Earlier Entry Blog***
I'm about to very publically let you all into a very private part of myself… My real life. At least for a short time because I don't plan on leaving this posted indefinitely. Some have shown concern for my lack of being around much, even though I'm not on often as it is I've been absent even more so than usual, and I really do appreciate your concern. I'm generally a very private person when it comes to my every day life but it's because of what is going on there that I've been spending less time online. Sometimes reality bites which is why I enjoy going into the chat room to escape it from time to time and why when the conflicts break out there I'm so fast to cut and run. I'm facing a time in my life that is very difficult and I'm having an incredibly hard time dealing with it. It's for that reason that sharing this letter with you that I've written to someone else requesting help. Regardless of whether or not you agree with my method in getting it this my best means of letting those who care know what's been going on with me. I'm not looking for pity, though I'm sure it'll be there, I'm just letting you know that I'm human, that I have problems like the rest of the world but that I'm finally learning to ask for help in the best way I know how, which is amazingly difficult for me. I just know that I can't do this on my own as it is anymore...
Dear Dr. Phil,
I can't possibly put in a single letter all the experiences that have brought me to this point but hopefully I can write as much as I can to let you know how sincere I am in asking/praying for your help. I'm not looking for fifteen minutes of fame. It doesn't matter to me whether I'm on your show or not but I do know you and the people that you've gathered are my very best point of reference for support in taking control of my life and turning it around. You and those with you have done such miraculous things to help others help themselves and I so desperately need that in my life.
I feel like I'm about to bleed to death and I don't know how to stop it… If the draining of my life were coming from one wound then I'd know how to bandage or tourniquet it to save my life but it doesn't feel that simple to me. I feel like I'm cut everywhere, small cuts of varying depths that are festering and no one sees but my life is running out from me all the same. I think what frightens me the most is this silent but terrifying desperate sense of panic and despair that clutches at my heart and makes me feel like I'm just barely hanging on by my fingernails. There's no drug use in my life, no affair, no catastrophic event that's paralyzing me. (At least its not one single thing) I don't wish those on anyone no less on me but if that were the case at least then I'd have some single thing to focus on that I could work to fix. Maybe in writing you I'm asking for miracles in my life but that's just what I need so I'm praying that God will allow this plea to capture your attention. I never really learned to ask for help, often thought I didn't deserved it, could force myself to be stronger if I faced troubles on my own, or by example through most of my life that I just wouldn't get it but I know now that I do deserve it and I just have to ask the right people in the right way. I already know I don't have the means or resources to find it for myself. I'd like to think I'm intelligent enough that if it were within my reach I'd of at least found a strand of the rope I need to pull myself out of this with… But then I am aren't I? I am writing to you. This change has to be supplemented from somewhere outside myself because I'm not finding it in whom and what I know. My family and friends are unable, unaware or unwilling to help me. So many are caught up in dealing with the issues in their own life to give much concern these days to others. At least that seems to be the trend in those in my realm. In understanding that, I've done what I can not to burden them. Unfortunately I've now realized that I solve nothing by shouldering this on my own when it would be easier to involve others in helping to disperse my burdens in the same ways I've tried to do so for others when they had their own troubles. I've yet to understand fully why I can so easily offer to others that which I seem to have so much difficulty in asking or expecting for myself. I need a sponsor, a patron, a mentor, a friend and I'm asking with all that I am that this process continue with you since it's begun with me. I will work so hard to do all that I need to do to move my life successfully along any track that I need to with the guidance of you and whomever else you gift to me in knowing.
