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A beginning, a middle and now hopefully an ending!!!

Old 07-30-2007, 06:22 PM
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A beginning, a middle and now hopefully an ending!!!

I met my first husband way back in 1983. I was with someone else at the time but it was love at first sight for us both. He truly was a fantastic young man, the absolute life and soul of any party. We became an item pretty quickly and I guess, looking back, my fate was sealed.
We became engaged and I fell pregnant on 26/12/1984. Yes, that specific!!!!
We were both so happy and I knew from the night I became pregnant that I was having a little girl. She became my entire focus.
We married in April 1985 and it was a lovely day but not the best day of my life. I knew that day was coming in September 1985.
We moved into our first house in May 1985 and almost immediately, my wonderful husband changed. Or he showed me his true colours. The violence and drinking escalated.
I was so young and naive. I assumed I could help him and cure him. I found out about his abused childhood. He was the product of two alcoholic and violent parents. He never stood a chance really.
The best and most important day of my life finally arrived on 23rd September 1985. And I changed dramatically from a 19 year old pregnant girly to a Mum. My perfect little girl was finally sleeping in the cot next to me. We became an unstoppable team that very day.

I know that because of my post natal depression (it went undiagnosed) and because I was a young first time Mum, I did become very focused on my daughter and did neglect her Dad. I assumed he would cope and that he would understand. He didn't.
He embarked on a twelve year drinking and drug taking binge. I hid everything from my little girl quite well in the early days. This did get harder as she grew up. I worked hard to give her the happy childhood i'd been fortunate enough to have. We had some wonderful help from our families and I hid his behaviour and addictions from them too. No one knew what was really happening except a good next door neighbour. We moved from our home to another part of the UK in a vain attempt at a fresh start but the issues just followed us. He became worse instead of better.

Things were getting more and more difficult to keep secret as my daughter was 11 by this time and a very smart 11 year old too. I have since found out that when I went to work, instead of him looking after her, she ended up looking after her own Dad.

From 1995 up to 1999, these years were the worst. He was in and out of jobs, and institutions. He took money form us all the time and left us with nothing. We were all in a huge amount of debt because of him. He trashed the house regularly and almost burned it down on several occasions. He attempted suicide so often, that it became normal for me to come home from work and find him OD'd again......
I tried to make sure my daughter stayed at a friends house as it was just no longer safe for her to be at home. I found some amazing friends who didn't interfere but did help in practical ways.
His violence was now directed towards himself as he was no longer strong enough to attack me. I ended up attacking him out of hate and frustration on a couple of occasions. He became so physically ill that a member of his family picked him up from our house one day and promised to take care of him. They took him back to our old home town and put him in an institution. For the first time in our lives, myself and my perfect brave daughter were alone. We realised that we could cope better on our own. I was earning enough money as I was working two jobs by this time. We set about getting our lives back together. We both breathed a huge sigh of relief.

But it was short lived as they let my husband out of the institution and let him stay, on his own in a dingy, disgusting flat. I couldn't believe it. He was so not fit to take care of himself. I knew things were going to go very, very wrong. He asked me if he could come back to us, but I said no. I left him there in that flat. And within a few weeks, he was dead (23/02/1999).

It's funny how I thought that before this, we were going to all be ok. I still thought that one day he'd be well again, just like he was originally. How wrong I was.

The grieving process began for us all. I threw myself into my work and looking after my daughter. I worked 18 hours a day most weeks because of the debts he had left us with. We were nearly homeless but after i'd spoken to my daughter, she agreed that I had to work so many hours to get us through. She stayed with her best friend often. I had so much help from so many fantastic people, I will never be able to thank them for what they did for us. The next few months went by in a blur and I then had an accident at my main job and injured my back. I was off work for a couple of months but this is where I first met Opiates. I knew about them and their role in pain management etc, but i'd never taken them before. I was in tremendous amounts of pain and initially had to have Morphine injections daily from the visiting healthcare professional. I then began visiting an excellent osteopath and had extensive therapy. I had to continue with the tablets and started on Solpadol effervescent tablets when the therapy had started to make a big difference to my injury.
But after a while, I realised that these tablets did so much more than kill physical pain. They also numbed me emotionally and I felt more able to carry on with my day to day activities. I didn't cry at all and i'd effectively interrupted the essential grieving process by taking the tablets. I began a routine of taking them that made me feel happy and safe. I really needed to feel like that.

