Tag Archives: doubt pain

02/20/11

Failed Realtionship and Then Some I

I have mentioned before that I was not brought up in church, though I was influenced by Biblical teachings and ideas of Christian faith. I came to Christ on my own, through reading the entire Bible (Protestant) from beginning to end, by myself. No one told me to, except I felt very compelled to read it. When I read it I had a pretty distorted view of Jesus, I was good with an all-powerful God but Jesus? What was He all about? For some reason when I read the Bible in its entirety He made sense in my mind. I took to His teachings as literal. I looked upon Jesus as a Jewish man, who showed us how to live by the Jewish teachings and concepts. I knew I was a gentile and didn’t feel like the lifestyle of the Jewish people was what I was supposed to do, though.  I did not become confused until I started reading more Westernized Christian influenced teachings and listening to their preaching. Mainly what many “Americanized” teachings have  adopted as a philosophy and call it “religion”. (I mean no offense I am just trying to explain my mindset.)

I felt like in order for me to understand my faith that I needed to go to church.

One morning I felt led to turn on the radio, I flipped through the channels and at the end of some sermon, which I had missed completely; the preacher went into how to accept Jesus into your heart. I fell to my knees and just felt like that was what I needed to do. I sobbed for an hour, nothing in particular coming to mind, except for, I felt accepted. Accepted and at peace for the first time in my life. I became obsessive about learning the scriptures and studying all about what the Bible meant. I heard in my inner being, I guess that is the best way to describe it, to get baptized. No one told me this; I read it in the scriptures. I was baptized by my father at his church, that became mine too.

I had conflicting feelings the entire time I was there.

First of all, when I arrived the pastor of over 13 years just got removed because it was discovered that he and the secretary were having an affair. The youth pastor had just taken over as the interim and there were a lot of emotions flying that I didn’t know how to process. My dad was a church leader at the time, until my second sister got pregnant at the age of 15 years old. Everyone was forgiving, with very condemning comments when my first sister had gotten pregnant, but after my second sister did, well….it was too much. My dad stepped down. I quickly got involved and started serving in children’s ministry. My first husband would not go to church with me; he was Catholic and felt very uncomfortable in a Non-Denominational church. We had a lot more problems after I became a Christian and started studying. His family did not appreciate my history lessons about the Catholic Church and they did not like my many questions about their faith.

I wasn’t trying to be rude; I genuinely wanted to know about their faith and beliefs.

Eventually we came to terms that our marriage was not going to work no matter how much counseling we did, I was obsessed with my faith and he was not. We just couldn’t get past it. The church was very accepting of me during this time, because he was Catholic and they felt that his faith was wrong anyway. Those are not my views, that was what the church felt. I was beyond devastated. The Christian faith made it clear that divorce was wrong; I personally never wanted to get a divorce because of my family history of multiple divorces and the pain that it causes. I felt like a failure and a horrible Christian. I carried the burden of him getting a divorce because he was Catholic and no one in his family had gotten divorces, there was just a lot.

The church made it clear that it was ok because they felt that he had abandoned me.

They needed that to make it ok. The children at church never even knew I was married because I was always alone so they had no problem with me to continue serving. I then found my second husband, whom I despised from day one. I never liked him, I thought he was a fake and a phony and I told him so. A lot. I went against my gut and I listened to all of the church people tell me that he was such a great guy, “he is so spiritual”, a “real man of God” and so and so on. I knew that he lied to me while we were dating and I called him on it every time. He would ask me “How do you know this stuff?”  I wish I would have listened to my feelings that told me to get away from him. I will give you one example of how I feel God was trying to make it very clear that I was right in my judgment, but did not trust it.

It was New Years Eve weekend and he had made plans to go to his hometown.

I begged him not to go. I just knew something bad was going to happen. He told me “I have to go; it’s like the ending of my previous life. It’s symbolic.” He went and I was praying the second he got on the road. I was up all night, that New Years Eve, I wrote it all down in my prayer journal. I saw like a vision of what he was doing throughout the evening. When he came back, I told him that I knew he had cheated on me and that I saw all of the things he had done. He claimed that they did not happen and that I made it up. I described the girl. He still denied it. After a few months he did something similar and the same thing happened though I did not see him cheat but I did see him with a girl.

He finally broke down, confessed all.

