whiplash

It’s been a while, friend. A year ago I was in the emergency room, bleeding, elevated blood pressure, cramping pain in my lower abdomen, all after finding out I was pregnant.  It was a short pregnancy and that was for the best.

The day I went to the emergency room my dad chose to go to a Styx concert instead.  (My dad cares more about a rock concert than me.)

With each visit to the hospital, my husband’s mood became darker, quicker to anger, and he stressed to me how the trips were harder for him.  (My husband doesn’t acknowledge my pain.)

I thought once we get past this then we can get on with our lives.  It can only go up from here.  Surely this is rock bottom.

And even though we were able to get Medicaid assistance to help us with the astronomical hospital bills, nothing else improved.  We were essentially forced out of where we were living (along with my grandparents) and made the rash decision to move to Ohio.

Ohio is its own story and at the moment it’s not one I’m keen on sharing.  That was rock bottom and I’m moving beyond it.

Now we’re back in Florida (even the grandparents in their own new home) with jobs and a roof over our heads.  All of the fall out from Ohio, what led up to it, immediately after has resulted in my husband hating my family.  I’m not using this verb lightly.  He hates them.  Hasn’t seen them since the incident with the sewing machine.  I’ll explain that later if I have time but right now just know that a sewing machine was the final nail in the coffin.

Every single weekend that I take the boy with me to visit my dad, his wife, my grandparents, husband erupts in anger.  It hasn’t been just these visits though.  I spill something, burn something, forget something… I’m often exhausted and my brain is generally enveloped in a haze… these are reasons for a burst of anger.

Suggesting to my husband that we let our son open one toy on Christmas Eve–furious, storming off and slamming the bedroom door behind him.  Yesterday I said I’m going to visit my family and he blurts out, “Who’s your family?” When I push him on why he’s asking, he tells me that his parents and his sister who he talks to at least three times a week aren’t his family and I’m told that I’m choosing them over him.

Of course the control and anger were happening even when we were in Korea.  It became glaringly obvious after the baby was born, but even before then.  That time I lost my job and took one with a massive drop in pay and we were verging broke.  Instead of volunteering to get a job–because he wasn’t working–he suggested I should take on private tutoring in addition to the job I already had.  Then I got a better job and money was no longer an issue, but he resented that housework was his job.

“Am I slave?” he asked because as far as I was concerned, I went to work five days a week, he got to stay home, and what exactly was he doing with his time?

This, by the way, was the pre-baby era.  Once the baby entered the picture his mom came over to help him.  Generally I’d come home to find his mom either cooking or washing dishes and JH sitting on the floor watching TV or surfing the net, holding the baby.  As soon as I walked in the door, coat not even off, he’d be up and handing me the baby.  His mom generally left less than half an hour later. Then that night I’d get up with the baby because I was breastfeeding, and he’d remind me of this every time I asked him to please give me a chance to sleep, I have to get up for work in the morning.

And then there were the times when the baby threw up which sometimes meant kicking furniture and one time his hitting a wall, breaking his hand in the process.  He told me more than once that it was my fault he broke his hand.

He says similar now when he loses his temper: “You’re making this one.”

It’s emotional whiplash.  We go from content, approaching-happy moments, the kind where I think that we could get a house with a yard, a beautiful wood play set for Luca, and have peace, to that scene yesterday where I say I’m going to visit my family and he stalks off into the bedroom, slams the door behind him, and screams.

Where I would’ve visited for a couple hours, I stayed all day, even after the family left I didn’t want to come back here and be in his negative presence.  Couldn’t handle it.

I’ve applied to a few job, one that I feel I might have a chance for an interview.  Am waiting on letters to apply for another that doesn’t have great pay, but won’t have the element of stress that my current job has.

I’m tired of living like this where I don’t know when the next emotional outburst is coming.  My nerves are raw as it is.  My insurance has started so I’ll make an appointment to see someone at least about the anxiety and maybe, hopefully get some advice regarding my marriage.  At this point I’m not even looking for “happiness” because that feels far off and elusive, but I hold out hope for peace.  Being able to not worry about what mistakes I’m making.

time and opportunity

It’s a quiet Friday morning.  Husband is lying in bed, playing on his phone.  Son is here with me, distracting me from my goal of writing by being two years old.  Weeks have passed since I’ve updated the blog and now I’m getting emails about the meetings I need to attend next week.  As I joke with my cousins, “You don’t know too many people so excited about starting work, do you?”

