Okay, so I posted the poem and it didn't help so I am going to do something I don't usually do except with those closest to me. I am going to spill my guts. My marriage counselor told me today that I needed to start expressing my feelings better- imagine that. So here I am, expressing myself. Be warned, this isn't going to be pretty. Most of you who read this will probably think that I am making a really big deal out of what is, by standard, normal life stuff and I should be able to handle it. You would be correct in thinking that but before passing judgement stop and put the shoe on the other foot.....

I am a stay at home mom by choice. It was an easy decision to make, considering I was raised by a stay at home mom and so was she. However, what a lot of people don't understand about SAHM's is it truly is a job. One that comes with no appreciation, no thanks, and usually no acknowledgements. Granted the payoff in the end is great but there are times I would love to walk out the door and not come back. Unfortunetly, I have been feeling that way a lot over the last year and circumstances being what they are, I often think that my family would be better off without me here some days.

If you read my first blog, then you know about Brie. Well, for the past four years my life has revolved around Brie and her needs, as it should. However, it does get tiring and a lot of people don't understand that. Our lives have been a constant series of doctors, specialists, therapists, case workers, social workers, medical suppliers, pharmacists, and various other medical personnel. We had physical, speech, and occupational therapy here at home three times a week, an hour each, until Brie started school in Septemeber 2010. Then there were physical exercises, homework from speech and occupational therapy daily, phone calls to doctors, etc., meetings here at home about the services Brie receives, case worker meetings, social worker meetings, and meetings to order more medical supplies, brace and cast appointments, brace fittings, cast removal appointments, regular pediatrician appointments....the list goes on forever. Granted all of this wasn't an everyday occurance but it's still a lot. There have been some days I am on the phone for 6-8 hours scheduling and rescheduling things. A perfect example of this was the first day of school this school year. We had four appointments all scheduled within three hours of each other and one appointment was a four hour drive away. Those are what my days are like with Brie. Then you add in my son Clint. He has baseball practice, baseball games, church, youth group, youth group trips, field trips, band, award ceremonies, school parties, his own doctor, dentist, orthodonist, and eye doctor appointments, and now spelling bees, dances, clubs afterschool, and sleepovers. Add that with the stress of cooking, cleaning, laundry, paying bills, making sure the yard is taken care of, making sure the trash gets picked up by the town, vet and grooming appointments for our dog, hiring someone to make major repairs if they need done and that's not even getting into the rest of our family with get togethers, dance recitals, etc. It gets to be a lot sometimes and since my husband Neil works 12 hrs. plus somedays, 99.99 percent of it falls on me.

Things started to come undone around November 2009. My family was having a lot of problems...my sister was recovering from being a coke addict and was diagnosed as being bipolar, plus was going through a divorce. My parents were fighting a lot about her and that was causing problems. In a nutshell, things were a mess. The new year started and I just felt really bogged down with it all. I told Neil that I was starting to feel really overwhelmed and stressed out, and I needed help. Instead, we started to fight constantly. By the end of January I threw my hands up in the air and let a deep depression take over. I let everything go the housework, the yard, all of it. I let my kids do what they want, Neil and I hardly spoke unless we were fighting. And I didn't care.

When I say I am a stay at home mom I mean that in every sense of the word. I don't have a driver's license, I have no friends here to go to lunch with or go shopping. What friends I did have left when they found out about Brie because they couldn't handle it. There are days that the only people I talk to are my kids and Neil. Being kids, they just want to talk about kid stuff and Neil doesn't talk about anything but him or how something affects him. It gets lonely. In January 2010, I decided that I would give Twitter and Facebook a whirl. If nothing else, maybe I would find at least one person to talk to other than a 4 and 11 year old.

Here's the funny part of the story. One of my favorite celebs in the world is on Twitter and has a radio show. There's a website you can live chat with other listeners and just for fun one Friday night, I logged on. I went in the chat not knowing a soul and came out an hour later with some of the greatest friends I have ever had. Even though we're all living in different states, several of these women I am very proud to call my best friends and I am pretty sure at least a couple of them can say the same thing about me. Ironically enough, the bond that grew that night has only gotten stronger because we are apart.

Towards the end of March 2010, things started to hit the fan, for real. My aunt was diagnosed with lung cancer, my grandmother was placed in a nursing home, Clint was fighting strep in his tonsils that wouldn't clear up, Neil and I were fighting on a daily basis, and everything was in chaos. The worse things got the worse my depression got. The good thing about Twitter is you can pretend that everything is okay, even lying to those you love, just so they don't worry. So I told everyone I was doing okay and pretended to be in the best moods, even as I cried typing about how great of a day I was having. Then May got here.

