It Gets Better...

The night I found out my husband molested a girl, I kicked him out of my home, paced my house for like 40 minutes, then called my parents to come down. I needed them. When they got here, I couldn’t breathe. I couldn’t say the awful words that had just confessed their way into my ears. When I finally said what happened, my daddy grabbed me in a hug, told me he loved me and he’d take care of us, and said, “Well, it can’t get any worse.”

Eighteen days later, the Clallam County Sherriff’s office found his deceased body inside his car up a forest service road. When I went to Sequim to get my suicide note and hear the words from the deputy, on the way to the truck, my daddy hugged me, told me he loved me and he was sorry, and said, “It can’t get any worse.” 

When the plethora of other things that were part of this tangled mess started happening and I was reeling in grief and also trying to get things done and take care of two babies, when dad would hug me, I would lean into his ear and whisper, please stop saying it can’t get any worse, because it just keeps getting worse. 

There a new saying that has morphed its way into my head from my journey. So many people telling me “It gets better.” Better than what? Or even more important, better TO what? Better than my husband dying? Better than having seizures? Better than...not any better than “it can’t get any worse.”

I sat on many therapists’ couches over the last eight years, trying desperately to make myself feel better about the thoughts and feelings in my head. Every week I would come to the couch with a new mental health disorder that I was sure described me. Please tell me I’m not bipolar. I think I’m bipolar. How about ADD. I cannot concentrate or focus for the life of me. Do you suppose it could be schizophrenia? I felt crazy! And I searched for what was wrong with me. I needed a label because then maybe I could get better. I couldn’t get better from just being me. I needed something with a magic pill because this isn’t working for me. 

And then things did get better. Joy and peace came again. Calmness took over. But when you are someone who has been impacted by repetitive trauma, or perhaps even one trauma, the joy and peace never seem pure. I am constantly looking over my shoulder. Searching Facebook for the crisis that is lurking. Jumping when the phone rings thinking something is wrong. Wondering about results of blood tests or scans or someone being sick. Waiting for the other shoe to drop. It gets better? Sometimes, I regret ever asking for a diagnosis because when it finally happened and I saw the words “Post Traumatic Stress Disorder” on one of my benefit statements, I felt my world was ending. That there would never be a better. 

There is a better. I have transformed myself inside and outside, or at least I pretend to. However, that right there! That is the skepticism that fills my mind with worry and stress. That, sure, things are good, but they’re not going to stay good. I can’t maintain joy and peace and happy. I won’t stay ok forever. It’s just a matter of time before I binge on food and gain all of my weight back. Or get pissed and unplug my treadmill forever. It’s only a matter of time before the darkness in my head wins and I am sucked backwards ten steps. 

So, when things are rocky, my heart quickens, my brain overthinks, and I start preparing for the darkness that will consume me. 

A sudden surge of weird and I’m wondering if I need to start seizure meds again. 

Someone I thought had changed shows their true colors and I realize that it’s no better. Now they’re just not being open and honest...with me. 

Work is hard and I find myself missing the “old JP.” The people. The kids. Even the gross building sometimes. 

It gets better. That’s the piece I need to press into God for. I need to trust that He is taking care of me and my health. I need to trust that He is in charge and that I don’t need to worry about fixing other people. I need to trust that He is even working at work. That, sure, there will never be people to replace Melody or Bonnie or Suzanne or Tess. But that together, with the people that we currently have, we can reinvent ourselves into something even greater. 

It is in the down times, the shoe drop times, that Father God swoops in and shows just how great He is! It is in the times when I am scared and sad and anxious and so down that He fills those spaces and reminds me that He uses it all for good. 

So, right now is a shaky time for me. I’m questioning a lot of different areas, yet I recognize that Satan is in the mix and I need to put my faith in the one who saved me. Who loves me and cares for me and wants me to prosper. 

It gets better. I just have to less cynical and more trusting. It does get better. And I need to trust that it can stay better.