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Does This Count? A Short Story by Amy Auxier
I find that in 37 years of life I am still searching. I am searching for that one thing that will make me complete and whole. I want that feeling of total peace with everything in my life. I don’t even know what it is that I am looking for, after all I am married to a wonderful guy that doesn’t try to change who I am. I have two beautiful children that are teenagers and they aren’t drinking and doing drugs and impregnating naïve young women. I have a house that is a sweet canvas that I can do anything I want with; parents that live close and love me, animals all around. Something is missing that is supposed to be very important. I don’t have a purpose for my life. I don’t even have a career at this time. I don’t have an identity so to speak. I feel like a failure in life. What am I here for? To explain how I have gotten to the place I am today I need to explain some of the past? I was adopted at about 3 months of age by a Doctor and his wife who had another adopted child, a boy 17 months older than me. I did not realize this at the time of course but would be haunted by it later in life. I lived in a beautiful home on the East side of town or the “rich side” with a loving family. Life should have been a breeze right? The picture perfect family fell apart by the time I was four when my mother made the decision to divorce my father.
My mother is such a strong person. I idolize her for her strength. She raised two young children on her own at a time when people just didn’t get divorced. My father was still living in town and saw my brother and me once a week at most. He wasn’t a man that wore emotions on his sleeve. In fact I sometimes wondered if he had feelings at all. My father and I didn’t have a bond or at least he didn’t bond with me. I wondered a lot if it was because I was adopted and not his “real” child. I understood from my mother that he had grown up with very strict parents and was born during the depression so probably wasn’t considered a gift from God at the time. I have been to enough psychologists in life to understand that a girl that does not get certain needs met by her father may exhibit certain behaviors as a teenager, and of course I did. I always sought the love and attention of men, which always led to trouble or heartbreak.
I thought I had met the man of my dreams at the age of 19. He adored me as much as I adored him. It was one of those romances you read about in books that you think will never happen to you. I couldn’t believe that this man loved me and he couldn’t believe that I loved him. He was incredibly romantic but dangerously manly at the same time. I knew that it was too good to be true which was proven the first time he hit me and knocked me out cold. I didn’t even know what had happened. I woke up with him kneeling over me crying and saying he was sorry. When he helped me into the bathroom I saw my face and knew what had happened. So I had my first black eye and a broken tail bone and the story was that I had fallen down the steps. I guess because I knew that romantic, beautiful side of this man I believed that he was truly sorry and that it would never happen again.
I soon learned that I had been naïve about that. When you hear people say that before you die you see your life flash before you, it’s true. I had that happen when we were in the car and he was choking me. I felt myself slipping away and I knew that I could not get him off of me. I sort of told myself “well this is it”; “this is how I am going to die”. Luckily when I started to pass out he released my neck. I had a scab on my neck from his thumb, it looked like a hickey. Several times I was beaten to unconsciousness. One time I woke up with broken ribs not knowing how I got them and then the realization sets in. I got him to go through alcohol treatment programs and they helped for a while but eventually he always went back to drinking. I tried to leave him many times but I still loved him. I knew that other person was still in there somewhere and that I just needed to find a way to bring it out. I tried everything I knew.
When I learned that I was pregnant I decided that we should move to another town, get him away from his “friends”. Maybe we could start a new life. He was wonderful while I was pregnant and wonderful when our son was born and wonderful when we found out our 6 week old son had to have surgery. But when life calmed down and I went back to work I found out that while I was at work at night he was at home drinking. I had to find someone else to watch our child while I was at work. The straw that broke the camels back was when he held our 8 month old over a 3rd story balcony. I knew that he wouldn’t drop him intentionally but he was three sheets to the wind. I knew that he was trying to scare me because he got a kick out of frightening me but I also knew that he could drop my child on accident.
The next day I took him home to his mother’s house. I had enough. I truly believe that God sent me that child to make me get out of the situation that I was in. I wouldn’t do it for myself but God knew that I would do it to protect my child. I also truly believe that if I had not had my son when I did I would not be here today.
The emotional and physical scars of that relationship are not visible now, they have healed but they are still inside. When I started dating the man I am married to today he used to get so angry because if he would move his arm quickly I would duck. He would always say “I would never hit you” and he never has but it was just a reflex at the time. It took about a year to stop myself from ducking. The really sad part about going through that relationship is that I will never, ever fully invest myself in another person. In other words my current husband in some ways pays the price and he doesn’t deserve it. I truly love and cherish him but I refuse to give up myself for anyone else. In some ways when you are not the sacrificial wife it is considered by some taboo. Oh well what do they know?
