The reveling
The first half of 2007 was an absolute joy. While Ed was still somewhat weak, he was making good progress. He was even able to join my son and me on a trip to tour a Virginia university that our son was considering for that fall.
And June was the celebration of so many years of hard work by our son. We reveled in…and cried at…his high school graduation.
Thanks for reading Deb’s Soul Mosaic Abuse-Memoir Substack! Subscribe for free to receive new posts and support my work.
Ed and I also decided on a rare “indulgence” for ourselves, by joining a brand new gym that spring. Aside from an amazing variety of weights and machines, they also offered swimming, racquetball courts, a wide range of classes, nutritionists, trainers, and facilities that were almost decadent. After all we had been through, tiled showers, a sauna, hot tubs, and a cafe with health food and smoothies seemed like something to help us celebrate.
It also let us renew our connection as a couple with regular date nights at the gym. Not to mention that it was a healthy way to help us transition to being “empty-nest” parents, especially since our son would be out of state. We had been focused on parenthood since I got pregnant 3 months into our marriage. So this was our celebration of a new phase of life, and of us.
We spent a lot of time on the weight machines – a way to trim the bodies, and regain muscle strength. Given that Ed’s hospitalization had weakened him, the machines were a great help with recovery.
Life was going perfectly. It was like the first day of our honeymoon years ago, when we sat in the sun sipping Pina Coladas, reveling in that peace and wondering how long it would last.
This time, it lasted six months. Then, insidiously, changes crept in, declines that were almost undetectable at first.
The confusion
From Ed’s notes in 2012 and 2026:
August/September 2007:
“I started noticing my ability to lift weights was slowly getting worse. After that happened for 3-4 workouts in a row, then started getting worse, I knew something was wrong.*
I also noticed I was starting to get tired. I started going to Starbucks every morning for 2 large iced teas. It got to the point where I couldn’t function and NEEDED those teas. Then it got to the point where I needed to get out of the office for about an hour a day, even with the tea, because it was so draining. The daily ‘must get out of the office for an hour’ continued until my February 2011 layoff.
Fall 2007
Stopped going to the gym. Getting sick easily….Always tired. Need to eat (supper), then immediately lie down at night. Stamina to do anything in the evenings is gone.
My work schedule was worse: demanding start-up – 7 days-a-week demands. All hours of the day/night demands. No real weekend breaks to restore.
Fall 2008
My symptoms continued to worsen. My wife was going through menopause and Post-Traumatic Stress, and she was experiencing strong depression, high anxiety, and began working with a counselor…However, I saw her going through this at the same time I was feeling very depressed and scared myself. I realized I needed her, and she wasn’t there at that moment for me.
My body was a stranger to me in every way it could be. Depression was there, like a physical presence, like when you feel a person standing right next to you…It was a darkness right behind me, and I would turn but couldn’t see it. But it was there, and it was horrible.”
*I fully expected to be fired, and I knew there was no way I would be able to keep working. I wanted to leap over the balcony at work, but that wouldn’t give my wife and son any insurance money. I felt like the only thing I could do was find a way to die so they could get some last financial payoff.”
From Deb’s notes:
July, 2007
Last December, my world, my reality, got blown away. Who I was, my preconceived ideas
For seven months, I have been reeling – like a person who got slammed in the gut and jaw and is teetering backwards and may fall flat out, waving their arms, trying to regain their balance.
For seven months, an ER scene replays in my head, and it is a scene I have shared with no one, never put to paper. Never gave it a voice. I just…couldn’t. It altered me forever, but I couldn’t speak it. And I wasn’t sure why. Felt like it was a pain I would bear alone, never share, spare anyone else.
(Life) will never be the same…for seven months I’ve struggled to deal with the terror, panic, disorientation, emotional rawness, like a molted lobster with no exoskeleton to protect me, just wandering around intensely feeling every last sensation, water temperature change, nuance of my environment
I was struggling severely, emotionally and physically. Between hot flashes, anxiety, and not sleeping well, I could barely cope. I had undiagnosed sleep apnea, so I was snoring and waking myself up all night and upsetting Ed. I tried all kinds of nose tapes, and mouth pieces, sleeping sitting up, nothing worked.
Ed was angry and distant all the time, and had to be flat out on the bed every day after supper. He couldn’t keep up with work anymore.
I spent each evening in bed next to Ed, either consuming Brother Cadfael mystery books or constantly rewatching the kids’ movie, “It’s a Bug’s Life,” because it felt “safe.”
And when I did sleep, my dreams showed the strain:
From my journal: Dream – Saturday, April 7, 2007
My husband, since the accident, seems “okay” but like he’s sad, like part of him is missing and elsewhere or supposed to be elsewhere.
Later in the dream, I see that every time he approaches a doorway, he is wavy, like “not of this world.”
The reality is he died that night in the accident (ER), but stayed to help his wife out, but part of him is in, or saw heaven, and he really wants/needs to be there. Hence his sadness.
At the end, she (me) comes to know she has to let him go – he couldn’t go because he knew she didn’t want him to go, so he stayed. But he really belongs “elsewhere.” Over the course of the story, she comes to understand that she must let him go.
In the same dream, I am driving with my son down a two-lane road at night. It is dark, rainy, leaves everywhere, and he is not as attentive as he needs to be, and I suddenly flash on my chronic fear of dying on a dark, rainy night. I flash on ‘Did I say good-bye’ to Ed right/well enough so that if I die like I think I am going to, it will be okay?’
Message of dream: ‘Live well in the present moment because that’s all you have and you never know what’s coming and when it will be taken away. You must live well in the present moment, and it is wrong to hang on after it’s time to let go.”
2007 was the descent into hell for both of us…and where usually one of us could always be there for the other, this time, we were each plummeting into our own hellacious darkness…
Soul Mosaic 
Leave a comment