I carried on like this for such a long time. I would occasionally come off them for various reasons and my nightmare would begin again. So staying on them seemed to be the best idea. There were times when I had to come off them but at the first opportunity, I was back on them. Picking up that lovely purple box they come in from the pharmacy every week and going back to the house and dissolving them in Pepsi Max in a special cup was a joy. An essential routine.

Then a friend I was with in 2001 noticed what I was doing. No one else did. I was staying at his flat a couple of nights and I was doing my tablet routine regularly. He finally asked me why I was doing it. I couldn't answer. I made an excuse about my back but he saw through it. He took away my precious tablets and flushed them away and made me stay with him while I came off them. It was so hard and so awful going through it in front of someone else. I felt so ashamed.

I didn't stay with him and went back to my best friend Solpadol.

I then began the relationship of a lifetime with my present husband. We'd worked together for ten years initially and were really good mates. We were both in love with each other but never had the guts to be honest about it until he spoke up one day. I told him about my problems with opiates and he tried to help but I just carried on taking them without him knowing and also I managed to get myself a pretty decent alternative supply so as to not arouse my GP's suspicions.

My turning point came almost three weeks ago. I woke up from a drug induced sleep and saw my hubby sleeping next to me and that was it. Pretty simple. I love this man beyond belief and he deserves a wife with a clear head and heart. And that is what he is going to get.

I know I have a long way to go down the clean and sober road but I like this road. I absolutely love this road. I'm staying on this road now. I owe it to myself mainly but I owe so much to my husband, my daughter, my family and friends too. It hasn't been easy and there are so many challenges ahead for me. I also need to carry on the grieving process that my accident interrupted a few years ago. But for now, it's one little step at a time................................

ST
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Old 08-02-2007, 01:01 AM
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Thank you for sharing your story with us.
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Old 08-02-2007, 01:13 AM
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thank you ST
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Old 08-02-2007, 05:25 AM
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You write eloquently - thank you for sharing your story with us. I do hope you stay here with us.
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Old 08-02-2007, 07:12 AM
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Thanks for sharing that with us supertech.
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Old 08-04-2007, 11:24 PM
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Smile Thanks for reading my story

Hi Guys
Thanks so much for taking the time and trouble to read my story. I decided to do it as i'd not told anyone the whole story before and it was weighing me down I think. It also might help other people who find themselves in a similar situation. They will see that although bad stuff happens to people, it really is possible to get better and move on in a good way.

God bless all of ya!!!!!!!!!!
22 Days clean....................
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Old 08-05-2007, 05:20 AM
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Way to go supertech.
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Old 08-05-2007, 08:28 AM
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Awesome on the sober time! hope ya stick around
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Old 08-05-2007, 10:46 AM
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Thank-you for sharing Super. Your story moved me to tears.

Congrats on 22 days!!

Karen
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Old 08-07-2007, 08:37 AM
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Fun in the Sun

Hi Guys

Thanks for the lovely comments. Sorry you felt upset Micepod. But there is a happy ending for me. I'm married to the most fantastic man who loves me no matter what and cares about my little girl too. Yep, it's been a tough few years and i've made many mistakes along the way but I still consider myself to be so lucky. I did not ever expect to find love again. But I did........

I'm flying back home today after spending 5 months here in New Zealand and looking forward to giving my daughter a huge hug........

And apparently summer has finally arrived in the UK too. So a bit of sun at last.....

ST
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