They generally agree even though I’m sure there are plenty of us out there who’ve been unemployed for far too long and are ecstatic at the prospect of a steady paycheck.  It’s not full time which means I’m back at the Medicaid application again.  No different then when husband got a job in FL.  It’s a bandage, nothing more.

I don’t feel that I have the time or head space to really delve into my thoughts and emotions.  As it is, I’ve been interrupted numerous times in writing the above two paragraphs and there’s no way my nerves can take much more of that.

The optimism I’m carrying is that this employment will be a resolution to what I desperately need, and that’s to write with a goal in mind.

I imagine stress, but my god, that sweet opportunity makes my mouth water.  I had years of opportunity and I squandered it.  This time around, now that I know how precious and necessary it is, how fundamental to my well-being, I am going to milk every last minute that I’m given and savor that delicious gift.

resistance to a better life

In exactly one week, we will be leaving for Ohio. We settled on this yesterday and now it’s all a matter of getting the moving process going. It’s pretty much our move to the US last October on repeat. No jobs. No place of our own. No certainty that things will work out and we will get jobs and our own place.

I sent in a couple extra applications for myself, one PT and one FT.  The FT job isn’t something I want and not sure I’m qualified to do, but I can always take a stab at it.  There are a couple more jobs here I have listed that I’ll put in apps for today.

My husband is being resistant about what jobs he’s willing to take.  It’s the same old song and dance.  While I get what he’s saying, I’m just not seeing a lot being listed for what interests him and he balks hard at taking a substitute position which might be the only way for him to get in to the school system.

If he continues this and I get a job, him content to wait until the absolute perfect job comes along, I’d ask for a divorce.  It’s been on my mind since around the time our son was born.  The marriage never returned to what it was and he’s been so, so critical, sometimes harsh, sometimes explosive in his anger, and it’s more important to him to have a job that suits him to a T, rather than do what it takes to support his family.

The entire time we lived in Korea I supported him.  Even before the baby was born, he didn’t work.  There were always excuses.  When the baby was born, it was so much worse because he would use it against me in a fight.

“You aren’t around during the day.  That makes you a bad mother.”

How much harder it was for him to stay home (and for his mom to come over and help him, leaving the moment I returned from work)….

I’m tired of him.  He does the least expected of him and sometimes not even that much.  He keeps saying, “if we fail here, we’ll go back to Korea,” and that’s horrific, not even worth considering.  I told him if that happens, he’ll happily go back to not working at all.  What a great life for him.

It’s like he’s never been expected to do things that make him uncomfortable or that challenge him.

I’m terrified that we’re going to fail a 2nd time.  Three times a charm?  It has to be two times a charm or there’s the real possibility we’ll have to leave this country again.  No.  No.  No.

seeking home

It seems when challenges happen they happen in a volley.

A few days ago my husband and I got the news that the house we’re living in, my grandparents’ house, will be put up for sale within the next couple months, and that my grandparents are moving out in August to Ohio.

My husband has a job. I found some part-time work that had me hopeful for better, more permanent things in the near future. At the least we’d no longer be leaking money.

We get this news and we’re left scrambling. How? How do we survive on our own when two meager wages does not equal a livable income? Not in Florida we can’t. My grandpa invites us to move into the top floor of the two-story duplex that they’ll be buying. Our very own place! For the first time in almost a year!

But we have to go immediately because jobs and after some discussion “immediately” defined itself as 1-2 weeks, now closer to one week. We’ll move into my cousin’s home which is a historical home built in 1840. It’s the kind of house a person could get lost in. He’s not on a six-figure income, just incredibly savvy, and he’s willing to let us stay with him until we can move into that duplex.

At the least we don’t have to consider returning to Korea.

