When a Supernova Turns Black Hole; What's a Mom to Do?

I want to talk about my recent revelation I've had in my life.  Well... revelation is one way to put it I guess. Another might be "meltdown" or "midlife crisis".  I don't care what you want to call it.  Even I don't know which word is most appropriate.  I don't have any other words I can think of that would fully depict what happened to me.

I guess you could say I "broke".  I don't know what the final straw was, but yeah... this camel's back broke. 

I have always, always (did I mention always?) been the type of person that once dedicated to a position, job or expectation, I commited 1000%.  No, that's not a typo.  Just doing 100% was unacceptable to me.  If 1000% were a possible mathmatical term, that's what I was. Granted, sometimes I procrastinated.  Sometimes it took me awhile to get to the 1000% level of devotedness, but I always somehow found the place deep inside where I would reach in and no matter what it took to accomplish my goal -- no matter how daughntingly impossible the task seemed.  My friends knew this about me, my relatives as well as my coworkers...no one usually ever gave it a second thought that Stacy would accomplish it and usually accomplish it with flying colors, I might add. 

I did it all.  From raising my daughter alone while going to college and working full time simultaneously.  There were many days that the only time I got to spend with her was in the early mornings.  I would get up at 6 am to spend a few hours with her before dropping her off at school then going to classes myself.  Sometimes even having to go to work between classes... then picking her up from school and bringing her to her evening babysittter and going back to work. Most nights I didn't get off work til 10 or after.  I'd pick her up, carry her to her room while she slept, hit the books for 4 or 5 hours, sleep for 2 or 3 hours and start my day over again.  It was during this time that I first realized how lucky I was that I didn't have to study hard to maintain good grades.  Too bad I didn't realize it in high school.  Hind sight, huh?  But I digress...

When my daughter was 6, I met my husband.  It was a whirlwind for me... a dream come true.  Although I was in love with him I think a bigger part of me yearned for a family; a normal life with someone to share in the worries and responsibilities of parenthood.  We had 2 more children, a boy 8 months after we married, and another boy exactly 1 year later.  Having them close together was my idea.  Coming from a seriously disfunctional family that isn't close today, I wanted children that were close in age in hopes that they would be close in heart. 

Of course I planned to continue college, but one thing turned into another... one bill turned into another.  We just never had the money to send me to school.  And even if we did, my husband was an over the road truck driver. I worked full time. (At that point, it wasn't a choice; I HAD to). So when in the world would I find time for school?  I barely had time to sleep for goodness sake!

So I dove into motherhood with full force, alone mind you for weeks at a time while my my husband was out on the road, all while holding down a full time job in the process. With a one year old, and infant, and a full time job, I got my then 7 year old daughter involved in local highschool musicals (taken very seriously in our town).  As if getting her to and from practice 6 days a week wasn't enough, I somehow was recruited to help make costumes and props.  Somehow I managed.  Looking back today I don't know how I managed.  But with several sleepless nights, I somehow did.  I was supermom!  I was proud of my accomplishments.  I thought they were what proved to my family how important they were to me.

This continued for the next 10 years; through my boys being diagnosed with ADHD (finally) at the ages of 6 and 7, through my daughter's emotional rollercoaster teen years, through ballet classes and band, choir and orchestra concerts, through boy scouts consuming every weekend, through many a battle with my ex and my husband's ex, through my 13 year old step son moving in with us for a few years...supermom balanced it all.  I was so busy that I didn't even notice it happening.  That is why I can't pinpoint to you when it happened, or what particualar instance was the final straw... all I know is the wake I left in the aftermath. 

