Hurting people, hurt people

I've always known this saying...."Hurting people, hurt people." But there is no greater lesson than experiencing it for yourself. I don't think it is any secret to anyone that I have pretty much completely abandoned church and many of those who call themselves "Christians." Yes, I know some of you reading this right now are already constructing an email in your head to me telling me how Christians aren't perfect, just forgiven. And I've heard it all before that at church, there are "No perfect people allowed." I've heard all of the little sayings such as "They're only human."

If you are a follower/reader of my blog, you know my story. You know what I have been through and you know what I have endured right along with my children. I have not been blogging much lately, let me finally explain why. When my divorce was final, I lost my health insurance and for me to get Obamacare, it was going to cost me $600.00 per month. I have spent about $200.00 this entire year on doctor visits and medicine. Anyway, since I lost my insurance, there was no way I could stay on the medication I was taking after my attempted suicide. I had been diagnosed with severe situational depression and PTSD. It is my belief that chemotherapy caused this depression and as I have said repeatedly in this blog, I have never been the same after taking chemotherapy. I have had doctors and psychiatrists completely agree with me and tell me it is their belief that chemo causes this as well.

I was doing really good off all the meds. I was actually very happy and proud of myself. It is nearing two years since my husband walked out on us. I started feeling like it was finally time to start dealing with it all emotionally. Just as I started to work on it, I fell into a very deep, dark, scary place. Worse than the place I was at when I attempted to take my own life. Only those VERY close to me, which are very few, knew what was going on. I spent every minute of every day not wanting to live life and being very angry with God that he allowed me to live. Enduring 60 seconds of life was excruciating for me. If you have never struggled with this, you will not under any circumstances understand it.

Since he left, I have cried just a little, a handful of times, over the entire situation. At this time, I didn't realize I had sunk right back into severe depression again. I spent 5 entire days straight unable to stop crying and couldn't even keep it together in public.

When I was like this before, I did not tell a single soul and I never, ever cried. No one, and I mean NO ONE, knew how bad I was. No one knew I thought of death as my friend, the only thing that could possibly bring me relief.

I have always been very skeptical of anyone who tells people they want to kill themselves because I have always thought it was for attention. I now know first hand that that might not always be the case. This time, I knew I needed to reach out to someone. THANK GOD, I have one very faithful and true friend left. I haven't known her too long, only a few years if that. But I knew I had two options on this particular day. I could end my life or I could make a phone call. That day was the beginning of my downward spiral that led up to all the crying.

As I got worse, I had some very disturbing things happen to me by someone who has never been dearer to my heart than any other soul. I have been accused, slandered, belittled, humiliated, gossiped about, lied about, and there isn't enough space here for me to continue. And yes, this not only happened to me, but to another person as well. Both of us at the time were extremely depressed, seeing a life-coach and seeing a psychiatrist. When I got wind of the first bombshells, it was on a day I spent trying to talk myself out of jumping off a damn bridge. This also came on a day this other person was fighting suicidal thoughts. Had it not been for me and my newer friend being able to talk so frank and openly that day, I believe I for sure might not be here today and who knows what would have happened to her all due to someone else's ignorance.

So hurting people, hurt people? Words cut very deep. If you claim to be a Christian or anyone I guess for that matter and you are hurting people, please remember that you have literally NO idea what someone is going through. Something you do or say could send someone over the complete edge and all for what? I wish I knew the answer. My suggestion is that if you give a damn about anyone, pray for them in your OWN prayer closet. You know why there even IS a prayer closet? So you and GOD and you two only can hash things out. If you go to any other person and tell them something all so they can "pray" for the person, it is only pure gossip and is straight from the pit of hell. This behavior causes more and more people daily to end their relationship with church, church people and potentially their very own lives.

 This is a VERY SERIOUS matter!!!!

I don't let too many people get close to me and I'm guessing I never will after this experience. But the good news is, I am back on medication and although it was about three weeks of complete mental hell, I feel like I am back to my old self. I have a new friend who was very helpful to me during the darkest of those days. If you feel suicidal, please reach out to someone. I had a couple of friends, my sister, the lady I live with and my adopted sister that I reached out to for the first time about this issue. People suffer in silence. Why? Because so few understand or know what to do. But you know what? Every single time I got up enough courage to call one of these individuals it helped me get through another day. One friend and my sister were able to just listen as I told them I did not wish to live life. They listened as I bawled my eyes out like they had never witnessed me do before. They listened with love and without judgement. They prayed with me and for me. They didn't go share my issues with other people or in their weekly "Prayer meeting." To those people, YOU are the ones who give me hope that there are still genuinely good people in the world. Don't be alarmed, I have a very close relationship with God and I always will have. He will never abandon me, nor I him. He alone is the only constant and faithful friend until the end of time.

I know these people were very scared for me. Hell, I was terrified of myself. I felt like I was a danger to myself. But I know for a fact that if I had not had them to talk to, I probably wouldn't be writing this blog today.

I hate having to take medication. I hope it is not something I will have to do forever. But, it is a must for now. I cannot be ashamed of it. And, I think that there are too many people just like me out there that need for this to be talked about. I guess my biggest message to anyone out there today is that sometimes, suicidal people don't take their own lives....it's someone else's cruelty that actually pulls the trigger.

 DON'T BE THAT PERSON!!

A life should be honored and valued while the person is still living, not after they are gone. Some consequences for mistakes made are totally and completely permanent. Sometimes, there are NO take-backs.

