Things Were Changing...

*Before I go on with my story, I would like to clarify a few things. The first being that I am in no way shape or form wanting anyone to read this with a close mind. When we hear of people doing things that are wrong, it is natural for us to automatically place judgment on them and let their actions define who they are. I have been guilty of that several times. Now that I have had this experience, and also have made many mistakes myself, I KNOW we can not judge a person. EVER. Simple as that. It is not our job, it is not our right, and it most certainly is not fair. I am grateful for the trials I have in my life because it has made me, someone who was so close-minded and sheltered, really step back and genuinely focus on the things in life that are most important. It makes me look at EVERYONE in a new light, and before I automatically judge someone for how they look, what they believe, or what they do, I stop and think about the PERSON. It may sound cliché, but EVERYONE is special and EVERYONE was sent here to be given a fair chance. Yes, we have agency and yes we need to reap the consequences of our choices, but we all make mistakes. All of us. So when you are reading this, PLEASE know that, like I said, this is being told solely because I feel it is important to help people understand that NOBODY deserves to have their actions define who they really are, even if we have to do things that are hard to not enable them or destroy our own selves.

This guy (whom I will call J) and I started seriously dating.We had a lot of the same interests. I was a little scared that it was too good to be true. With what I had experienced with people I had previously dated, I came to a conclusion that I wasn't good enough for anyone and never would be. I can't believe how much I disliked my self!

I really liked him. I felt so happy and comfortable when I was with him. A few weeks into dating him, I even took it upon myself to tell him about my eating disorder. I wanted to get all the skeletons out of the closet so to speak, so that he wouldn't have reason to leave me down the road. If he was going to leave me, I wanted it to be right then. His reaction was very sweet. He didn't look disgusted. He didn't ask why. He didn't judge me. He just looked at me as we were sitting on the temple grounds and told me that he wanted to help me. That he wasn't going to let that get in the way of how he felt about me. We didn't talk a lot about marriage. I wanted to have a family. I wanted to get back on track in my life. I wanted to be healthy and feel well. I finally knew that I wanted to do it. I wasn't wanting to get help to please my family. I wanted to do it for me. I told my mom to go ahead and get me into The Center for Change. She looked at me with some doubt in her eyes. She asked if I was sure. I told her I was one hundred percent positive. I was scheduled to be admitted the beginning of January.
 I was so scared. I didn't want to leave J. I didn't want to leave my family. I didn't want to leave work. But I knew it was absolutely necessary. I was checked in a few weeks into January. They did a complete physical on me to see where I was at health wise. They had me say good bye to my parents. I went one way and they went another. I was terrified. Terrified for so many reasons. At the time they only had 16 inpatient spots to facilitate girls and women.
 They showed me my room and I was introduced to my sweet roommate. Her name was Melanie. I was shocked at how welcoming and inviting all the girls were. That night I couldn't sleep at all and was so home sick. The next day, I was determined to leave. I talked to my therapist and told her I needed to leave. She said I could call my mom. When my mom picked up the phone I told her I thought I could do this on my own and that I was ready for her to come get me. I had eaten two full meals and felt great. I fully expected her to say she would be on her way. To my surprise she said she loved me more than anything and that was why she wasn't going to come. I begged and pleaded. The answer never changed. She told me after what the doctor called and told her after they did my physical, that if I didn't stay, I wouldn't live.
 I was there for 90 days. I went through some real intense therapy and classes. J would come up and see me as often as he could. I made some amazing friends there and had never felt so close to friends in my entire life.
 I had been out of the center for a few weeks and J asked me to marry him. We were married on June 8, 2001. Our first year of marriage, like many, was a really tough year. I was still struggling with my self image and so insecure that J was going to just up and leave me. As shallow as this sounds and is, I was always sure he was wishing he had someone prettier. I never trusted when he told me that he only wanted me. I can't imagine how frustrating and hard to live with I was!!!
 Early in October, I found out I was pregnant. We were shocked as I had been on birth control and wasn't planning on having a baby that soon. I also didn't think with all my body had gone through I would be able to get pregnant, at least not for a long time. What a blessing that was in so many ways. I had still been really struggling here and there with eating issues. From the minute I looked at the positive pregnancy test, I KNEW I needed and wanted to be as healthy as could be for my precious baby. I can't say I did perfectly throughout my pregnancy, but I was pretty dang close! Our precious little girl, Adisson (Addie), joined our family on June 18, 2002. She was born three weeks early. When the doctor broke my water, she aspirated the water on her lungs and was born deathly sick with pneumonia. It was terrible. They were close to having to life flight her up to Salt Lake City. She was given a beautiful priesthood blessing by J and my Dad. Soon after she started doing well enough to stay at our hospital. She was in the NICU for a few days.What a blessing she has been in our lives! She truly is a remarkable little girl and has taught me so much.
 I continued doing really well with my eating and was feeling so good and was so happy. I LOVED being a mom and didn't ever know how amazing it would actually be until I was able to experience it first hand!! When Addie was just barely ten months, I found out once again that I was expecting! How did this happen when I was religiously taking birth control? This time, unfortunately, I wasn't as excited. I was VERY overwhelmed and just couldn't get over the fact that I didn't have enough time alone with just Addie. As embarrassing as this is, I was so worried that I couldn't possibly love this new baby as much as I did Addie.
 On January 10, 2004 when Addie was just 19 months, Koleman was born! Boy was I wrong! I loved that little boy so much even before he was actually born.What a special spirit he brought with him. 
 As time went on, I was going up and down with my eating disorder. I didn't really ever stay as far down as I was before I went into the center, but I did struggle.
 J was really patient. One thing that I always really admired about him was the ability he had to love everyone for who they were. He was friends with people from all walks of life. He didn't judge and didn't hold grudges.