Now the other part of this story–yesterday I went to the doctor to get my blood work results and was told that I have high cholesterol and need to do something about it immediately. That wasn’t what I expected to hear. Yet I think about it and yeah, I don’t exercise these days, I don’t eat well, what do I expect exactly?

This could be the reason my vision’s screwed up–blind spot, flashes of light.

Maybe it’s the reason I feel like I have the flu right now? No idea. She didn’t really give me much outside of my results.

Yesterday I thought, maybe my body has finally broken and my brain hasn’t gotten the memo yet to follow suit. In the mornings, while husband and son are sleeping, I sit at the computer and think about everything before us and my eyes well with tears. This is too much. How do we keep going like this?

I look around this room, the one that was supposed to be for my son and has become makeshift office/storage. It’s cluttered with unpacked boxes, vacuum-sealed bags, storage tubs, scattered all about. There’s barely a place to walk. The “desk” is a rickety collapsible table better suited for the outdoors. We’re fortunate to have the space. When we were living with his parents it was a far sadder, more frustrating situation in its own way.

I don’t want to leave Florida. I don’t want to start from scratch yet again.

What’s that song say? “You can’t go home and you can’t stay here.”

There we are, the defining theme of the moment.

My husband says to think of it as another adventure. After all, wasn’t that what moving to Korea was for me? That’s what it was for him when he moved to New Zealand.

We were single then, I remind him. If things went awry, we only had to worry about ourselves. Now we’ve got our son and I want stability for him. Elusive stability. A two-year old doesn’t need this kind of adventure. And quite frankly, I’m all adventured out.

But there is a piece of me that’s excited because there’s that familiar spark of hope, that everything will work out and it will be better tomorrow than it was today. That in the near future we can stop struggling and worrying, looking at our bank account with its daily plummeting numbers.

And one day I can walk through the door and when I think to myself, “I’m home,” it’ll be the truest sense of that phrase.

unpredictable bumps and lumps

All we can rely on is unpredictability.

A little over a week ago, I interviewed for a full time instructor position at a nearby college and made it to the final interview where it was between me and one other person.  I had put everything into these interviews and felt that if I didn’t get this job then I’d have to resign myself to either taking what I knew would be a soul crushing job that would likely result in a nervous breakdown or move back to Korea… which would also result in a nervous breakdown.

I didn’t get the job.

Two days later I received a letter in the mail from the dean who wanted me to consider adjunct.  The husband and I discussed this, agreeing that so long as we could stay in our current living arrangement this would be a temporary fix and might even lead to the kind of full time employment that might interest me.  After this discussion, I made the 90 min drive to the main campus to fill out paperwork, get photocopies of legal documents made, and take home the rest of the papers that needed filled out in detail or, in one case, notarized.

I thought, This is working out okay.  I’m getting my foot in the door.

Shortly after I got the process rolling on this adjunct position, I found out that my grandparents, who were letting us stay with them in exchange for caretaking, were being pushed to move up to Ohio.  My husband is working but he draws in a poverty level income.  The income I would take in from working as an adjunct wouldn’t be a whole lot better.  We certainly can’t live on it when we have a child that we’d have to put in daycare.  I’d have a tough time on that sort of income as a single person and I definitely understand how people get stuck in low wage jobs and on government assistance.

We’re going to wind up back in Korea and if that happens I’m going to lose it.

Yesterday my grandfather says, out of the blue, “I was just sitting in the living room thinking.  Why don’t you go up to Ohio and live with us?  We’re going to buy that house next to your aunt’s place.”

The house is a two-story duplex, one living area on the bottom floor and one on the top.  My family in Ohio bought it dirt cheap several years ago and did the renovation on their own to keep costs down and have been renting it out since.  Now my aunt is selling to my grandparents, likely for an extremely reasonable price, and, as it’s right across the road from her, she can come over throughout the day to care for them.

When my grandpa mentioned this, it caught me off guard.  I’d thought for sure we were screwed and it seemed there was no way this could possibly work.  Turns out my aunt’s also on board with us moving up.

But when? I asked and he couldn’t answer.  He told me to keep going with the paperwork on this adjunct position.

So, today I had one of the employment papers notarized ($10 out of pocket for that), came back home, and he asked if we were willing to move to Ohio the 1st of August.