The problem is that I've allowed my life to jump track so many times that I find myself going backward but then I'm not sure that I ever really knew how to direct it properly to begin with. I'm going blind from Retinitis Pigmentosa, which I was diagnosed with at the age of nine. Actually, I am already legally blind by the standards of reduced peripheral vision set by the federal government. I'm married to a good man and have a good son who is now 20 although he has both learning disabilities and visual problems as well. I spent the years after my son was born raising him and seeing him through many difficult years at school due to his learning disabilities. I am proud of what my son has accomplished. He has gone from a child who I was told would never learn past a certain age level to a young man who was mainstreamed into regular classes with just minor assistance. I'm sure I could have done a better job and used better methods in his upbringing but I felt a driving need to not allow others the power to define the boundaries of my son's life, only he could do that, so I fought the schools as well as him sometimes to make him reach for more. I know he bears the scars of that as well as the benefits. When he was about to leave high school I knew if was time to help contribute to our meager family income as best as I could. I contacted my state Bureau of Services for the Visually Impaired to assist me in returning to the work force with a disability for myself. (As well as enlisting them to help plan for the future of my son) I was assessed and although I showed aptitude in many areas where an advanced education was required I was informed that I would not be assisted by that agency in obtaining any degree nor would they or could they direct me to another who might assist me. My goal was still to advance my education so I followed the recommendation of my then counselor and took business skills training which was to validate and enhance what I had already taught myself at home on the computer, which at the time I had no idea that there was no valid certification earned, so that I could get an entry level position. It was both exciting and frightening to take on that endeavor. I faced a world that was difficult to see, where people don't understand that there are differing levels of vision and they pass uninformed judgments but I saw it as a means to an end and one that I desired greatly. I worked very hard and received the highest grades of all who had at that time gone through the program. I trusted that having worked with the visually impaired that they were directing me into a field that I could make a long term career. I was naïve and it was only after the experiences that I had in the workplace that I realized how illogical it was to have directed a woman who was losing her sight into a field that was often so visually intensive. My goal remained to advance my own education so I worked very hard at getting a position at a local university because tuition is reduced for employees. Oh I got the job… I have known quite a variety of hells in my life but it was two and a half years of one like I had never known and one I will never repeat. In an effort to prove myself I endured dehumanizing and demoralizing behavior from individuals whose job it was to be care givers. I learned then that the example of a 'target patient' in a dysfunctional family could also be applied to a work environment as well. I was never allowed to feel secure in my position so I feared beginning classes that I wouldn't be able to pay for so out of fear and intimidation I didn't pursue the education that I'd planned and longed for. The lessons I got were those I would have gladly avoided. I gave up a job that I struggled so hard to get and then do in a horribly toxic environment and that experience has burned my psychological skin severely but I know it was my own peace of mind and salvation that I bought when I finally left. I'm looking for other work but know my lack of training and diminishing vision hinder my prospects. With 74% of blind or visually impaired persons being unemployed or underemployed I know that I'm fighting against the odds but I'm still fighting all the same. So now, not only are my employment options limited but I'm having even more difficulty doing the normal things at home for my family that others take for granted. I'd reopened my case with the Rehabilitation Services again but my assigned counselor seemed to be happy to forget I existed. I'd met with her only once and talked to her on the phone approximately 6 times in the past year and she was notorious for not returning my calls. During that year I worked with a job placement specialist in search of other employment but although I don't doubt that her intentions were good she didn't listen to what I was telling her I wanted and needed in a new job. She was forever directing me towards positions that entailed the same tasks that I had had so much difficulty doing at my previous job. I'd tell her that if I could have done that then I would have stayed where I was. She had no grasp of my disability or the things I needed to be able to succeed. I have recently contacted the agency to demand a new counselor be assigned to me because the service I had been receiving was unacceptable. So even those whose job it is to assist me adjust have not been able to completely assist me. There's a military adage about the speed and efficiency of government agencies in that the common philosophy is 'hurry up and wait'. With my vision failing and after an all too close call with dangerous conditions of deep vein thrombosis and pulmonary embolism that literally brought me to a hairs width of ending my life last November after a minor laser procedure to correct reflux in a vein in my leg I hope you can understand my sense of urgency.