 Before J served his mission, he had hurt his back when he was snowboarding. As time went on it just progressively worsened. A lot of the jobs he did were heavy labor jobs, which I know didn't help the back situation at all. He was in so much pain all the time it seemed. He got to the point where his legs would go numb and give out on him.
 He ended up having back surgery in May of 2007. The surgery went well and the Doctor said he was pleased with the results. Along with any type of surgery or injury, most likely you are prescribed pain meds. J was prescribed Loratab to help with his pain. He took them frequently as he was healing from his surgery.
 A year later I came home from the store around lunch time. J's mom was parked in my driveway. I thought that was odd as I rarely had her come unexpected and especially in the middle of the day as she worked. She asked if she could talk to me and had a pile of papers. She sat down and got right to the point. She told me that she was worried that J abused prescription drugs. She said that there were so many signs that he was showing of it compared to the research she did on the internet.
 I was honestly shocked. At first I thought, absolutely no way. Then I opened my mind and thought that she wouldn't take time from her lunch hour and show up to talk to me at my house if it wasn't a valid concern. I thanked her for letting me know the things she knew that led her to believe this was happening (as I had no idea). I was stunned and felt almost numb.
 Later that day when J got home, he was confronted about it. He told me that she was way off and reminded me that she jumps to conclusions oft times. I then was furious at myself for thinking something like that could be happening, and at his mom for doing that.
 As time went on, J was going through different jobs almost every three months. It was either he would get laid off, or it wasn't doing enough to support financially. I was discouraged, but didn't connect the dots...We had to short sale our home. We sold our car. We moved in with J's mom. We sold all of our furniture, and anything else we could just to be able to live.
J decided to go back to school to pursue something in the medical field. I was so proud of him and knew that he could do it! He was so smart, and could do anything he set his mind to!
 When Addie was in second grade and Koleman was in kindergarten, I distinctly remember one night. We just went and the kids were playing on the school playground. Addie had an AMAZING teacher that I absolutely adored and Koleman had Mrs.Iverson who, I too, really admired. As the kids were playing I just sat there watching them and was looking at the school. I spent a lot of my time at the school volunteering and was a part of the PTA. I never ever thought of becoming a teacher. I initially went to school and it was a desire of mine to be a nutritionist (go figure :)) and then wanted to go into interior design. But as I sat there looking at the classroom doors that were covered in the student's art work, I felt an urgent prompting that I needed and WANTED to go back to school to be a teacher. What in the world?! I never thought of that before. I always thought that when my kids were a little older, I wanted to go back to school to get a degree. But this feeling was that I needed to act on it and act on it right then! It was about April at the time. I went home and told J what I wanted to do. I immediately got online and filled out an application for the coming fall. Before I knew it, I was enrolled for fall semester at Dixie State University. I was nervous, but also extremely excited.
 That was when I was also offered the job as the kindergarten aid at the kids' school. Things were just seeming to work out so well!
 Even though things seemed to be falling into place, I started having some really weird, uneasy feelings about J and if he was ok. After I had such a strong prompting to go back to school, I honestly wondered if he might die prematurely.  From the beginning of our marriage he would ask me to do some very uncomfortable things, that I just assumed were normal because I was SO naive. He was asking me more frequently and it made me sick. I had no idea that these things were probably stemming from what he was watching/looking at (pornography). He always seemed to be sick or having something happen to him. He broke his foot, hand, finger, got bit by a black widow, had the back surgery, had knee surgery, and in between all of that would constantly have the flu or terrible headaches. I was extremely worried about him. At the same time I was SO mad at myself because I started resenting him always seeming to have something wrong. I got to the point when he would be sick or something would happen, I wasn't very compassionate and would just be upset that he was missing another thing with our family, or it was another doctor bill we didn't have money for. I felt so selfish for even thinking that way and would vow to never let myself feel that way again. Then the very next time I would have those same resentful feelings come, and I would go through the anger and then guilt, and then shame for feeling that way all over again.
 We were able to move out before Addie went into third grade and Koleman was in first grade. We rented a little house that was in the school boundaries. We were barely ever making ends meet to be able to afford to live in our own place. We were all in school and J was working at three different jobs.
 I started noticing a real change in J. It wasn't really drastic or anything, but he just seemed to be more and more withdrawn. He didn't get involved as much as he once did with the kids and I. He started to not be as easy going as he once was. He would get offended by things that NEVER would have bothered him before. He would get upset at people and was more judgmental than he was before. He would leave at odd times.
 I would have terrible feelings that something wasn't right. For a while I thought maybe he was not going to live long. But those feelings turned to just feeling like he was hiding something like something wasn't right with him. But what was wrong? I just couldn't figure it out. Looking back, there were so many signs that I just didn't interpret...