This all happened less than an hour ago and I’m still feeling some of the shock from that brief conversation.

My husband’s saying, “Let’s go.  The sooner the better” and I know that we don’t stand a snowball’s chance in… well… Florida if we stay.

We’re better off if we go, right?  I mean, what is there for us here?  We’re not guaranteed a single thing in Ohio, but I know for a fact that if we stay here we’re going to bite into a nasty rotting lemon and be forced to suck it dry.  I don’t see a single hope where we are right now.  We’ve been struggling since we got here and that’s been about 8 months now where we’ve been spinning our wheels more than getting anywhere.

I don’t want to go to Ohio.  I’m so tired of moving.  I feel like I’ve done so much of it in the past several years, but here we are being offered a place to stay that would in fact be our own space where now we’re sharing a roof.  We’re being offered this same as we have now–rent free.  So, I can cringe at the thought of doing this yet again, but to say no to such a kind, generous offer  because of that childish impulse is ridiculous.  I’m working toward a place of acceptance and reminding myself to be adaptable and open.

This unpredictability is what it is to live after all and same as when I was struggling through the ectopic pregnancy, all I can do is remind myself that this too shall pass.

waiting wishing hoping

So, here it is: the day of decision.  Had the interview with the VP of instruction yesterday and was told I’d receive a call either then or today and I had a pretty good feeling that it wouldn’t be quite so soon after.  One other guy made it to the final interview and we saw each other and nodded, smiled, “Hello”, “good luck” and hm, a bit awkward that.

I like the college a lot.  I like everything I’m hearing about it.   There’s not a doubt in my mind that it’d be a crazy load of work, especially the first year but as long as I make it through that then I think I’ll be okay.

It was so hard to get an idea of where I stood with the VP.  She had a poker face going the whole time and did quite a bit of talking.  She asked a few questions and I stumbled on one because I wasn’t expecting it at all despite it being a simple question.  So, even though everything else seems to be in my favor that one question and the way I handled it is causing some massive doubt.  Plus the blank expression.  She was polite, nice, and I didn’t feel overly nervous seated across from her, yet I kept searching for something, anything to let me know where I stood and couldn’t pick up anything.

Once I got home I crashed–laid down on the floor crashed.  Three weeks of intense panic, studying till my brains could’ve leaked through my ears, the two nights before not sleeping, then the day before and day of not eating much.  All I’d had to eat before my 3 pm interview was a breakfast shake and so by the time I got home, 5:30, my stomach was a twisted knot of pain and this time not from nerves.

I fell into bed around 10 and slept straight through till 5 am when my mind immediately latched on today’s inevitable phone call and so, no point in staying in bed letting my thoughts get out of control.  It’s better to sit in front of the keyboard and give them a somewhat tidy home.

Today I have an appointment with the doctor.  I’m planning to bring up my anxiety with her and ask her about medication.  I also have to call mental health services to set up an appointment for counseling.

What’s funny about all this is how I lived a huge chunk of my life with anxiety and depression and had no idea that I had a treatable condition, just accepted it for who I was and that I was always going to be a freak social outcast who was terrified of simple errands like grocery shopping.  When medication was 1st suggested to me, I balked.  No way.  This is who I am.  How can you fix that?  Eventually, after seeing a different psychiatrist for therapy, I changed my mind and the world that opened to me… I had no idea I could live that kind of life.  You know, a social life.  Still, I was every bit as socially awkward as before because apparently you can’t learn social cues from a pill, but I also didn’t care nearly as much.  And since I’ve been off meds for a while and I know all this, I know that I don’t have to live the way that I am now, I so desperately want to be back on medication.

In all honesty, let’s say that they offer me this job, if I’m not on meds there’s no way I can do it.  It’ll be like what I’ve been dealing with the past 3 weeks, only these past 3 weeks I was able to be a hermit mostly and channel that nervous energy into research.  Teaching is all about projection.  It’s an obnoxiously extroverted profession, yet I love it because I’m interested in people and helping them better themselves.  Rephrase: when I’m on meds I love teaching.  Off meds and I tolerate it.

