Emotional Roller Coaster

I can't even describe the emotions I am feeling right now: dread, fear, anxiety, stress, overwhelmed, heartbroken, confused, hopeful, and nervous, just to name a few.

I am heartbroken because I had to leave all my friends at the dorms, and go home. Instead of being in the lobby watching movies with people who I truly feel love and support me, I am home where I feel empty and alone. I feel the tensions in the air of parents that don't really love eachother, I feel the sting of each insult my dad makes, I feel completely alone. When I'm here, I know that if I'm upset or overwhelmed, I have no one to turn to. And that's a scary feeling. Because as much as I know that I need to learn to stand on my own two feet, I still don't know that I trust myself. The emotions are choking me and my whole body is fighting the urge to cut, or worse, to overdose again. What makes it worse is that I know I easily could. I have all my pills again, I have knives and razors in easy access, and I have no one to hold me accountable. I never really wanted to admit to myself that this is such a strong addiction, but it is. It seems to dominate a portion of my life and that's a really scary feeling. Sometimes I feel out of control, and if it weren't for the people at school God so lovingly placed in my life, I don't know that I would be able to stop myself. So being home is bittersweet.

I guess it might seem silly to feel like I'm leaving people when school is in Nampa and I'm in Kuna, but it truly is leaving my home. Home is a place where you feel love and supported, and where you have people you care about. To use the cliche, home is where you heart is. And I truly feel like my heart is at NNU. My family...is at NNU. And even though I don't live far away from school, plenty of my friends do. So I had to say goodbye to friends knowing they would be far away and that I'd have no way of seeing them for awhile. But what makes this particular Christmas break even more heartbreaking, is that some of my friends aren't coming back. Right now, Marlaina is such an important person in my life. Maybe we lean on eachother too much, but we have this connection and we just know how to lift eachother up. Even though I know she is only an hour away and that she intends to visit, I also know that plans change and there is a very good chance that she wont be coming back to NNU, that I wont see her very often. I keep thinking of all the little things. I know I'm not supposed to, that it doesn't do any good to worry and stress about the future, but I keep thinking about how she was the main person I spent time with, and the main person I sat with at meals. I keep wondering how I am supposed to survive next semester without her. My friend Amanda isn't coming back either, and she was the other person that I would sit with and hang out with when I was lonely. I know I'm making progress and I'm getting to know people in my dorms more, but it is still really painful to think about losing my friends.

I'm also really worried about my mom. First, she just found out that she has COPD. Which I guess is pretty manageable, but it still sucks that she is having health problems. She also is having issues with her vision. I can't remember what she said it is called, but basically it is a problem with the veins in her eyes. On top of that, there is fluid pressing on the back of her eyes. At this point, the doctors say they will need to keep a close watch on it, that there is a chance it could just clear up on it's own, but there is also a chance she could become legally blind in the one eye. This is all very emotional for me, because I don't know what is going on and I hate that my mom is dealing with health problems and I am helpless to do anything about it. I'm worried because there is also something going on with her circulation. I know it's not my burden and I shouldn't worry so much, but it is incredibly hard not to.

Finally, there's the phone call I got from my mom wednesday night. She was a bit of an emotional wreck. She told me she was laying there in bed and couldn't sleep, asked me if I could talk. I told her I could, I could sense something was wrong, but I wasn't prepared for what she said next. She told me that she was laying there thinking about how much of a jerk my dad had been that day, and she couldn't help thinking, how much longer do I want this to go on? She told me she didn't think he was ever going to change, and that she thought it was time she talked to figured out what she had to do to survive on her own, to separate from him. She isn't saying they will get divorced, just that she thinks they need a trial separation. But she did say she didn't see him ever changing enough that she would want to be married to him again. She got married too young, she had never dated before my dad, and he was nice for awhile. But he thought of himself as having saved her since she grew up poor, and he never let her live that down. He says she is negative and is never happy, but she told me she is happy when she isn't with him. She just can't see things ever being any better. Now that she is dealing with her health problems, she wants a husband that will support her. If she was diagnosed with something serious, she told me she couldn't imagine dad being any support. All he does is make her feel worthless and she is tired of it. What I heard in my mom that night was a broken person, the fragile shell of the person she once was. I think I've seen this coming for years, and in fact there have been many times when I have wished for it...but hearing my mom talk about it...it was more painful than I ever could of imagined. I was in the middle of walmart with my friends, and I made it over to Marlaina, and collapsed in tears. I spent a good hour crying while my mom went spilled her guts out to me and my friends held my hands. My dad has said some horrible things over the years, and my mom told me about things I didn't know about and couldn't believe he would say. Like when she was pregnant and on bed rest because they were afraid she'd miscarry, my dad told her, "If I were you I'd freaking be doing jumping jacks, you already have one screwed up kid why would you want to bring another one into the world". I couldn't believe a husband would say something so insensitive to his wife. He is in complete denial. Whenever you say he hurt you with something you've said, he says you are being too sensitive or he denies he ever said it. My mom would like to go to therapy with him, and work out their problems, but the thing is, if you don't think you have a problem counseling doesn't do much good. So I sat on a bench in walmart crying. Then I called Whitney and cried somemore on the way home. Finally I was able to get a hug from Whitney and get my tears under control, while she did her best to calm me. She actually seemed excited, said this is a good thing, that she doesn't think it is any coincidence that my mom came to this conclusion the same day we had a very powerful prayer session.

I know in my heart, that in the end, this could be the best thing for our family, but that doesn't mean it doesn't hurt. I am hopeful this could make life better for both my mom and my sisters, but at the same time, I am scared of the road ahead. At the same time, I'm afraid that my mom will lose her will power. That she'll talk to my dad and somehow, he'll talk her out of it. And then our family will go right back to how it is now, two miserable parents who fight all the time and a mom who is being emotionally abused. I don't think I could handle that. But I can't stop thinking of all the little things. How will Katie handle this? Who will help my sisters get ready for school in the mornings? How will my mom handle the finances? Will we be able to keep our house? What if my dad stops helping me pay for school? What if he gets really mad? What if..what if...what if? That's all that is going through my head right now. My mom is going to wait until after the holidays, so even though things are really tense at my house right now, and I am on emotional overload, I have to just keep it all inside and pretend like everything is fine. I go back to school Janually 11th, I wonder if my mom will of talked to my dad by then. I wonder if she will ever actually talk to him. I wonder why I'm so freaking upset that I randomly start crying without warning. My dad treats me like crap and I hate coming home because of him, so why am I so heartbroken that my parents could be getting a divorce? To top things off, despite all of this emotion, I have to somehow focus on school work because unlike the intelligent people who are on Christmas break, I screwed up this semester so I have to get several assignments done over break in order to pass my classes. I am on this endless emotional roller coaster ride, and I can't stop beating myself up. The ride is getting old and I'm getting sick, but I can't seem to make it stop. If I can survive Christmas break without giving in to my depression...it will be a miracle.