.
Now I was rearranging all of my life plans, as one would when faced with a life-changing decision. Baby names, how to procure baby items similar to what I had just finally cleared out of the basement and donated, midwife appointment, sleeping arrangements for three kids instead of just two.

And just like that, it was all over.

Normal spotting turned into bleeding. I called my midwife, and her secretary walked me through what to expect with a miscarriage. She had just suffered one at around 6 weeks, like me. Not like me, I thought. This is not what is happening. This is just from stress.

Stress? Oh you mean like your family member coming out of detox, which set you and your husband back $1350, only to drink himself near death for the following 11 days. The phone call that you have to hurry home so your husband can go check on him, since he's incredibly intoxicated worrying about people trying to kill him if he doesn't place a bet. Your husband having to leave you to call the midwife and inquire about your bleeding so he can pick his family member up from the psych ward that he has checked himself out of, claiming he was never suicidal and his .37 BAC level was not a form of self-harm. Trying not to sob in front of your visiting friend and your children when you get the news that you are miscarrying, and your husband is at the pharmacy trying to get meds for his family member's DTs (but thank God that my friend was visiting. I'm sure she didn't thoroughly enjoy being in drama central while there was psych ward/drinking drama and miscarriages, but she was invaluable.).

Even when we were getting the ultrasound and the tech said there was nothing in my womb, when I got up from the table and noticed excessive blood on the sheet, my husband said he was still holding out hope. When I got the numbers back and my hCG level was 32 (what it would be, say, soon after conception), he said he was still hoping. I allowed myself the thought that maybe this was not happening. Two days later, I went in for more labs and the numbers came back at 14. That's when I stopped hoping.
This was happening.
Or is happening.
From the lack of anything in my womb, it happened weeks ago.
How long have I been kidding myself that I was pregnant?


Then came the fun task of telling everyone that I was no longer pregnant.
Now I understand why people wait til 12 or 13 weeks.
I had two healthy beautiful little boys. I'm lucky. Some women can't conceive. Some spend years trying to get pregnant, coping with miscarriage after miscarriage. If I had been 9 weeks or more, I'm told the pain of miscarrying would have been a lot closer to labor instead of a bad period. I'm lucky, I guess.

I don't feel very lucky. I feel messy. I have too many emotions. Mournful, angry, disappointed, embarrassed, bitter, relieved, guilt, pain. I can't sort through it. I didn't have the time to mourn it properly with my husband, as he was moving the belongings out of his family member's house, trying to clean it up so the girlfriend could get some security deposit back. It's kinda too late to mourn it now, as he's a guy and he's over it. His vasectomy has been scheduled for about a month now, and I definitely don't want to try again. I didn't want another kid, but having one taken from me has me wondering what I'm supposed to feel.

What's God's plan with all this?

Interventions and Co-opting the Story

My best friend and I had a discussion after September 11th about social media on that day. Everyone feels the need to state where they were when it happened (the attack on the Twin Towers, by the way), how they feel now, how great America is. The issue, my friend stated, is the co-opting of the story. Many people died. Their loved ones were directly impacted. One might say we were all impacted in a way, but it's really their story.
I've been thinking way too much about the co-opting of story. For example, I had anorexia pretty badly in 9th grade. It impacted my life. But my mother, while she didn't have anorexia, was deeply impacted by my eating disorder. Is she not allowed to have a say in the story of an eating disorder? If she wanted to write an article about how anorexia impacted her, it would be truthful as it is coming from her perspective, living with a daughter with a hidden eating disorder. What about people from my school? Could they claim they were impacted by my eating disorder, even though they weren't me, they weren't family, and they had little or nothing to do with me? Where do we draw the line of what is acceptable for impact, and what is not?

All this is muddle around to what I'm going through at the moment. It isn't my story. It's not in my day-to-day existence. But it is still impacting me greatly.
I have a family member who is a heroin addict.
Heroin.
That's pretty big. And apparently the face of heroin is no longer what it was when I was growing up, because this young man isn't what I would ever consider a heroin addict. And yet, here he is.
Is it co-opting his story to be upset? Or his ex girlfriend who has 3 kids with him, all under the age of 4? She has suffered the worst through all of this (and I'm sorry, I know addiction is a horrible illness, but it's an all-consuming selfish thing), having to pay for everything, going back to work like 4 weeks after she gave birth because she had no financial help from him. She knew about his drinking problem and guessed that he had a pill problem, but this whole heroin thing came out of nowhere and quickly escalated. She left as soon as she knew, as anyone would, but she's left living with one of her family members in a less-than-ideal situation because she has to work overtime just to pay her bills and provide her kids with food and daycare. She told me about finding the burnt spoons, the belt around his arm. I told my husband, who moved to swift action. I contacted their last involved relative, who wanted me to get everyone together for an intervention. I called around to clinics to find where he could go to detox, what the costs were, what options for financial help we could find.
This isn't my story, but I'm involved.
He doesn't know I'm involved. No one besides my husband and his girlfriend probably know that I'm involved. Maybe it's better that he doesn't. When my husband's mother was dying and I was pregnant with my first, I did everything I could. I was over at her house at least 3 times a week bringing her food, trying to clean up, paying her bills, running her business, knocking myself out. And I couldn't save her. She still died. Can I save him? Probably not. This isn't my family. Maybe it's better that I do what I can from behind the scenes.
That's not to say that I don't care. I care so much. While I'm cooking, cleaning, trying to get to sleep, I'm writing these epic letters in my head. What I would say to him. How I could help. Words that might just resonate and get him to clean up.
I can't stop.

I've seen my fair share of A&E's Intervention. I used to watch it every week. I would be filled with nausea and dread while watching it, regardless of the addiction. My heart ached for these addicts. My heart ached for their families. I saw what worked and what didn't. I don't know what will work, what words will influence him, and what will make him angry, make him feel unsupported, alone, hopeless. What if I wrote a letter that just pissed him off, or worse, made him feel like what right do I have to say anything to him.
And so I relay messages to my husband, try to get information about rehab, try to find supportive things to say.

But I have so little supportive things to say.

I'm mad.


Why do we keep getting hit with this crap? When does this family get cut some slack? Philandering, alcoholic, abandoning father, mother killed by cancer, history of family addiction. Great. Hooray. Like the Kennedy's but without any money. Much less romantic that way.

What do I say? What do I do?

What would you say, what have you said?