The Perfect Storm

I have this past life, that I lived for twelve years, and my memories of it are like a sketch, some areas intense with color, others very vague and incomplete. Unfortunately the vibrant memories are of the very end, the very tragic.

I was married to one of the great loves of my life. We met when I was just eighteen years old; he was twenty years my senior, but this rush I felt when I was around him was a magnet that drew me in....He was charismatic and wonderful and we got married when I was twenty. I had problems. Very significant problems. An undiagnosed eating disorder that was quite severe, yet easily covered by more obvious situations that almost everyone thought were the cause- quite frankly I was a raging bipolar who drank too much and said I was too depressed to eat and too manic to sit still. But my husband loved me. You see, in my young life I had never felt so accepted for exactly who I was. He knew my insecurities and not to step on them. He knew the triggers to avoid, the stressors to alleviate. He was strong and rational while I was emotional and moody. I wish the colors of the details of our marriage and the babyhood of our two children were more clear in my mind, however it all just ran together in this blur of tears and tragedy that was his death.

I had a therapist for six years. At the time he died, after diabetes ravaged his body and he finally let go, I was doing wonderfully. I had stopped drinking. I had started eating. I was on the right meds and at a healthy weight. My therapist flew home from vacation when I had her paged with what had happened.... And practically every detail of those events are etched in my brian with indelible ink. As she and I spoke on the phone, she said, "Five years ago we wouldn't be having this conversation. You would have already killed yourself."

For the twelve years we were together we lived near the coast in Southern California. It was a beautiful place, with sun drenched summers and mild winters. We were near my family and around them often. At the end of it all, I was thirty years old. I had a tribe of women to support me, as well as a therapist and doctor who knew every piece of my history. But lurking in the darkness was his illness, the man I loved more than anything, and when faced with his mortality I shoved it to the back of my consciousness. By now he was on dialysis. Diabetes had destroyed his kidneys. In April 2006 he had his first heart attack, ironically, because he always said "Diabetics don't have first heart attacks." But he did survive, albeit barely, and he was never the same. He never even made it up our stairs again. The four of us slept on two couches in the living room.

My birthday is in July and I remember it being so cast with darkness. It was a sweltering hot summer; the dog got fleas. He was sick with some sort of infection, so three days after my 30th birthday, he got in the car to drive to the ER, ostensibly to get some antibiotics and come home. I slammed the door in a rage; nothing was ever OK. It was the last time I saw him alive.

As soon as he drove off, a feeling of dread swept through me like ice slicing through the 90 degree heat. I packed my kids in the car. I yelled at my three year old because he was wearing a Winnie the Pooh costume that could have passed as a snowsuit, so I had to change his clothes before we could drive off.....

And then I saw the ambulance. I was actually following an ambulance and I thought, "It's for him. I know it's for him." Surely I saw his car on the side of the road in the distance. I pulled over and ran into the street screaming......"He doesn't have a pulse," said the medic, "Follow us."

Once we got into the ER, I watched behind a curtain, as my children chattered in a nearby room with a chaplain. They were doing compressions over and over. They asked if I wanted them to stop. I looked at his feet, pale, and I knew it had been too long. Six minutes without oxygen, they told me. But I just couldn't do it. Not yet. Keep trying, I said. Keep trying just a minute more. Somehow they got him intubated and "stable". No one thought he would survive the night. I remember each and every gory detail of the next week, every redundant test on his brain, the moments I spent crying with my stepdaughter, and when we finally turned off the machines. We waited, holding our breaths, but he did not go yet. The brain stem can apparently still operate respiration and cardiac activity for a while, even when the cerebral cortex is dead. I remember the 3 AM phone call when he finally passed away, and heaving uncontrollably on the cold tile floor, probably the only place in the house that wasn't warm and stuffy. I remember the phone calls that followed, the funeral home the next day, and telling my children. What I don't remember is most of my life. And what I do is just.....vague.

August 1st, 2006. The day I grew up. I was 30 years old. I took care of my kids. I moved far away, and got a job, and did all these things that grown-ups do. And I made this new life. I know I was running away; I know somehow I thought if I started a new life I would erase the pain of my loss. I think what happened instead was I lost the very parts of my life I want to remember. That's all; because I remember every traumatic detail.....but the joy is shrouded away.

I am genuinely happy in so many ways. I am amazingly blessed. I married a wonderful man that I love so, so much. His blue eyes just melt me, and he's my best friend. As crazy as I am, I must say I have been really good at having meaningful relationships. I had three more kids that wouldn't be here if I hadn't come to the northwest and married Anthony. We have an awesome family. Anthony is my rock, my everything, and my number one supporter. Sometimes I'm afraid it wouldn't be fair to Anthony if I had any happy memories of my past, which probably contributes to the way my PTSD manifests. I mean honestly, if it were so simple to just rewind and rewrite the story, wouldn't that be easier?

I also have an eating disorder and I seem to relapse every July or August. Maybe I want to forget the summer I grew old? It seemed odd for him to die in the summer, in the midst of BBQ's and beach parties, and children playing in the park. It felt like the rest of the world was in a completely alternate reality than my children and I. And then I had to figure out how to get rid of the dog's fleas, which had now infested my house. I never went back in my bedroom. A friend donated his clothes to Goodwill before we moved. It's these little practical things you don't realize you will now have to deal with alone....you are now responsible for everything. Every diaper change. Every dish. Every bill to be paid.

And then there is Diabetes. It is said that making strong associations that are very hard to break is common in anorexics. This is certainly true of me. I read a statistic, it stays in my mind forever. For things like college and interesting conversation this is useful. But I will make associations like, Brad died of diabetes. Brad did not follow his diabetic diet very well. He also had heart disease. That could have been caused by diabetes too.....

The list gets exhausting, but I ended up with a fixation with having the perfect diet. I was no longer the anorexic subsiding on diet Coke and cigarettes. I was just REALLY REALLY concerned about my health. A hot dog will kill you. A piece of non-organic chicken will kill you. Eat leafy greens and blueberries every day or you will die. Oh shit, now you are eating ONLY fruits and vegetables and you are back to this bizarre mix of starving yourself, like in the past, and actually believing this is the best choice, given the fact you are avoiding all these "bad foods".

Oh yeah, and you left your therapist, psychiatrist and support system in California. Your sweet husband knows your psychiatric history, and that you take meds, but to him you are pretty damn normal.

Ahhh shit, that's one hell of a way to create the perfect storm.