Now that that’s behind me I should also turn more to writing.  Tons of editing and rewriting to do on that bad boy and tomorrow I might be in a decent mental state for it, no matter what I hear from the phone call.

 

interview finalist

Got the call yesterday late evening that I’ve moved into the finals and today I’m meeting with the Vice President of Instruction.  I’m not sure how many other candidates there are.  My guess is two others and if that’s the case I have a 1 in 3 shot at getting this position.

I’ve been downing homeopathic anti-stress pills like they’re M&Ms and I think that’s one thing that got me through the committee interview and teaching demo yesterday.  I was able to relax enough to joke with the faculty and administration.  I also researched every nook and cranny of the job to get a feel of what they might ask and what they’re likely looking for in a candidate so they couldn’t throw me off with any questions.

I like the feel of the town where the college is located.  Very country and surrounded by horse pastures, trees, some farms and orange groves… really peaceful.  The campus is similarly small.  There’s one main building, a library, gym, and then a building for the technical majors.  None of these are large buildings, two stories the tallest, a steep contrast to Yeungnam which had a 20-story library.

That feeling of want has got me by the incisors, a vicious painful tugging that never really lets go.  Even when the stress pills are doing their thing, I can sense it just beneath the surface.  I know it’s there.

I think that these other candidates probably want it just as bad as I do.  Who knows, maybe their situations are every bit as desperate as mine.  Maybe they’re also unemployed with families to support.  Maybe they’re amazing teachers with years and years of experience under their belts, most of it in colleges.

It doesn’t do me any good to think like that.  I was able to pull it off yesterday and get this major, potentially life-altering interview today.  There’s absolutely no reason I can’t do it again today.

 

 

telephone phobia

It’s been a long while since I updated this blog.  The husband got a job that’s left the bulk of child and grandparent care to me.  This isn’t a bad thing and I don’t want to come across as complaining, just not much free time.  Many nights before work husband would stay up to drink a couple beers and get time to himself and I would go to bed shortly after son with the hope I can wake up before him and get some Me Time in.  Every now and then I’d get that time and I’d use it to play around a little on the internet and then dive into my writing.

I even managed to get a first draft.  Now I need to go back in and edit except my thoughts are obsessively focused on an upcoming job interview.

Ever since I got the phone call about the interview the anxiety has kicked in high gear.  All it takes is for me to think about the interview and the shaking and heart palpitations begin.  Friday I tried to call the administrative assistant and had to make notes for myself, visualize the phone call going well several times over, and a repeated mantra that it’s not a big deal–people make phone calls all the time, to call and find out the office is closed Fridays for the summer.

Now I have to try again Monday….

My insurance changed and I have to call to change PCPs for myself and son.  I’ve been putting that off too because phone call.  Tried doing it over the internet and the damned website kept giving me an error message and to try this phone number.  No.  I don’t want to talk to a live person over the phone.

I keep thinking how it’d be a lot better if I had therapy before the interview but I’ve put that off for so long too that there’s no way I’m going to get an appointment in time, or have any benefit if I do.

What kills me the most about this is how much I want that job.  It’s doing what I most want to do, in a great area with amazing schools that isn’t overpopulated, that will give me some time to work on my writing.  Who knows how many other people will be interviewed, how qualified they are, and how not crippled by anxiety they are.  I try not to build it up in my head.  I try using positive, gentle language with myself. 

The only thing that’s going to get me past this is to over prepare.  Then that’s what I ought to do because the obsessive thoughts are cranking up again.

pushing through the worst of it

I don’t know how much time I have to write.  As soon as I start writing, it’s inevitable that within minutes someone will need me.  Of course it’s also true that I laze about on the internet for far too long which means I haven’t nearly the conviction needed.

Just a moment ago as I was pouring my second cup of coffee for the morning, I thought how like a movie my life has become.  Not meaning that my life is Oscar-worthy dramatic, rather that the obstacles mounted to this seemingly insurmountable peek and now, in just this last week, we have a chance to rebuild.

Husband is most likely getting a job with a nearby high school, one that could lead to a future management position.  The hiring manager sounds as if she has every intention of pushing him in that direction and it really is the best news that we’ve received in a long while.