I had been right about everything. I then felt like it wasn’t about me, it was about him and God. I led him into prayer and he rededicated is life to Christ. Then after that he asked me to marry him. I said I don’t know. Later that day I was working alone, my heart was broken because I had been right and I didn’t know what to do. I heard my name being called, like in the air and I looked up. I saw like a vision  and I heard, “I would not give you someone who would hurt you.”(Not audibly, it’s hard to explain) I understood what that meant because after all of my failed relationships (with the exception of my first husband), the common thread was they lied, they cheated, and they did drugs, and was abusive to some extent. I ran to my ex and told him what had happened and I told him how I felt like that meant we were not to be together.

He said “No, I think that means that before, if I did not rededicate to Christ. Now that I have changed you know I won’t hurt you.”

I was very confused, I talked to my Christian friends and they all said what he had said. I assumed that I was wrong. I thought “Well maybe it is possible that he was the wrong guy before but now that he has accepted Jesus, maybe he is the right guy.” I didn’t trust my gut with my first marriage and I didn’t with my second. In my first marriage I made the decision based on never wanting a divorce. Since he was Catholic, I really believed we would never get a divorce. The difference about him and my second ex-husband was that I genuinely liked him as a person. He is now remarried and very happy and I was so happy to discover that. My second husband I married because everyone else told that he was right for me and since I couldn’t trust my judgment on relationships, I believed them.

Our marriage was built upon distrust and my overall dislike for him as a person.

More to come….

Personal Note: When I talk of hearing voices or seeing visions, I am not really sure how to explain it properly. It could be a variety of things going on. I have intense dreams as well that have given me clear direction, so scientifically it could be my brain telling me the right thing to do. Spiritually it could be how I experience God.  I have gone over mental reasons and do not fall under the criteria for any of the mental disorders that I have read. For me I am comfortable with both the reasons being science and God.


 


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02/14/11

Asking David About His Perspective

Recently, I asked David to write a post for me. I know he has a ton of work and doesn’t have time to write a post at this time but I asked him so that he could think about it. I had no idea that my request would bring about some answers to questions that we both had or that it would bring healing in an area I didn’t realize I needed healing in.

Here are some of the specifics I asked for:

1. Share how you felt during the time that we were searching for answers about Daniel.

2. How did you feel about the answers we received?

3. What was it like for you in our relationship during that time?

4. Explain how you feel now and what you see after almost three years have passed.

5. What were your feelings during the time Daniel didn’t connect with you at all and I was his sole source of communication and help?

6. How do you feel now that he is interacting with you and reliant on you for things?

Those were some of the specifics that I requested but did not limit to and I told him to feel free to write whatever, those were just some things to consider.

I have on again off again felt the need for David to share his perspective because I feel like there are so many mothers who write but I wanted to know how a Dad felt. There are a few Dad’s out there writing and I like reading from their perspective but I wanted to know my husbands perspective. We never talked about it. During that time was the only time we have ever been disconnected and had arguments. Our relationship from the beginning has just been even keel with each other. We have always just talked things through and understood that we must have had a misunderstanding in our communication. Neither one of us have had relationships like that so our relationship we feel, was a God send and that is a story I do plan on sharing sometime.

We had several contributing factors to the imbalance in our marriage at the time we were trying to find out what was going on with Daniel.

David was the one who actually did research at first about autism. He shared with me and I went into freak out mode. I was with Daniel 24/7, David was not. He did not see what I saw and he was not the recipient of Daniel’s meltdowns. Daniel did not behave the same when David came home from work, he would do some of the behaviors but David was unaware of what our daily life was like until he started working at home. I tried to explain to him but he had not actually experienced it until he was with us all day. The first year that he worked at home we had a basement so he was still cut off from our daily life except for when he took breaks. It wasn’t until we moved into a house that did not have a separate office that David experienced what I had been experiencing.

The problem for me was that David had the attitude that Daniel would grow out of it.

During this time I had no support from the church we were in, about Daniel, no support from my family and what felt like no support from David. I was confused on what to do and what to believe. Even three years ago the web was saturated with misinformation about autism and the lead links were from resources that offered hope of recovery. Here is where there was a lot of confusion for me. David would say he felt like Daniel was going to grow out of a lot of things but he refused the “recovery” paths. There were various groups and organizations that I checked out. I would talk to him about them and he quickly dismissed them or their methods. He would encourage me to do more research to see what I could find, I discovered that a lot of them were snake oil. :-/

How was Daniel going to grow out of it if we didn’t do something?