Not having any family to really depend on and my husband being gone for most of our marriage it was around our 10 year anniversary that I can look back and notice the first clues.  My frustration level was already almost full throttle the minute I put my feet on the floor in the morning so when something would happen that I normally would have been able to handle, my temper would go from zero to 20 in no time flat.  I was yelling all the time.  I was impatient with my kids and was slowing losing my hip mom status as I began to have a hard time relating to them for the first time ever. I felt bad for being this way so I was crying all the time, especially in the mornings on my way into work, while wondering where I was going to find it in me to give my usual 1000% because remember; 100% was just not acceptable to me.  Admitting that I was overwhelmed was like admitting defeat somehow.  "I can do this", I kept telling myself.  "Its just a state of mind."  I kept thinking that I needed to find the "right" job.  The job that would allow me to have more control over my life so that all my problems would go away once I could better balance my life.  But it seemed that every decision I was making was just digging the hole deeper and deeper.  At this point, I still didn't even ackowledge that my problem was that I was overwhelmed. Or for that matter that I even HAD a problem.  I was just your everyday typical mom, or so I thought.  So I jumped aboard the antidepressant train.  I blamed my job. I blamed my husband's job.  I blamed myself.  Because for obvious reasons, I couldn't blame my family. 

Although my husband's and my intial plan upon getting married was that he would come off the road as soon as he could find a normal everyday job that allowed him to be home everynight, it didn't work out that way because of.. eh hum.. well... lets just leave it at that for now because that is a whole blog all by itself. 

So I was alone; and trust me when I tell you I had never felt more alone in all my life. I held my own for like I said about 10 years...then my cup was suddenly empty.  That was when I started melting down.  It happened like a frog in a pot of boiling water.  You know how that goes... if you gradually turn up the heat the frog will never even know he is boiling to death?  Yeah, that was me alright.  Boiling to death.  I began to shut down, I stopped cooking dinners, I stopped doing laundry, I stopped interacting with my kids like I always did.  Instead, I watched TV.  For hours.  Endlessly divuldging in the pretend lives of the characters so that I didn't have to think of my own.  I began pondering my life and the failures and mistakse I had made; dwelling on the dreams I had abandoned and the things I had left undone. 

It became harder and harder to get up in the mornings.  It became harder and harder to get to work.  Harder and harder to care about work, my husband, my kids, my house...myself. 

I realized I had nothing left in me to care about those around me.  I had burnt out...burned too bright for too long and the supernova had collapsed into a black hole.   

I filed for divorce and, although I shamefully admit it now, even thought (maybe "dreamed" is a more fitting word) of running away, somewhere new and exotic...somewhere that for the first time in my entire adult life, I could care about just me.  

I'm not going to go into detail of the personal struggles I encountered for the next 2 to 3 years. But I will tell you, it was pure hell.  For me, for my husband and my kids. My doctor wanted to admit me to an inpatient mental health program so that I could take a deep emotional break from life and begin to regroup.  Of course my excuse was that I couldn't just leave work unattended; who would do my job?  Or heaven forbid my husband take a leave from work and we be out a month's salary...because THAT was more important than my life!  Psh.  So instead, I opted for weekly visists to my therapist for almost a year, and then semi monthly for a year after; on top of family therapy that my husband and I attended and still do. 

We are still married although there were casualties lost; like our beautiful house that we sold in the midst of the battle.  There are friends on both sides (and even family members) that will forever be lost from the contaminating poison of a pending divorce battle.  There's also things we have done and can never take back that will forever haunt our marriage.  But we are still an intact family and perhaps even a stronger one than before.  What that don't kill you..

My biggest saving grace was that I began exercising like crazy.  Exercise was not only theraputic for me and gave me confidence while losing weight,  but it also was my way of proving to myself that I could put myself first once in awhile.  Trust me, it was hard.  It still is.  I have to accept that my house is not always immaculate because I want to spend my "me" time at the gym rather than cleaning up after everyone.  I've had to let go of some responsibilities and let the weight fall on my husband or even in some cases my children.  (Still a work in progress).  I have quit my job and accepted that it is not failure to not live in the lap of luxury.  We've had to make sacrifices but on the flip side; they are material sacrifices.  What we were sacrifiing before were things we would never be able to take back.  I want to be here for my children and my childrens' children.  I want to be remembered as happy and full of life rather than stressed and frazzled.  I want to look back with no regrets.  And I do believe, finally, I am on the right path.  And everyone that is important to me will be the better for it. 

The message here is; don't fall into the never ending materialistic cycle.  My parents did it.  I never thought I would but there I was; up to my neck in the American way of life quicksand and sinking fast.  You don't have to be perfect.  You don't have to be a SuperNova.  This is your life.  No take backs.  No regrets.