I am a Lover Not a Fighter! ..........medical update included

Deryl says........................................... Well the last two days have pretty much sucked emotionally. I was feeling an overwhelming sadness yesterday that I could not really tie to any one thing. The frustrating thing is that it has been almost two weeks since we were given the "c" word diagnosis and we barely know more than we did then. Although we have had some positive news there is still so much potential negative news it is overwhelming. There are so many results to wait for before a meaningful decision can be made with regard to treatment. It is almost too much to take in. And if it is overwhelming to me I cannot imagine how difficult it is for Kelley. I mean it is her body that they are talking about removing parts from.

I believe that ultimately God will use this situation for good. As I mentioned before I can already see some good coming out of this situation. But I am afraid for my wife. I am sad that she has to go through this. I am fearful of how much she may have to suffer. I want to FIX IT! But I am helpless against this disease. I cannot fight it or kill it. I cannot protect her from it. It makes me feel weak and sad and hurt. I don't want her to have to go through this. I don't want to go through this. But we are already on the train and it is too late to jump off.

On your wedding day most people are so full of love, hope and excitement. In our vows many say "in sickness and in health" as Kelley and I did. I don't know about you but I didn't give those words much consideration. I never saw cancer in our future back then. But it is times like this when you really find out what kind of relationship you have with your spouse. If you have true love for your wife. I am not talking about romantic "you complete me" type of love. I am talking about looking at the worst case scenario. Knowing that she could lose her breasts, lose her hair, and need to be waited on hand and foot for a long time. And then saying to yourself "I am grateful for the opportunity to show my wife how much I truly love her." and really being able to demonstrate it. I mean how often does someone get to prove their love in a way that leaves no doubt. So when this is all said and done and the cancer has been vanquished forever. My wife will be able to look at me and know I truly love her for who she is. But that kind of love is not something that just happens or that we developed because of some special knowledge or skill. It is the love and the grace of God that allows me to accept this situation and love my wife as I do. I am just loving my wife the way God loves me.

I have a great family around me. And I am not just talking blood relatives only. Many old and new friends have already been there for us before we were even able to ask. That makes it hard to stay sad for very long. It will be nice when we are able to have a day without thinking or talking about cancer. Who knows when that will come? In the mean time I plan to stay positive and lean on my family and friends so my wife can lean on me. So how can I complain when we have all these wonderful people around us? So at least I got that going for me? ......which is nice.

Kelley has an MRI tomorrow. They will be looking for any possible additional tumors. They may also be able to tell if there is any cancer in her lymph nodes from the MRI. We may have a change in the date of her surgery because we probably won't get the genetics test back before the surgery at this point. The genetics test will help determine if she has a lumpectomy or a double mastectomy. I will let everyone know what the new date is when it is scheduled if it changes.

I am Joining the Pink Mafia!

Deryl says........................................................... You know there are so many things about this situation that you could call bad. But we really don't know if something is good or bad while we are in the midst of it. We say this situation is bad because that is how it feels right now. But I can already see some good coming out of it. I see Kelley becoming willing to cut loose a little more than she did before. She is letting go of the little things that seemed important before but really weren't. I have a greater appreciation for her. I have always loved her and have been grateful to have her. But it almost seems as if I had been taking her for granted recently. I feel more love and gratitude now than ever to be her husband. It makes me wonder why, if I was capable of greater love and gratitude, did it take something like this for me to realize it?
I had a really good week. I felt really hopeful and positive. When Kelley had a emotional moment I just felt so much love for her in those moments. I know God was giving me His strength in those moments. And I knew that we could handle whatever was thrown at us. We have so much support around us from family and friends. And I know that we are loved so deeply by God and those around us. It carries all of us.
But today was a downer for me most of the day. I was sad and could not seem to pull out of it. At one point I could feel a good cry welling up within me but never had the opportunity to let it go. I have a feeling it will be returning at some point. Hopefully I will be somewhere that I can let it loose. It's funny how not too long ago I would feel like a little girl if I wanted to cry but now I don't really care. I mean I am not about to do it at work or in a real public place but pretty much anywhere else I would be OK with it. Which is a major improvement for me. I realize keeping all that emotion bottled up is not good for me.
I do feel as if I over react sometimes when the girls argue with one another. At moments I feel really angry that they won't put aside the petty things they argue about. I want to say things like can't you get along for your mother's sake. Thank goodness I haven't let something like that slip out of my mouth. I have to take a few deep breaths and remember that they are going through this as well and no matter how good they seem to be handling it they have a lot of emotions about what is happening. I do feel guilty at times because I spend so much time thinking about Kelley and what she is going through I forget they are having struggles. They are such wonderful girls. I wish I was better at being there for them. Maybe through this I can learn to show them how I care better than I have in the past. That would be a positive from this negative situation.
I titled this post "I am Joining the Pink Mafia" because I want to kill breast cancer. However, I am thinking we might be better served promoting health and prevention. In many case we can kill breast cancer. But the treatment seems to be almost as scary as death. I know that we are so much more than our physical bodies. But for a woman to lose her breasts, her hair and suffer all the sickness and pain to kill that cancer is an incredibly taxing emotional and physical toll. I have been doing a lot of research about breast cancer and one of the most notable links is a high fat and low fiber diet. The US has the highest incidence of breast cancer in the world and the highest fat intake per capita in the world. Let's eat a little more fruit, a little less meat and french fries, and "Save the Ta Tas".