David would suggest more medically based sites and he is the one who started buying me books or suggested ones from the library to help me to understand. I felt like he didn’t really believe that Daniel was autistic, I thought he was suggesting that I read these things so that I would see for myself but the more I read the more I knew for a fact that Daniel was on the spectrum. Even after seeing the doctors we knew but I felt that David didn’t really believe it. The other day when we talked about this I discovered that it is all semantics. I should have asked what he meant but I was so confused by all of my surroundings, that I didn’t realize that was what I needed to do. Since we had pretty much understood each other before, I thought that I did understand what he meant. The problem was I was operating out of fear and confusion instead of knowledge and understanding. Because I was hearing things through the filters of fear and confusion I was unable to really comprehend what David meant. I just wanted everything fixed and I wanted peace. Obviously, I have learned a lot, I am still am, and have a lot more to learn but new mental filters make a huge difference.

David thought I understood what he meant by his definition of autism.

For me I see a spectrum but autism is a whole. David sees it as separate spectrums. He has placed Daniel in a category that shows with therapy Daniel will become self-sufficient and be capable of leading a productive life. He already decided it and was done. I did not. I hope I explained that right, I am not sure how to word it properly. I was consumed by Daniel and David was not, so my perspective was stuck in the here and now. I was focused on the small details, while David saw a big picture. He would see the progress that Daniel was making because he was removed from the daily life. During this time Daniel was still pretty much like an infant in many ways. I had to feed him, give him his bottle, try to understand what his grunts, hits, meltdowns, hands motions all meant. Daniel was doing self harm, very aggressive, yelling at me, and there would be days that he would refuse to walk, I would have to carry him. He was between two and three years old during this time.

There was a lot going on and a lot of changes were on the way.

More to come in the next post.

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10/17/09

Relationships, What? Part II

Those are the words that rang through my head.

“I must not be good enough, that is why they treat me this way.” After that ended, we kept in touch for the whole time I was in another state. Every time I came home to visit, I would see him. I thought there was still something there. Even when I had found another love, I continued to keep contact. I was so confused by all of that. Later after my third relationship ended (I will go into that in a moment) I thought possibly this was the time for us to get back together. He wasn’t dating anyone either. I went back to visit and I thought there was something there. I went back a few months later to to tell him I was thinking of moving back.

Another devastating blow.

We were supposed to go out with a group of friends and we did. BUT he had made a date that very day and was supposed to meet her at the bar we were at. I was hurt, furious, confused. Other people may have understood this but I didn’t. I thought he wanted to be with me. I was supposed to stay the night at his house, my things were there. Needless to say I was drunk, I lost it, I got crazy and don’t even remember the events of the evening other than he left to meet the girl. And his close friend got all chummy with me so we started a long distance relationship. I needed to sever ties with my ex and this was the only way I could bring myself closure.

Come to find out my ex didn’t care anyway and no harm was caused to him, only me and the friend.

I wasn’t very nice to the friend. Back to the third relationship, even though I was stuck in a cycle with that ex,  I thought my new boyfriend was the greatest thing that ever walked the face of the earth. Well he is pretty great now and he is the one who truly cared for me but didn’t know how. He is now married expecting a child and very happy. We are very happy for each other.  Although he was  not the greatest while we dated. He was a social butterfly. He was always out, always surrounded by the ladies, always thinking of traveling. He caused me to have trust issues too. He wouldn’t come home, when he did come home he would have phone numbers and sometimes makeup on his shirt. He made comments about things I needed to change to “better” myself. Actually all of them did, that did not help my self image. Never good enough. NEVER!

He did a similar thing as my second boyfriend.

One morning I answered the phone and there was a Swedish man on the other end asking for him. My heart sank I knew something was going on. So once again I found myself in a position of being in an apartment by myself  struggling to pay for it. He went behind my back and decided to go off to Sweden to work. I stayed with him while he was gone. Long distance relationship is very hard for someone with trust issues. I did get to go to Sweden but that ended up bad also. We came home together that was not supposed to happen. He had left me on my birthday in the apartment he was staying at and did something that caused him to have to leave. It was nothing major but enough to get sent home.

I found myself using my credit cards to get him home and off we flew back to the States.

It didn’t work well when we got back. We ended up breaking up. I had trust issues. Along with many others by this point. These three guys helped to make me even more confused and unable to understand relationships even more. There is so much to these stories it is very hard to limit them to a blog post but the point of sharing these things is to show that I was not stupid, I just didn’t realize that what they were doing was wrong. I thought I was wrong. I saw other people in relationships and they were not treated that way so the conclusion I came to was it had to be me.

The weird thing is after the relationships would end, people would then tell me all of this stuff that was going on.