It started off okay...Neil for my birthday surprised me with a trip to NYC to go see one of my fave bands with my best friend at Radio City. I was so excited and so was she. We spend hours on the phone planning what we were going to, what we were going to see, etc. Two weeks before I was suppose to go, my grandmother became really ill. My mother had to make an emergency trip to Texas and would be gone until the middle of July. So I became responsible for my father and sister, plus my family. The day after she left, we had to take Clint in to have his tonsils removed. Three days after she left, on Saturday May 27th, my grandmother died. My Grannie was like a second mother to me, she raised me when my mother was a working, single mom before she remarried. We lived with them for the first 6 years of my life and we were always really close even after moving to North Carolina. I was devasted. To make matters worse, the funeral was the weekend of my NYC trip. I couldn't go to NYC and I couldn't be in Texas either because I had to hold the fort down while my mother was gone. Not even two weeks later, my father had to be hospitalized. They thought he had a heart attack at work and called me to meet him in the ER. I was having to make on the spots decisions that at 32 I never thought I would. Luckily enough, my dad was okay but it was enough to push my stress and depression over the edge.

By the end of July, I had decided that I was going to do something major for myself. I decided that I was going to go on a cruise with a bunch of my girlfriends and that was going to my 33rd birthday present for myself. I figured, very selfishly I've been told, that I had been through enough and I needed a break. However, I was the only one who felt that way. As soon as I told my family, my mother literally every day tried to convince me not to go. Neil was being wishy washy about it, one minute he was fine, then next he was mad. But I told myself that regardless, I was going to do this. So I booked it on August, Friday the 13th. I should have known better.

Around that same time, we got a new case worker who I wont name. We will call her "Bitty". Bitty's job is to arrange initial meetings for services, provide transportation should we ever need it, make sure Brie's medical supplies are being delivered, that kind of thing. However, Bitty decided she needed to be involved on a deeper level. At first she seemed nice, but then something somewhere along the line changed. I just didn't see it until it was too late.

I was really excited about going on the cruise and at the end of August school started. Both kids were going this year, although Brie has a shorter day, I would have for the first time a break from the kids and could start getting things done. I finally after almost a year started pulling out of my depression and had something not only to look forward to but I had set some personal goals that I wanted to accomplish. Slowly but surely, I started coming back. I started getting things back on track. Or at least I thought.

Come October I was really excited about the holidays, my upcoming trip, etc. I had started losing a little weight, was feeling better in general, and my whole attitude changed. I started getting out and about again, and was really doing well. Then I got sick. I got really sick and was sick for a long time with terrible bronchitis and a cold that I still can't seem to shake. I don't sleep well under normal circumstances but being sick was making it worse. There has been days that it takes all my energy just to breathe and if you have ever been sick like that, then you understand when I say breathing made me exhausted. Knock on wood, I haven't had a relapse since the middle of January, but physically I was really ill and it was effecting everything. I had to cancel a couple of appointments, rearrange some appointments, and Neil had to go to a couple by himself.

One of the appointments I had to cancel was Brie's yearly checkup with Duke. She was originally was supposed to go on August 25th but we had that appointment, an IEP appointment with the school, her regular yearly checkup with her pediatrician and it was the first day of school. Bitty told me herself that it would be easier to reschedule Duke than the school system so that's what I did. The appointment was moved to October 25th. Unfortuntely, I had to cancel it because I was sick. Now, let me explain what her yearly appointments are. Brie sees 7 doctors those days plus have tests done. When you walk into the clinic, there are babies and children with brain shunts, breathing machines, wheelchairs, walkers, etc. Not the place an adult with a fever and a chest infection needs to be. Duke didn't want me there either, so the head nurse said that they would schedule the appointment and send us a letter. I said that was fine and we left it at that. However, this is when the problems with Bitty began.

On November 2nd, I had a meeting with Bitty. She came into the house all in an uproar because Brie's appointment was cancelled. I was still sick that day so she knew I wasn't lying. However, that didn't stop her from accusing me of being a neglectful mother and several other things were said. I was in shock and pissed by the end of the appointment. I told Neil about it and he just blew it off, saying I was exaggerating. I let it go and didn't say anything else about it.

