And so she emerges…

I’ve been having one of those ‘weeks’ since just before Christmas. I’ve sunk to a level of depression that’s so difficult to dig myself out from under. Try as I might to adhere to the powers of positive thinking or law of attraction, I struggle – every. single. day. Struggle with a disgust in myself for allowing myself to be taken in by not one man – but four!

I’m such a hopeless romantic and love being a wife, mother and homemaker. Allowing my desire to be that homemaker caused my heart to be blinded. As a result, I wound up choosing the wrong men.

The first choice was after I’d left the one man I ever really loved and who set the bar on how I wanted to be treated. We’d broken up and I moved back to the rural area I grew up in, away from the city – away from him.

You see, I’d made the ultimate sacrifice for him. After we’d dated for over a year, I found out I was pregnant. I knew going into the relationship that he was Jewish and nothing could come of us – so I took every precaution I could to make sure an accident wouldn’t happen.

I don’t even recall what happened or how it happened. I thought I was doing everything to keep it from happening.

After finding out, I thought about my situation for a couple of days, wondering how I would tell him – how he would react and what would become of us. I knew we couldn’t be together as husband and wife because his family would never allow it – but I certainly didn’t anticipate the reaction and response I got.

When I phoned him, he was preparing for a trip out of state. I told him I needed to talk to him when he got back. He could tell something was wrong – so he pushed me to tell him. When I did, his response was simply and very matter-of-factly  “you know what you’ve gotta do and I’ll pay for it.”

I was crushed.

I sunk into an agonizing depression wishing for a miracle or wishing for death to take me in my sleep. Neither ever came.

When he returned from his trip – he’d stopped off at my apartment while I was at work. He slid a check and a note under the door. The note simply stated he could not and would not ever be a father like a child should have and he’d made arrangements at a local clinic. He closed with an offer to drive me beside it, a date and time.

I wanted to die.

The next time I talked to him, I was broken – completely shattered. He spilled his thoughts and let me know if I genuinely loved him, I would do what he asked.

I was 22 at the time.

I did what he wanted.

After that horrible experience, I felt I’d fallen to the bottom of the barrel. I felt like trash, like I didn’t deserve to be treated good, with respect, with love. I was a horrible person and deserved nothing better.

Two years, a very long drinking binge later – that’s what I found and what I got.