As for me, today I have an interview for an adjunct position to teach a writing course to college freshmen.  This is the third interview I’ve had since coming to the States and the first that has excited me.

It’s not that we’re in the clear.  Not by a long shot.  We still have over $10,000 in medical bills and no insurance.  The financial aid officer at the hospital is attempting to get Medicaid to reverse their denial for coverage (which was a ridiculous mistake that happened while I was too sick to manage my daily life and visiting the hospital every two days).  At this stage it doesn’t appear that they’ll cover the bills and we’re going to be stuck.  The only reason I’m not a puddle of depression on the floor is the promise of employment.  Even if neither one of the jobs are high paying, at least we’re not hemorrhaging money.  We can appease the hospital with small monthly payments and think to ourselves how it’s not so unlike student loans.

I know I need to see an OB/GYN.  Because of being uninsured, I never made an appointment at a clinic for the follow up I was asked to do.  There’s still occasional cramping in my pelvic area that gets worse with heavy physical activity.  I don’t think it’s too much of a leap to guess my fallopian tube has been damaged and if I think about that too long, I will melt into a depressed puddle.

Instead I’m going to focus on this interview today and making sure my husband does everything he needs to start his job.

I’m going to think about how we’ve overcome a lot, starting with just getting ourselves to this country.

I’m going to remember how unhappy I was in Korea and no matter the crap that we’ve been through in the US, at least now my husband has the promise of a career and I see the ability to mend my brokenness.

At some point we can leave the worst of this behind us and it will simply be a part of our life story that we overcame.

pain & the ectopic pregnancy

Four days ago I had another hospital visit.  Supposedly today will be the last.  If the beta levels go down to the doctors satisfaction, I won’t have to return to the hospital and have only the occasional clinic visit.

I’m still carrying pain around.

It had been hanging out in my pelvic area, generally on the left, radiating to my lower back.  The night before my last visit it had had me curling up in a hot shower at 4 am, chanting to myself, Please just stop.  Please just stop….

Eventually I crawled out, thinking that it had abated when I was overcome with an urge to vomit.  I collapsed right there in front of the toilet and waited.  Nothing happened but I could feel the blood drain from my face, my entire body shaking, world rocking, and a part of me wanted to vomit.  Maybe it would help me feel better.

I didn’t.  Instead, after some moments had passed, I crawled to my feet and staggered back to bed.

I slept hard.  When I woke up later in the morning, I felt like someone had been using me as a soccer ball.  Even though I didn’t have this kind of pain for the rest of the day, I was tender with myself, the cramps there at their lowest setting just waiting for me to get ambitious so they could kick into high gear sending me back onto a couch, bed, or the floor wondering why I needed to always overdo it.

I don’t know if this is something that others who’ve had the methotrexate injections experience or if it’s more specific to an ectopic pregnancy.

That last visit the doctor seemed unsure about my numbers.  After pushing her she assured me that they’d dropped within their safe parameters and it was okay for me to go home.  Now today I’m hoping to hear the same and that it’ll be the last and I can ignore the twinges in my lower abdomen.

The best thing about the past couple days is that the pain has gone down to manageable levels, enough that I can actually feel like a mom again and do things like drink coffee and eat.  Yes.  Eating had become a grueling task.

Of all of this, the pain has been the absolute hardest part which if I ever have to experience worse in my lifetime all I can hope is that I pass out.

It’s those nights, like the one I described at the beginning, but it’s also the helplessness.  I wasn’t able to do anything and when it came to my little boy that was the killer.  At best I could help my husband change my son’s diaper.  I had to give up breastfeeding.  I wasn’t able to pick him up.  I couldn’t even clean up his messes.  That bothered me.  Useless.  I didn’t feel like a mom at all.

The house was going to pot all around us, my husband overwhelmed with the task of childcare all on his own.  The days that I thought I had some strength and energy (and no pain) I’d dive into a chore to find myself curled up in bed shortly with that question–why do I do these things to myself….

Well.  Because I desperately want to feel normal again.

During that time it was a matter of just living with my body.  Now that I’ve (mostly) got the body I recognize back, I’ve returned to the business of getting my family’s life on track.