The week before Thanksgiving I could tell something was wrong between Neil and I. He wasn't being affectionate like he normally was and he was pretending to ignore me when I told him I loved him or he would mumble it in reply under his breath. Little did I know, he had been building a tower of resentment towards me that was about to fall. The day before Thanksgiving, we were sitting there watching tv with the kids when he suddenly blurted out, "Why haven't you done any laundry?" Being still sick and not feeling well, I snapped back at him the same sentence. Next thing I know, Neil is standing over me screaming at me and saying some of the most hurtful things you could ever say to someone He told me I was ugly, worthless, that I was only good for keeping the kids alive until he got home, that he was tired of being a maid, he was tired of me being sick, that I was stupid, I couldn't manage our money, etc. He also informed me that he wished I was 19, pretty, skinny, and working at KMart again. Neil said our lives were simpler then and he wanted it back that way. So basically what he wanted was to no longer be responsible for a family and wanted me to pay his bills for him like I did when I was 19 and he made squat washing dishes at night. He then proceeded to give me a list of demands that I was to comply to if I wanted our marriage to work. The list in a nutshell was he wanted me to take care of everything and he didn't want to do anything but come home from work, eat, have a massage, get laid, and go to bed. Sounds like a great life right? How many men actually get that every night? I laughed at him and he responded by telling me he wanted a divorce. If I couldn't do those things for him, than he didn't want to be here. During this whole thing, I was crying hysterically plus being sick and running a fever, my defenses were down. I agreed to some of his terms and we agreed to reevaluate after the holidays.

On December 10th we had an IEP meeting at Brie's school. As we were walking out the door, Clint's school called and said he was throwing up and needed to come home. Ten minutes later, Brie's teacher called and said she was sick and needed to be picked up. I called Bitty and told her, she said to send Neil to the meeting, he could sign the paper. Little did I know I had just made the big mistake on the planet. Neil went to the meeting and was home less than a half hour later. I had just got both of the kids settled in their respective bedrooms and was pouring juice when he came in. We talked about the meeting, he gave me the papers, and we both went about our day. Apparently Bitty had talked to Neil about me not cleaning, depending on him too much, and told him that he needed to take the kids and leave, that I was neglecting them and was an overall bad mother.

Two weeks later, on December 22, Neil in the middle of the night informed me things weren't working and that he wanted out. He had decided that he was going to leave January 2nd and told the kids that he didn't want to work things. Needless to say, our Christmas was shattered. The next few days were filled with uncertainy. The kids and I were walking on eggshells around Neil, who was doing everything possible to make us as miserable as possible. He even started yelling at the baby. The worst part was what he did to Clint. We were talking about baseball signups for this season and Clint was asking if Neil would take him to get his baseball stuff one day the following week. Now, before I tell you Neil's reply, Clint had to quit midseason last year because of his tonsils and adnoids being removed. Neil looked Clint right in the face and asked Clint why should he waste the money to buy stuff for Clint if he was just going to quit again. You should have seen Clint's face. It broke my heart how hurt he was. That resulted in one of the worst fights we have ever had and I proceeded to kick Neil out of the house. Of course he didn't leave but for the first time, I realized that my marriage was almost to the point of being unsalvageable and if we were going to have a chance, Neil needed to leave.

Over the next two weeks, things got steadily worse and worse. Finally one afternoon, I told Neil that he needed to decide what he wanted because I wanted my life back. The uncertainty of the situation was literally driving me crazy. I couldn't sleep, I couldn't eat, all I did was cry and throw up for two months straight. I was an absolute wreck. I was even starting to pull away from my friends, which wasn't an easy feat by any means. They weren't going to let me go and were constantly propping me up whether I responded to them or not. All of them have continously told me that they care and love me regardless and that they would be there when I was ready.

Finally it was decision time. Neil was still being wishy washy and I took a stand. I point blank told him he had to leave and I packed his stuff. I literally pushed him out the front door and locked it behind him. It was hard for the kids but when I shut that door, I felt free. I felt like a giant weight had been lifted and that I could breathe. However, it was the turning point I needed. Neil needed a reality check and he realized pretty quickly what life was like without his family and he didn't like it much. When he came back home a week later, he was acting like a whole different person.

We are still in the process of working things out, obviously if we're in marriage counseling but I can honestly say that I have been a lot less stressed lately. I think even my girls can tell there has been some sort of change. I am having to sacrifice my cruise, my girls weekend, and my trip to Philly and DC, I had planned but I am hoping that at the end of the day, it will be worth it.