This story is not about suffering through things, we all have things that we suffer through. This is about self discovery and finding out who I am and who I am supposed to be. We all go through series of bad events and the current bad event I am going through is having a Chronic Illness. If someone tells you that they have a chronic illness most people think cancer, or AIDS, but I have something that most people have never even heard of and those who have, in general, don’t believe it exists. I didn’t believe in its existence until I was diagnosed with it. I have Chronic Fatigue Syndrome.
When the doctors kept diagnosing me with this illness I kept thinking that they didn’t know what was wrong with me so they just called it Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. I think that the symptoms started about 11 years ago but I cannot link a specific event to the start of it. I had a lot of sensory symptoms. The first symptoms I can remember were a pain in my right shoulder and arm and changes in my vision. Later I had pain in certain joints that would stay for about 6 months or so and move to another joint leaving some residual damage to the joint it had left. I had a feeling of being completely wiped out all of the time. Not sleepy but like I was wearing a lead suit all of the time. Life had been sucked right out of me. I of course attributed most of the symptoms to working full time, commuting 2 hours a day and raising two small children. I was just stretched too thin.
I had been active all of my life, I was a dancer for 12 years, a gymnast for 7 years, and I was a cheerleader all through high school and my first year of college. At 27 years of age I was running and playing with squirt guns with my kids and taking Tae Kwon Do with my oldest son. I even won some trophies at tournaments. By the time I was 32 I had to quit working and now I can’t even keep house or play with my kids. Not having a career anymore was a big shock to my system, not to mention my self esteem. I was the type of person that would fight through anything and I couldn’t fight this. There is no way to treat it and cure it.
The doctors found that I had several viruses active in my system. These viruses we are all exposed to usually as young children and then they lay dormant in our systems. When the immune system does not work properly these viruses can reactivate in your system and your body is not able to get them back into a dormant stage. Some of these viruses can do a lot of damage to your body. So now I feel like a walking time bomb, will I develop a cancer due to this virus or will I go blind due to this virus?
Doctors do not seem to know much about this so we are all treated for symptoms like pain, sleep disorder etc. One of the worst things that occurred was anxiety. I experienced extreme anxiety, my personality even went flat and the illness seemed to go through cycles. I thought I was truly going crazy but it seems that many of us with CFS go through many of the same symptoms.
There have been studies and they have been able to tell someone with CFS from a healthy person by identifying certain genes. Some studies even suggest that some people who develop CFS are born with genes that make their bodies not be able to deal with stress. So did all of my struggles put me here? Did my working hard and trying to raise a family and keep house etc put me here? That time I got very sick after my second son was born, did that put me here? Does it matter? What can I learn from this particular experience? I am a strong person even if I cannot physically fight this illness. I do have a real illness even if others cannot see it and perceive me as lazy. I will become a better person for having gone through this. If one person can find solace in this article because of something I have been through then I have done something that counts.
So as I try to accept the me that I am now I still can’t seem to forget who I was. I still hold out hope that I can somehow get better and become the good mother and wife and career girl I always knew that I could be. I think many people dealing with an illness ask “why me”. I believe very strongly that God has a plan for all of us. I have turned to my faith a great deal during this. I keep trying to figure out how I can have a career when I can’t wake up to go to a job. What is something I can do from home and earn a decent living at? My main goal is to find something I can do from home, I can earn a living at and where I can help other people. I truly want to make a difference in the lives of others, make them better. What did God put me here to do? I know that it will come to me at some unexpected time; God will let me see what I am supposed to do. For now I must be patient and wait for my answer, until it comes I think I will write. I know that I can write but finding a job in writing when you don’t have a degree in journalism and you need to work from home is a little difficult. I will never give up on finding the meaning for my life and I know that God wants me to help others because I know that would give my life meaning.
I know that God would say it counts. He would be proud. I will make him proud. In some way I will share the love that God has shown me and by doing this I believe that I will be able to find my peace. That missing part in my life and I will be able to say that what I have done counts. When I can say that, I will be totally and blissfully happy. My message to anyone going through a struggle is to never give up and let God give your life meaning. The life that God wants you to live will count.
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