What? I had no idea they were doing these things. When they would talk to me in a certain way, other people would think it was horrible and I was oblivious. They would make fun of me and belittle me but when we were alone they told me they loved me. I was confused. I didn’t understand. It was like the bullies who pretended to be my friend and then would hurt me. I thought it was me. I was the one who wasn’t normal, I was the one who didn’t understand how relationships worked, I had to rely on people like them to guide me.

Because of that I spent years in pain, confusion, constant self hatred and doubt.

Go check out part III for the rest of the story…


 

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10/17/09

Relationships, What? Part III

I have to confess that I did have tantrums, freak outs, I would get violent and say some pretty nasty things. That was the only way I knew how to express what I was feeling. If I didn’t lash out I would begin to hold it in and harm myself. I did start cutting myself. I wrote some really dark stories and poems. I wanted to escape. I would spend time alone listening to music praying to die. I couldn’t understand why I couldn’t be loved. I didn’t even know what love was but I knew it was not what these guys had offered me. After I came to believe in Jesus, which I believe was led by God because no person got me to that point, I got to that point by reading the Bible from beginning to end and having Jesus revealed to me through that.

I believe I had an encounter that opened my eyes and began to show me that I had value.

By the time I met David, I had written off men and decided I would devote myself to Jesus. I devoted my life to doing what I felt Jesus wanted me to do, tell others how much He loves them. I still do that I believe God does love people and our mission on earth is to spread that love through letting others know they are valued. We all have gifts and talents that should be shared. We all need to know that we should be cared for, recognized, cherished for who were are. Not religion, not others interpretation of who God is and how you should live, just acceptance where you are for who you are and build into to you so that you can succeed in being the best unique you. Sorry, I didn’t mean to go off.

I met David which is a very long story that will have to wait.

He has been the best person to come into my life. I know God placed him in my life because he has loved me with no games. He has been everything that I have needed to overcome past pains. He has helped me to help myself. He has built into to me and encouraged me. He has brought me hope and not only told me that I am valued, he has valued me. We are open and honest with each other. We say what we mean and sometimes we hurt each other without meaning to but we discuss it. We talk. We share. We wrestle with the issues of our faith, the inconsistencies, the personal struggles, we work together to build into our children.

We also hardly leave our house, have limited friends, and keep a fortress of solitude.

We are two people with Aspie traits that just so happen to have enough of the same obsessions along with enough differences to challenge each other constantly. David works from home and I stay home with the kids. We like our life like this. We have to push ourselves to get out because otherwise we would never see anyone and be perfectly happy with that. Well we do like to  socialize but it takes so much out of us, we know that we have to for ourselves and especially our kids. We want to help them be able to be around people and have fun. Our kids have helped us to be more social. We all work together to help each other.

I say all of that to say it is not ok for people to be treated the way I was.

It is not ok for any person to go through a lot of what I went through but I do not know the major effects it can have on people who are on the autism spectrum. Abuse is not ok. People with autism and on the spectrum need people to be aware for them. We have got to watch out for abuse. I have been very protective of Daniel because he is still unable to tell me if someone has harmed him. He is just beginning to tell me when he has been hurt but still has a hard time telling me where and how. We have got to stay alert and on top of the way people treat those who are different, those who are unable to recognize abuse.

I would like to know how these kinds of situations effect other people on the spectrum.

I feel that several of things I have mentioned may seem quite silly, if I listed all of the things that were done to me I am positive people would think me crazy. However, for me these things were devastating. The situations caused me a lot of pain and suffering. I don’t think I am the only one and that is why I am writing this. I believe that it is both therapeutic for me and others to know that these things are not ok. No one should ever be treated this way and no one should feel like they deserve it. I am thankful to have David who helped me to understand that these things are wrong. If it wasn’t for him walking me through and building into me, I would still feel as though I deserved to be treated poorly by others. I have accepted this from people I dated, people I worked with, people I went to school with, people I went to church with over and over, I have accepted bullying and abuse as my fault. The majority of the time I didn’t even know it was abuse or bullying.

I know this is a long post and I hope you made it through without being terribly bored!

Here are some resources.

http://www.scn.org/autistics/abuse.html

http://kidshealth.org/teen/your_mind/relationships/abuse.html

http://www.mentalhelp.net/poc/center_index.php?id=2

http://www.recovery-man.com/abusive/abusive_signs.htm

http://www.keepkidshealthy.com/welcome/commonproblems/Child_Abuse.html


 

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