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That May, we made the rounds all over the U.S. to introduce each other to families. Needless to say, they were not at all pleased that they were unable to attend our impromptu wedding. We heard all about how selfish we were, but guess what? It was my wedding. It was my day. It was my choice. I wouldn't change a thing if I
did it again today. Not one thing. While I was in Missouri, I had the opportunity to visit my grandfather's grave. It must have given me some sort of closure, because my guilt suddenly lifted and shortly after my visit I had a wonderful dream about him. In it my grandfather told me how happy he was now, not to feel guilty, and to get on with my life. He knew I loved him and that was more important than my attendance at his funeral. I woke up crying, but I have been at peace about him ever since. Yes, I do think he really visited me. |  |
| Katy made her grand entrance into this world one month early, on September 20, 1991. We had fought for months over her name. Wanting something that reflected our heritage without naming her after anyone in our families was not an easy choice! We finally settled on Kaitlin for the first name, but continued to argue over her middle name. Finally, John went out to sea for a month, and my mother (who had flown out to be with me during the delivery) and I devised taking John's middle name of Britton and sticking a "y" on the end to make Brittony. He, of course, broke the rule of not naming her after anyone to name her after himself. Who can blame him, though? She is a doll! Not that I'm prejudiced or anything, mind you. | 
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| Living in Los Angeles really took its toll on me. I hated the place, was homesick for my family in Missouri, and was constantly afraid for my life. We had many scares, which I could take all day to list......riots, floods, wildfires, an oil refinery directly across the street from our housing complex exploding (and no one bothering to evacuate us because they thought no one lived in that area! Ha!), John was shot at, my mother was held up at gunpoint during work, vandalism.... our home was broken into by a gang in our area, then we received death threats when John pressed charges...etc. I truly felt like I was living in a war zone. I tried to make friends, but one neighbor I became friendly with had her son horribly scarred by scalding water in a bathtub and was hauled off to jail. I wound up being the key witness in her trial (that dragged on for two years). It got to be too much for me, so several times I took Katy and escaped to Missouri for a while. I was also hit full force during this time with feelings I'd kept pent up from sexual abuse as a child. I'd always remembered the incidents, but had shut off my feelings completely for years. Fine time for them to come back to haunt me. I sank lower and lower into depression until I could barely function. Truthfully, there were days when I didn't function at all. Our daughter, three at the time, had to go to daycare while I stayed home when I became unable to even take care of myself. All I wanted was to die. | |
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That's a picture of me taken around that time, by a very skilled and talented photographer, who even knew how to make me look good...but if you want to believe I really walk around looking like that, I won't disillusion you. Anyway, I think the depression shows particularly well in this shot. John finally forced me to see a therapist. One of the first things out of her mouth was that she wanted to put me on Prozac. I wouldn't even entertain the notion, and I think it really put a hamper on our efforts to help me. I clung to the idea that as long as I didn't have to be on medication, I wasn't *really* depressed and I'd snap out of it. I never did fully open up in therapy and I honestly don't feel we made that much headway in all the nine months I went. What really kept me hanging on was our new family addition...the computer! This thing became my lifeline to the world. I chatted with people, I discovered email, and I developed friendships with people halfway around the world. It was also very addicting...some nights I went to bed just as John was getting up to go to work. |
| My depression worsened and I decided my marriage was to blame, so I asked for a divorce. My mother flew with Katy to Missouri while John and I loaded the moving van and headed out across land. Two hours into the trip, in a little town out in the California desert, a bus blew past us doing about 90 mph. It started shaking the truck, we started fishtailing, and John lost control of the truck. We wound up rolling twice. I was knocked unconscious and have no memory of it until I was being put into the ambulance. Apparently I was in shock since I am told I carried on several conversations with people who stopped at the wreck site, but I don't remember anyone. I can remember sitting by the side of the road looking out at the wreck thinking how bad the scene was, but I cannot recall what I saw. Fortunately, nothing was broken. I sustained a relatively minor injury to my shoulder (it popped out of place and I had to wear a sling for several weeks) and cut my ear, but we walked away from what could have been a much worse wreck than it was. |  |
| We finally made it to Missouri, and I spent the next year there with Katy. I desperately needed that time to myself, to pull myself together and bring myself up out of the worst of my depression. The doctor there put me on Prozac (yes, I finally succumbed), but I only stayed on it for a couple of months. All it did was numb my senses. It didn't even get rid of the depression, just buried it more deeply, along with every other feeling I might have had. One of the things that DID help was the online depression support group I discovered, called Walkers in Darkness. For the first time in my short existence, I realized I was not alone. There were other people out there dealing with depression. I think that group did more to straighten my head out than anything else, because the people there had walked in my shoes. | |