I'm married to a good man who I love and who loves me. He does a lot to show me so in his own fashion but he doesn't love me enough to move outside his comfort level. I often feel like I'm in this relationship alone when it comes to initiative. I've been the one who's been responsible for making all the major decisions in all areas; from decisions about our son, ourselves, our home, our life to taking care of the finances. When I felt overwhelmed or that things were out of hand and I asked for his help his response was no response. We had to file bankruptcy to try and gain some control and he had no interest and still doesn't. He recently was forced to take an early retirement because the company he worked for had filed bankruptcy. He had known that our income would be vastly reduced but didn't bother to begin looking for other work until I forced him to see that we couldn't pay the bills that we had on the reduced income of his pre-retirement agreement. I'd been telling him that before his previous job ended but since he doesn't manage the money I don't think he understood the degree of urgency. We're into month three now of my trying to manipulate the money to pay the bills and I've been doing more job searching for him than he's done. He worked for his previous company for twenty nine years and this is supposed to be his 'pre-retirement' so I understand his need to take some time to himself but our financial needs don't end because his job did. I know that in a lot of ways he justifies his actions by saying to himself that he lets me make all the choices and run the family so that I'm happy but I'm so not happy. When I've asked for his help or begged him to see how stressed I am over all that is going on around us he looks at me blankly like a deer caught in headlights and does little or nothing to ease my burden. Even adds to in fact. I'm trapped in a neighborhood that gets more violent each day in a home that is falling down around my ears and is literally dangerous to me in that with my lack of vision I'm more prone to accidents, especially falling on things I don't see. Now I know our finances have hindered us and he's no handyman but he knows other men who do have the knowledge to correct the issues and all he has to do is ask for their guidance but he won't. Neither he or my son seem to respect that since I can't see very well anymore that things have to be kept in particular places so I can find them. I can't tell you how frustrating it is to need something and not find it where it ought to be because one of them has put it somewhere else. It just emphasizes my feeling of inadequacy in my own home. Since my son has the same eye disease that I do, though not as advanced yet, I've asked, begged, accused and tried to quilt my husband into teaching him how to drive ever since he was 16. He will very likely be very limited in the amount of time that he'll be afforded this particular freedom but my husband won't commit to doing it for more than a couple weeks at a time before it's then forgotten. That's common behavior for him with most of what I ask him to do or he himself sets out to do. If the same sex parent is the biggest influence in a child's life then my son has no hope of making an independent life for himself. We haven't always been this way. When I was able to do more I did and perhaps because I was able to do it I wasn't as bothered by the fact that my husband didn't do it but now I need to rely on him more and I feel like I'm being set adrift. It's caused a strain between us that threatens what we've tried to build over the last 23 years that we've been married and the friendship that began over 32 years ago. We've got so much invested in our life together that I must fight to fix it. I can't seem to love him enough to inspire the things I need from him, I can't yell, or manipulate or quilt him into it either so I feel myself pulling away. He's also dealing with ED issues and in my efforts to be supportive, understanding and protective of his sensitive ego I keep my own feelings of rejection, frustration and disappointment to myself which does nothing but add even more to that distance. The more complacent he becomes the more pronounced my feeling of desperation in so many areas becomes. I'm not someone who easily argues over things, I can name all the arguments we've had in all the years we've been together on one hand and tell you what each one was about. Most often I have a very good perspective over what is worth that kind of energy and what isn't but at other times there are things that I simply turn in on myself which is now having a more pronounced physical effect on me with stress and anxiety.
Is it entirely his fault, absolutely not! I believe that not only do we teach others how to treat us but we choose those people in our life who will allow us to behave in the manner that suits our self created reality. Just as I know that sometimes we do our best, sometimes we go above and beyond and sometimes we just do what's easiest to get by. I sometimes allow myself to be easily distracted when it comes to doing what I really don't like to do. That also makes it hard to stay focused, to put all I have into doing what I should be doing. Other times, when I've really worked hard and things have not gone as I've hoped I feel like a miserable failure even when I have made an extreme effort but feel that it wasn't enough or came too late. Dr. Phil, I've worked so hard to try to make my life something better than what I was told I deserved but somehow my efforts aren't bearing much good fruit. As hard as I've fought, as far as I've come with all that is or isn't going on around me I can't help but hear the past echoing in my head, a voice I thought I'd drowned out. My mother telling me that I wasn't worth the powder to blow my ass up with, the woman who drove past the children's orphanage telling us that if it weren't for your grandmother that's where you'd be, or the woman who laughed at my anxiety before she'd spank me, the woman who threatened me with juvenile hall when I was under 18 and the streets when I became 18, the woman who I could never please no matter how hard I tried and from whom I only found peace once she'd died. I had no self esteem, used to ask my friends why they were my friends because I just couldn't see any value in myself then. I did everything she required of me including helping to raise my brother and sister, taking care of the house, managing the bills and anything else that needed doing from the time I was 13 when my grandmother died till I moved away from home at 24. (At which point she actually was upset and told me I was a abandoning her when I left to go live with my husband who was then in the military after years of being threatened to be thrown out) What else could I have done, I was there and it had to be done. Somehow through writing and keeping a journal I found value in myself. I've tried so hard to build onto that foundation. Right now I feel like I'm working on shifting sands…It's time I got some new blueprints and I hope that you can be the architect. Please Dr. Phil. I need your help.
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